Getting an IRD Number and Bank Account

Bit of a boring one, but an important thing to get sorted out as soon as you land in NZ. 

STEP ONE: GETTING AN IRD NUMBER

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) number is, in essence, the same as the UK’s National Security Number.
It is from which you can get paid and are recognised as a working person in New Zealand.

The process, all things considered, is fairly simple.

From my AirBnB in Auckland, I applied online.

WHAT YOU NEED*:

• Your passport

• Your immigration application number
  (you can find this on the email you got from Immigration NZ granting your Working Holiday Visa). 

• Your tax ID number from the UK
  (this is your National Insurance number). 

• A bank account
  (this, for me, was temporarily my UK bank account).

Once you’ve gathered all the bits you need, it’s pretty simple. Fill out the form with all the necessary details.
Send off your application. It shouldn’t take that long to hear back from them via text with your IRD number.

Step one? Complete. 

*As an aside, it does ask you to input a phone number. If you haven’t switched over to a NZ phone number yet, not to worry! They texted me my IRD number to my UK phone number and then, when I changed to a new (NZ) phone number, I manually changed the phone number on the IRD website. Simple!

STEP TWO: GETTING A BANK ACCOUNT

WHAT YOU NEED:

• Proof of address
  (“a letter from an accommodation provider confirming temporary residence. This needs to include: your full name and current residential address in New Zealand and the name, signature, date of declaration, and occupation of the provider.”)

• Your passport
  (they need to scan a copy in branch to affiliate with your account.)

• A copy of your Working Holiday Visa acceptance letter.

Then, quite simply, you apply online. Go into a branch near you afterwards with all of the pre-requisites listed above… and

BOOM! You have a NZ bank account.

If only it had been this seamless and simple for me when I did it. Que: one of many tales of woe.

WHAT I DID SO WRONG:

Please take heed and learn from my mistakes.

This, for some reason, caused me significantly more grievance than the IRD number. 

During my first week in NZ, I went into both an ANZ* and a BNZ in Auckland to ask about setting up a bank account. Both banks said that they didn’t have any availability for an appointment to set us up with bank accounts and that we needed to apply online first. 

This was a bit of an issue as we’d managed to secure jobs for ourselves in the Bay of Islands (BOI) and, with our dwindling reserves of GBPs, were hoping to get the financial ball rolling and start earning some NZDs. We needed to leave Auckland and set off for the BOI within the next few days, so didn’t have the time to wait to get an appointment with an Auckland branch. Shucks.

*It took ANZ over two months to finally email me back to set up an appointment to establish a bank account with them, suffice to say we went with BNZ instead.

We did most of our bank application online, including inputting our residential address, passport number, DOB, etc. All that good important stuff. We just needed to go to a branch and get them to confirm that we were, in fact, real. 

With our bags still packed, Auckland AirBnB paradise concluded, and bank accounts non-extant, we drove up to the Bay of Islands for our new job. No problem, we thought, there’ll be a BNZ or ANZ branch there from which we can get our lives together.

If only it were so easy. 

One thing that is a bit tricky to navigate as transient people travelling in a foreign country is having an address to receive mail (namely: the bank cards). In our particular set of circumstances, we needed not only an address but also a signed letter that confirmed our address (see pre-requisites listed above). Not to mention, we also needed to bring in our passports. None of which we knew as a pair of bumbling fools. This shortcoming wreaked chaos not only upon our lives but also on the mileage in our car––we were back and forth like yo-yos to that BNZ branch in Kerikeri.

With both the proof of address and signed letter in hand, we drove ourselves to Kerikeri from our place in Russell. About 45 minutes and a car ferry later, we met the same fate of needing to have a scheduled appointment, but with some desperate pleas, were permitted to get our banks sorted there and then.*

*I might point out that BNZ’s official website states that there is ‘no appointment needed,’ so why they insisted upon us having an appointment, I couldn’t tell you.

Only, as it transpires, the letter that would seal our fate as new bank account holders was:

INCORRECT.

The address listed at the top was missing a letter
(“38” instead of “38A”). Curse it all.

Something so simple, yet so detrimental.
We’d need to come back (again) with a new letter. 

So, off we went, traipsing back to our little cabin to get another letter sorted, with the correct address this time. 

We went back.
Sure that this time everything would work out.

LO AND BEHOLD,

our boss, who needed to sign the letter, had fixed the address and forgotten to sign it.
Not only that, but my travel companion had forgotten her passport. 

At this point, we are friends with the woman who works at the front desk.
She laments our cursed fate each time.

FOR A THIRD TIME,

we return to the Kerikeri BNZ branch, now-signed letter in hand, passports at the ready. This time, finally, painstakingly, we have a bank account set up. After about a month of working without seeing any money coming in, maybe six weeks into our NZ adventure, we are finally going to see some fat stacks of cash rolling in.

Praise be.

MY BEST ADVICE:

Get all of your ducks in a row before even attempting to get the bank account sorted.

Best of luck out there.