Domain Name Costs and Renewal Prices in New Zealand (2026)
- How much does a domain name cost in New Zealand?
- Why does .co.nz cost more than .com?
- What is the average cost to renew a domain name?
- What is the cheapest way to renew a domain?
- How much does a 3-year domain name cost?
- What should you check before you buy a domain anywhere?
- Which domain registrar is the best in New Zealand?
- Frequently asked questions
A .co.nz domain costs between about $24 and $41 a year in New Zealand, and the renewal price is what matters most. At webhosting.co.nz it is $33.00 including GST to register and the same $33.00 to renew. 1st Domains advertises its renewal at $35.50 excluding GST, which is $40.83 at checkout.
That last sentence is the whole problem with domain price comparison in this country. Nobody is lying. The numbers just aren’t measured the same way.
How much does a domain name cost in New Zealand?
Here is what we charge. Every figure includes GST, because that is what you actually pay.
| Domain | Register (1 year) | Renew (1 year) | GST |
|---|---|---|---|
| .co.nz | $33.00 | $33.00 | Included |
| .nz | $33.00 | $33.00 | Included |
| .kiwi.nz | $33.00 | $33.00 | Included |
| .ac.nz | $33.00 | $33.00 | Included |
| .com | $19.99 | $19.99 | Included |
| .net | $22.99 | $22.99 | Included |
| .org | $18.99 | $18.99 | Included |
Registry fees can move, and when they do, retail prices follow.
Now the market. This is the table nobody in New Zealand publishes, and it is the reason this page exists.
| Registrar | .co.nz register | .co.nz renew | How the price is advertised | Renewal, GST inclusive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| webhosting.co.nz | $33.00 | $33.00 | Includes GST | $33.00 |
| 1st Domains | $33.50 | $35.50 | Excludes GST | $40.83 |
| Crazy Domains | $27.31 | $27.58 | Not stated by source | $27.58 or $31.72 |
| Domains Direct | $23.60 | $23.60 | Not stated by source | $23.60 or $27.14 |
| Affordable Domains | From $29.95 | Not confirmed | Not stated | Unknown |
| Squarespace | $84.87 | $23.76 | Not stated by source | $23.76 or $27.32 |
Competitor prices checked at the time of writing; confirm on their sites. Figures come from public pricing pages and the registrar comparison table published by smallbusinesswebdesigns.co.nz. Where the GST basis is not stated, we show both readings rather than guess.
Read the fifth column before the second. 1st Domains is New Zealand’s largest registrar, and its advertised $33.50 registration is $38.53 once GST is added at the checkout. Its $35.50 renewal is $40.83. On a like-for-like, GST-inclusive basis we are $5.53 cheaper to register and $7.83 cheaper to renew.
Headline prices vary a lot, and some registrars advertise a lower first number than ours. What the table also shows is that one of the six registrars above did not show a .co.nz renewal price in the sources we checked, and renewal is the part of the bill you pay every year for as long as the business exists.
Our current pricing sits on the domain registration page if you want to check it against this table.
Why does .co.nz cost more than .com?
Because a different organisation sets the floor, in a different currency.
Every .nz name in existence sits on one registry, run under InternetNZ. Registrars buy wholesale from that registry at $22.00 NZD per .nz domain per year, excluding GST, per InternetNZ’s published billing information. That fee is the same for 1st Domains, for us, and for a one-person reseller in Timaru. Nobody gets a volume discount that changes the shape of the market.
That is why the cheapest .nz names on the market cluster in the low to mid twenties. $22.00 plus GST is $25.30 before a registrar earns anything, and a price meaningfully below that is being paid for by something else: a tied hosting plan, a first-year teaser, or an upsell at renewal.
.com is a different story. Verisign sets the .com wholesale fee in US dollars, it applies across a registry of well over a hundred million names, and it converts to materially less than $22.00 NZD. Scale and currency, not generosity. That is the entire reason our .com is $19.99 and our .co.nz is $33.00.
What is the average cost to renew a domain name?
For .co.nz, the honest answer from the table above is roughly $24 to $41 a year GST inclusive, depending on the registrar and which reading of GST applies. Rocketspark’s guidance of $23 to $50 a year for .co.nz, .nz or .com covers about the same ground.
Averages are close to useless here, though, because the spread is caused by GST treatment and by first-year discounting rather than by the product. Two registrars can charge the same and advertise numbers more than $5 apart.
The comparison that matters is your renewal, GST inclusive, in year two and every year after.
What is the cheapest way to renew a domain?
Pay the standard renewal price on time, at a registrar that publishes it.
There is no discount code economy in .nz. The registry fee is fixed, margins are thin, and the savings people chase usually come from one of three places:
- Multi-year registration, where your registrar offers it. The .nz Rules cap a single registration at 10 years (clause 2.3.13). Most gTLDs including .com allow the same. Paying for several years does not reduce the annual rate at most registrars, but it does lock the current price and removes the yearly failure point.
- Transferring away from an expensive incumbent. If you are paying a $40-plus renewal on a name you have held for six years, moving registrar is the saving. It is a form, not a project.
- Not letting it lapse. This is the big one, and it is covered below.
Auto-renew is the practical answer for most small businesses. Domains also get a short grace period after expiry before they can be released, which gives you time to fix a dead credit card before anything breaks; check the exact window with your registrar. We also send renewal reminders by email, which sounds unremarkable until the year you are on site in Napier and the card on file has expired.
How much does a 3-year domain name cost?
At our current yearly price, three years of .co.nz adds up to $99.00 GST inclusive (3 x $33.00). Three years of .com adds up to $59.97 (3 x $19.99).
No registrar in New Zealand can honestly promise that year three will cost what year one did. InternetNZ can change the wholesale fee, Verisign can change theirs, and every retail price in the country moves with it. What we can commit to is different and narrower: hosting renews at the price you signed up at. Not an introductory rate that steps up in month thirteen. The same figure. Our web hosting plans start at $4.49 a month including GST on that basis.
What should you check before you buy a domain anywhere?
Four things, in order. This applies to us as much as anyone.
- Is the advertised price ex-GST? Add 15% and compare that. If a registrar’s pricing page does not say either way, assume ex-GST and check the cart before you enter card details.
- What is the renewal, not the first year? A $4.99 first-year .com is common and legitimate. A $59.00 renewal behind it is also common. The number that matters is the recurring one.
- What does it cost to get the name back if it lapses? For .com, .net and .org there is a redemption period after expiry, and restoring a name from redemption typically costs far more than a renewal. This is not the same thing as a grace period, and registrars often blur the two. For .nz the mechanism differs: a cancelled name enters a 90-day pending release period before it returns to the pool (clause 5.2.2 of the .nz Rules), which gives you room to recover it.
- What is bundled, and what is charged separately? DNS management, a mailbox and privacy protection are line items at some registrars. Every domain with us includes a free 10GB mailbox, full DNS control, privacy protection, local support and renewal reminders at no extra cost. Additional mailboxes come through business email hosting from $3.99 a month.
If you have not registered a name before, our how to buy a domain in NZ walkthrough covers the process end to end.
Which domain registrar is the best in New Zealand?
There is no single answer, and any page that gives you one is selling something. Here is a defensible way to choose.
Pick on renewal price and on who answers the phone. Those two things determine your experience for the next decade. Everything else, from control panel styling to badge count to how many TLDs are on the menu, you will interact with once.
A registrar rents you the name. A host runs the server your website sits on. They are separate jobs, domain hosting and web hosting, often bought from the same company, and they are billed separately. Confusing the two is how people end up unable to move their site because they cannot find who holds the domain.
Where we sit, plainly: Bizgens Services Limited is 100% New Zealand owned and operated, run out of Hastings, with local support and billing in New Zealand dollars. Our hosting runs on global data centres and CDN locations, including Sydney and Singapore. What we offer is a published GST-inclusive price, hosting that renews at what you signed up at, and a real person in Hawke’s Bay on +64 022 547 6114.
On the GST-inclusive renewal figure against the market leader, we win, and that is the comparison your bank account runs.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to renew a domain?
Pay the standard renewal on time at a registrar that publishes its renewal price GST inclusive. There is no meaningful discount market in .nz because every registrar pays InternetNZ the same $22.00 wholesale fee. The real saving is avoiding lapse fees and leaving an expensive incumbent.
How much does a 3-year domain name cost?
At our current yearly price, three years of .co.nz adds up to $99.00 including GST (3 x $33.00), and three years of .com to $59.97. The .nz Rules allow registrations of up to 10 years (clause 2.3.13), but no registrar can guarantee future-year pricing, because the registry fee can change.
What is the average cost to renew a domain name in New Zealand?
Around $24 to $41 a year GST inclusive for .co.nz. The spread is driven mostly by whether the registrar advertises including or excluding GST, not by any difference in the domain itself.
How much is a domain name in NZ?
.co.nz, .nz, .kiwi.nz and .ac.nz are $33.00 a year including GST with us. .com is $19.99, .net $22.99 and .org $18.99. The market range for a .co.nz renewal runs from roughly $24 to $41 a year, depending on the registrar and how it treats GST.
Can I register a .nz domain if I do not live in New Zealand?
Yes. Under clause 2.2.1 of the .nz Rules, any individual aged 18 or over, or any lawfully constituted organisation anywhere in the world, may register a .nz name. There is no New Zealand address or residency requirement.