Cafes & coffee shops in New Zealand

2026-08-03

Your card fees were cut twice. Nobody was required to tell you.

Two cuts to card fees have already happened, on 1 December 2025 and again on 1 May 2026. Together they are meant to take about $90 million a year off what New Zealand businesses pay to accept cards. Whether any of it reached your till depends entirely on how your merchant fees are priced, and nobody had to tell you either way. Here is how to find out, in about ten minutes, from statements you already have.

2026-07-17

New Zealand's minimum wage hits $23.95 on 1 April. The wage rise is the easy part

If you run a cafe in New Zealand, here is your number: the adult minimum wage rises to $23.95 an hour on 1 April 2026, up 45 cents, about 1.9%. That part is small and you saw it coming. The part that will actually catch your cash flow is a second change landing on the exact same day, your KiwiSaver bill, and it bites hardest on the teenagers a lot of cafes are built on. Here is what both do to your profit first, then to what the cafe is worth.