National standard costs for specified livestock determination 2026
2026 determination lists the national standard costs for specified livestock.
This determination may be cited as "The National Standard Costs for Specified Livestock Determination 2026".
This determination is made in terms of section EC 23 Determining national standard costs of the Income Tax Act 2007. It shall apply to any specified livestock on hand at the end of the 2025-2026 income year where the taxpayer has elected to value that livestock under the national standard cost scheme for that income year.
For the purposes of section EC 23 of the Income Tax Act 2007 the national standard costs for specified livestock for the 2025-2026 income year are as set out in the following table.
| Kind of Livestock | Category of Livestock | National Standard Cost $ |
|---|---|---|
| Sheep | ||
| Rising 1 year | 41.40 | |
| Rising 2 year | 29.80 | |
| Dairy Cattle | ||
| Purchased bobby calves | 282.50 | |
| Rising 1 year | 788.90 | |
| Rising 2 year | 535.50 | |
| Beef Cattle | ||
| Rising 1 year | 443.40 | |
| Rising 2 year | 251.00 | |
| Rising 3-year male non-breeding cattle (all breeds) | 251.00 | |
| Deer | ||
| Rising 1 year | 108.80 | |
| Rising 2 year | 54.70 | |
| Goats (Meat and Fibre) | ||
| Rising 1 year | 34.20 | |
| Rising 2 year | 23.90 | |
| Goats (Dairy) | ||
| Rising 1 year | 263.60 | |
| Rising 2 year | 53.60 | |
| Pigs | ||
| Weaners to 10 weeks of age | 129.60 | |
| Growing pigs 10 to 17 weeks of age | 104.90 | |
This determination is signed by me on the 23rd day of February 2026.
Katalin Bota
Technical Lead
Technical Standards, Legal Services
Explanatory Note to the Determination
This explanatory note does not form part of the National Standard Costs for Specified Livestock Determination 2026.
The Commissioner of Inland Revenue has released the National Standard Costs for Specified Livestock Determination 2026, reproduced above, setting the national standard costs for specified livestock for the 2025–2026 income year.
These costs are used by farmers as part of the calculation of the value of livestock on hand at the end of the income year, where they have adopted the national standard cost (NSC) scheme to value any class of specified livestock.
Farmers using the scheme apply the rising one-year NSC to stock bred on the farm each year and add the rising two-year NSC to the value of the opening young stock available to come through into the mature inventory group at year-end. The cost of livestock purchased are also factored into the valuation of the immature and mature groupings at year-end, to arrive at a valuation reflecting the enterprise’s own balance of farm bred and externally purchased animals.
NSCs are developed from independent survey data of national average costs of production for each type of livestock. Only direct costs of breeding and rearing rising one-year and two-year livestock are used. Excluded from the calculation of NSC values are all costs of owning (leasing) and operating the farm business, overheads, costs of operating non-livestock enterprises (such as cropping) and costs associated with producing and harvesting dual products (wool, fibre, milk and velvet).
For bobby calves, information from spring 2025 is used while other dairy NSCs are based on the 2024-2025 income and expenditure from a DairyBase sample of owner-operated dairy farms. For sheep, beef cattle, deer and goats, NSCs are based on survey data from the 2023-2024 Sheep and Beef Farm Survey conducted by the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Economic Service. This is the most recent information available for those livestock types at the time the NSCs are calculated in January 2026.
The NSCs calculated each year only apply to that year’s immature and maturing livestock. Mature livestock valued under this scheme retain their historic NSCs until they are sold or otherwise disposed of, albeit through a FIFO or inventory averaging system as opposed to individual livestock tracing. It should be noted that the NSCs reflect the national average costs of breeding and raising immature livestock and will not necessarily bear a direct relationship to either the market values (at balance date) of these livestock classes or the costs of production of any individual farmer. In particular, some livestock types such as dairy cattle, may not obtain a market value in excess of the NSC until they reach the mature age grouping.
One-off movements in expenditure items are effectively smoothed within the mature inventory grouping, by the averaging of that year’s intake value with the carried forward values of the surviving livestock in that grouping. For the farm-bred component of the immature inventory group, the NSC values will appropriately reflect changes in the costs of production of those livestock in that particular year.
The NSC scheme is only one option under the current livestock valuation regime. The other options are market value, replacement value, the herd scheme, and the self-assessed cost scheme (SAC) option. SAC is calculated on the same basis as NSC but uses a farmer’s own costs rather than the national average costs. There are restrictions in changing from one scheme to another and before considering such a change, farmers may wish to discuss the issue with their accountant or other adviser.