Refixing
The term ends. Something replaces it.
Nobody asks you which.
A refix is a text message with four numbers on it and a deadline you didn't pick. This is what those numbers mean for your loan, what else is on the market today, and what it would cost you to move if you wanted to.
- ✓Four minutes
- ✓No cost, no obligation
- ✓The numbers before we ask who you are
Today's carded rates
Ana, 1% on your loan is $5,000 a year.
Your rate ends 14 March
You're on
5.99%
Best carded
—
Cashback clawback
3–4 yrs
What is actually happening
Ninety percent of the country is on the same clock.
Ninety percent of New Zealand's mortgage debt is fixed — $362.5 billion of a $402.8 billion book. Inside six months, $102.5 billion reprices. Inside twelve, $218.4 billion, which is sixty percent of every fixed dollar in the country.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand, series S33, July 2026.
For owner-occupiers alone that is $74.4 billion coming up for renewal inside six months. At a $500,000 loan that is somewhere around 149,000 households, each holding a date most of them couldn't name off the top of their head.
The cycle those dates are landing into has turned. The OCR — the Reserve Bank's cash rate, not a mortgage rate — went to 2.75% on 2 September 2026, the second consecutive rise, and the market has priced one more to 3.00% in December. Lenders lifted fixed rates behind it. (RBNZ; RNZ, September 2026.)
If your last refix was in 2024 or 2025, every refix you have ever made on this loan has been into a flat or falling market. This one isn't.
The number nobody prints
It's about a week's groceries a fortnight, and it arrives on its own.
Over the year to 10 September 2026 the carded one-year special across the major banks moved by roughly fifty basis points. We publish the rates themselves in one place only — the table — because a number typed into a paragraph is out of date the week after it is written.
On a $500,000 balance
$2,500
A year, for a fifty basis point move on the same one-year term. Illustrative simple interest on the balance, not an amortisation schedule. Your lender's figures will differ.
The same number, as it lands
$96
A fortnight, for making no decision at all. It isn't a catastrophe and we're not going to write it as one. It's a modest, checkable number that arrives automatically.
Exactly the kind of thing worth four minutes before it happens rather than six months after.
What a refix decides
You're choosing three things, and the text only mentions one.
The rate
The visible one, and the one with the least room in it. The gap between the best and worst published rate on a given day is usually smaller than the gap between a standard rate and a special at the same lender — sixty basis points apart at one major on 10 September 2026.
The term
Six months, one year, eighteen months, two years, three. New Zealanders are choosing longer as rates rise: owner-occupier debt fixed for one to two years is up 38.8% in a year and the two-to-three-year bucket up 137%, while everything under six months shrank.(RBNZ S33, July 2026.) That is a market making a duration decision. We show each term's arithmetic and name none of them.
The structure
Whether it's split. Whether an offset is doing anything. What the repayment frequency costs. This is the part nobody looks at, and it can matter more than ten basis points.
“I have never used a floating, offset or revolving credit and ive read up about them all but it's been a bit confusing.”
A borrower with a $500,000 mortgage, weeks from a refix. r/PersonalFinanceNZ.
He'd done the reading. It was the material that failed.
Break fees
Break fees only work in one direction, and which one you're in isn't your fault.
An early repayment adjustment is calculated off wholesale rates rather than advertised ones, it differs by lender, and it moves day to day. The mechanic underneath it: your lender funded your fixed loan at the wholesale rate of the day. If you break early it has to redeploy that money at today's rate. It only loses — and can only charge — when rates have fallen since you fixed.
“If wholesale rates have risen since you fixed, your break fee may be very small or zero.”
MoneyHub, published guidance.
So two people with the same balance at the same lender are in opposite situations.
Fixed near the top, rates fell since
Breaking early to reach a lower rate carries a real early repayment adjustment, and the whole question is arithmetic: does the difference clear the fee, the legals and the clawback? It is genuinely uncertain, which is why it's worth putting in front of somebody licensed rather than guessing.
Fixed near the bottom, rates rising now
The break fee is likely small or nil, and there is nothing cheaper to move to. Here is what happens if nothing changes: the term runs to its end date and the rate resets to whatever is published then. The checkable part is what that number becomes on the day, and what the costs would be either way.
The asymmetry above is reasoned from published descriptions of the early repayment adjustment mechanic. Only your lender can calculate your own figure, and they will give it to you if you ask.
What moving costs
A saving that doesn't clear the costs isn't a saving.
| What it is | Published range |
|---|---|
| Legal fees — discharge and new registration | $800 – $1,500 |
| Registered valuation | $700 – $1,000 |
| All-in cost of a refinance, commonly quoted | $1,500 – $3,000 |
| Lender discharge fee | Named in every source, published in none. We are not going to guess it. |
| New loan documentation fee | Not published. Ask your lender for their figure. |
| Early repayment adjustment | Variable. Zero to substantial. Your lender calculates it. |
| Cashback repayable if you leave early | Up to the full amount. Three years at ANZ and ASB, four at Kiwibank. |
Sources: MortgageLab, MoneyBalance, Become — published NZ ranges from mortgage and adviser sources, not lender fee schedules. Treat them as indicative and check your own lender's current fees.
Not verified, so not stated. Lender discharge and documentation fees are named in every source and published in none. Clawback periods were read from lender terms on 11 September 2026 for ANZ, ASB and Kiwibank only — the other majors are unconfirmed and their periods appear nowhere on this site.
Every savings figure published elsewhere in this category is a gross number with none of the above deducted. We will not publish one that way.
The words
Asking is free and most people never do it.
Canstar tells readers “if you don't ask, you don't get… so always push for the best deal possible” — and then hands them nothing to say.
- The lowest published rate in the market today for the term you're looking at, and who is publishing it.
- What the standard-versus-special spread is at your own lender.
- What cashback each lender publishes, and the minimum period attached to it.
- What a move would cost before any of it counts as a saving.
Facts, with the source and the date on them. What you do with them on the phone is yours.
If yours is a way off
If yours isn't up for a while, that's the better time to tell us.
Most of the leverage in a refix is in knowing your number before the text arrives, and most people find out three weeks out on a Tuesday night.
New Zealanders are fixing for longer now, so fewer people are inside the short window at any one time — the under-three-month pool shrank 21.8% in a year and the three-to-six-month pool 16.3%. (RBNZ S33, July 2026.) There's no point us waiting for you to be ready. Give us the date and we'll come back when it's close.
One reminder at 90 days, one at 30, and a note if your lender moves. Stop it in one click.
Questions
The things people actually ask.
My fixed rate is not up for a while. Is it too early?
It is the better time. Most of the leverage is in knowing your number before the text arrives, and most people find out about three weeks out. Give us the month your fixed term ends and we come back when it is ninety days away. Not before.
What is a break fee, and will I have one?
If you exit a fixed rate early, your lender may charge an early repayment adjustment. It is calculated from wholesale rates rather than advertised ones, it differs by lender, and the figure moves day to day. Your lender funded your fixed loan at the wholesale rate of the day, and if you break early it has to redeploy that money at today’s rate. So it is largest when rates have fallen since you fixed, and MoneyHub notes it “may be very small or zero” when they have risen. Only your lender can give you your actual number, and they will if you ask.
Why will the tools not just tell me what to do?
Because that is the line. Telling you to fix for two years, or to move to a particular lender, or to stay where you are, is all regulated advice in New Zealand and all of it needs a licence we do not have. So this site shows you the numbers, the dates and the costs, and a licensed person makes any recommendation. The upside of that constraint is worth saying out loud: nobody here is incentivised to reach a particular conclusion, because we are not allowed to have one.
What if the answer is that nothing needs to change?
Then that is what the report contains. A saving that does not clear the break fee, the legal costs and the cashback clawback is not a saving, and we would rather show you that arithmetic than pretend otherwise. Knowing the date to look again is a result.
Rates are going up anyway. What is the point of checking?
The rate is one of several things that changes at a refix, and it is the one with the least room in it. The term, the structure, the cashback and its minimum period, what a move would cost net of legals and clawback, and whether you asked for the special rather than the standard — all of that is still live in a rising cycle. At one major lender on 10 September 2026 the standard one-year and the special sat sixty basis points apart, and the difference between them was whether the borrower had 20% equity and asked.
My broker or my bank already handles this.
Then you have a first opinion, and this costs you four minutes to get a second one. Nobody gets fired over it. On the economics of clicking a rate, the people who say an adviser adds nothing at refix have a point. The parts worth a licensed opinion are the structure, the break fee, the clawback, and whether a move clears its own costs.
What does this cost me?
Nothing, and there is no paid version. Mortgage advisers in New Zealand are generally paid a commission by the lender when a loan settles, not by the borrower. If a fee ever applied to your situation, the adviser has to tell you before doing any work. We are paid a share of the adviser’s commission if a loan settles, and by nobody else.
Four numbers. Four minutes. Then you know.
Nothing to sign up for, and you see the numbers before we ask who you are.
Get a second opinion