Airport Departure Charges

If you have your tickets to leave New Zealand all sorted out, they will sometimes not include NZ departure Charges.

If you are flying out of Auckland the departure charge is included in your ticket and no extra money will be paid at the airport. 

The other centres are working towards including the departure charge in the tickets to become more inline with Auckland and other international airports

For centres other than Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin  

The New Zealand departure charge from Hamilton, Rotorua and Queenstown is $25nzd and payable by cash or credit card at the Airport Travelex store in Queenstown, Hamilton ASB Bank and BNZ in Rotorua after you check in. Children under 12 years of age (except Wellington which charges NZ$10 for children) and transit passengers in New Zealand for less than 24 hours are exempt.

Once you have paid the departure charge the bank puts a little sticker on the back of your ticket as your receipt. You can also use this opportunity to change the last of your New Zealand dollars to your next currency.

If you find large lines at the BNZ, there are now self service machines that lets you pay your departure charge and gives you a receipt that does not come with a sticky back, so you can't stick it to the back of your ticket (don't lose the receipt)

Hamilton and Rotorua airports charge a domestic departure tax, not only international departure fees.  You need to pay a $5 departure fee on domestic services out of these airports.

Interesting thought.

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?