Adding the Queen's Memorial public holiday - September 2022

This month, New Zealand will mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II with a one-off public holiday on Monday 26 September.

Legislation will be passed next week to bring the holiday into force, and the normal public holiday requirements under the Holidays Act will apply. For more information on the new holiday, see the Prime Minister's press release – Public Holiday on 26 September to Mark Passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

In IMS Payroll, you pay employees for the new public holiday the same way as any other, but you may need to check if there are any other payroll activities affected by the change.

South Canterbury Anniversary Day South Canterbury already has a public holiday scheduled for 26 September. We'll update this page with information about how to deal with this clash as it becomes available.

Managing the Queen's Memorial holiday

Pay employees for the new holiday the same as for any other public holiday, by manually entering the statutory holiday into their timesheets. The same process is required if you are using the Time Import module.

If you'd like to bulk load the holiday, you can use the Global Load function.

IMS Online Express has you covered. If you're using IMS Online Express, Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Day will be automatically added to your list of statutory holidays.

Checking other affected payroll activities

New starters and terminations

Check that you have made the appropriate arrangements to update staff who were previously scheduled to start or finish their employment on the date of the public holidays.

Pre-existing leave requests

Employees with leave already planned on the new holiday are entitled to the new holiday depending on the type of leave, and whether it was paid or unpaid:

Annual and sick leave must only be replaced if it's “paid” and the day would have been a regular/normal work day for the employee
Unpaid leave cannot be replaced by a paid public holiday

If you do have any pre-existing leave requests that need to be changed, update them accordingly.

For more information about which employees are entitled to the public holiday, see the NZ government guidance: