Annual Enterprise Survey: 2024 Financial Year

The annual enterprise survey (AES) is New Zealand's most comprehensive source of financial statistics covering more than 500,000 businesses. It provides annual information on the financial performance and financial position for industry groups operating in New Zealand.

Key facts

Provisional results for all AES industries are for the 2024 financial year, compared with the 2023 financial year.

• Total income increased by $51 billion (5.5 percent) to $980 billion.
• Total expenditure increased by $26 billion (3.1 percent) to $857 billion.
• Businesses earned $121 billion in surplus before income tax - up $16 billion (15 percent). This increase was mainly driven by non-operating activity, with non-operating income increasing, and non-operating expenses decreasing.
• Operating surplus (excludes non-operating income and expenses) increased by $5.0 billion (4.9 percent) to $108 billion. This was driven by a $12 billion increase in operating surplus for the financial and insurance services industries.
• Total assets increased by $99 billion (3.5 percent) to $2.9 trillion.
• Businesses made a 4 percent return on assets - unchanged from 2023.

The increase in total surplus before income tax in 2024 was mainly driven by changes in non-operating income and expenditure.

Non-operating income increased by $3.6 billion (14 percent), while non-operating expenses decreased by $7.2 billion (31 percent), when compared with 2023. In addition, operating surplus (excludes non-operating income and expenses) increased by $5.0 billion (4.9 percent), mainly due to a $12 billion increase in operating surplus for the financial and insurance services industries.

Operating surplus includes interest and dividends received. Dividends received can vary from year to year - in the 2024 financial year the financial and insurance services industries had large increases in dividends received.

Operating surplus decreases in many industries

Operating surplus (excludes non-operating income and expenses) decreased in many industries in 2024. Outside of the financial and insurance services industries, operating surplus decreased by $7.0 billion (9.5 percent) to $67 billion.

The largest changes in operating surplus between 2023 and 2024 were in:

• finance and insurance services, up $12 billion (42 percent)
• manufacturing, down $3.0 billion (30 percent)
• wholesale trade, down $2.9 billion (34 percent)
• agriculture, forestry, and fishing, down $2.0 billion (36 percent)
• rental, hiring, and real estate services, up $1.6 billion (15 percent)
• professional, scientific, technical, administrative and support services, down $745 million (7.2 percent).

Interest paid rises

Interest and donations paid by businesses increased by $16 billion (29 percent) to $71 billion in 2024. This follows a $27 billion (92 percent increase) in 2023. The largest increases in interest and donations paid were in the financial and insurance services industries, which include the trading banks, with interest paid up $12 billion (32 percent).

Outside the financial and insurance services industries, the largest increases in interest and donations paid were in:

• rental, hiring, and real estate services - up $1.8 billion (33 percent)
• agriculture, forestry, and fishing - up $1.0 billion (29 percent)
• manufacturing - up $364 million (35 percent)
• wholesale trade - up $345 million (36 percent).

Introduction of the IFRS17 accounting standard

The 2024 financial year is the first year in which businesses in the insurance industry (in ANZSIC06 Division K) were required to report their financial data under a new accounting standard IFRS17. The adoption of IFRS17 has resulted in significant changes in statements of financial performance and position for businesses in the insurance industry.

Between the 2023 and 2024 financial years:

• reported total assets and liabilities in the insurance industry have fallen significantly
• income and expenditure have stayed reasonably consistent with past years.

We have not been able to quantify the impact of IFRS17 on these changes compared to underlying business movements. While businesses did restate their financial data for the 2023 financial year when producing their accounts, the AES data for 2023 has not been revised.

Gambling services - change in recording of sales and purchases

Prior to the 2024 annual enterprise survey, some gambling services businesses (in ANZSIC06 Division R) had included gross sales and purchases. In the 2024 survey all respondents reported only their net proceeds of gambling. This change has been back dated for the 2022 and 2023 annual enterprise surveys to make overall results comparable.

Size bands

Here are some key insights about income and sales size bands (available under Download data):

• 49 percent of businesses in the 2024 AES population earned a total income between $100,000 and $1 million.
• Businesses earning over $200 million in sales contributed the largest proportion to the total operating profit of 23 percent ($25 billion), total equity of 20 percent ($202 billion), and total assets of 33 percent ($975 billion).
• 23 percent of businesses in the 2024 AES population made an operating deficit before tax. This is the same percentage as in the 2023 AES population.
• Nearly 130,000 businesses had sales between $100,000 and $250,000 in 2024. Of these businesses, 21 percent had an operating profit before tax of between $0 and $10,000, while a further 19 percent had an operating profit of between $10,000 and $50,000.

Business performance benchmarker

Business performance benchmarker has key financial performance and benchmark statistics for business planning, or to compare one business against other similar businesses.

Financial information for over 480 industries and financial ratio benchmarks for over 200 industries are now available.

Revisions

We revised the following series in the two CSV files under Download data:

• 2022 and 2023 financial years, previously published as provisional.

Definitions and metadata

Annual enterprise survey 2024 - Datainfo+ gives information specific to this year's survey, such as population, and the methodology and questionnaires used.

Annual enterprise survey - Datainfo+ gives information such as the general methodology used to produce the annual enterprise survey, how to interpret the data, data limitations, and survey definitions.

Technical enquiries

Blair Adams
[email protected]
03 964 8917

ISSN 1178-041X

Next release

Annual enterprise survey: 2025 financial year (provisional) will be released in June 2026.