Next New Zealand general election

Next New Zealand general election

No later than 19 December 2026
All 120 seats (plus any overhang) in the House of Representatives 61 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Leader Christopher Luxon Chris Hipkins Marama Davidson Chlöe Swarbrick Party National Labour Green Leader since 30 November 2021 22 January 2023 8 April 2018 10 March 2024 Leader's seat Botany Remutaka List Auckland Central Last election 48 seats, 38.06% 34 seats, 26.91% 15 seats, 11.06% Current seats 49 34 15 Seats needed 12 27 46   Leader David Seymour Winston Peters Debbie Ngarewa-Packer Rawiri Waititi Party ACT NZ First Te Pāti Māori Leader since 4 October 2014 18 July 1993 15 April 2020 28 October 2020 Leader's seat Epsom List Te Tai Hauāuru Waiariki Last election 11 seats, 8.64% 8 seats, 6.08% 6 seats, 3.08% Current seats 11 8 6 Seats needed 50 53 55
Incumbent Prime Minister Christopher Luxon National

The next New Zealand general election will be held after the current 54th New Zealand Parliament is dissolved or expires. The current Parliament was elected on Saturday, 14 October 2023. The last possible date for the election to be held is Saturday, 19 December 2026.

Voters will elect 120 members to the House of Representatives under New Zealand's mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, a proportional representation system in which 71 members are elected from single-member electorates and 49 members are elected from closed party lists.

After the previous election, the centre-right National Party, led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, formed a coalition government with the ACT and New Zealand First parties. The main opponent to the National-ACT-NZ First government is the centre-left Labour Party, led by former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Other opposition parties include the left-wing Green Party and the indigenous rights-based Te Pāti Māori.

Electoral system

Main article: Electoral system of New Zealand

New Zealand uses the mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system to elect the House of Representatives. Each voter gets two votes, one for a political party (the party vote) and one for a local candidate (the electorate vote). Political parties which meet the threshold (5% of the party vote or one electorate seat) receive seats in the House in proportion to the percentage of the party vote they receive. 72 of the 120 seats are filled by the MPs elected from the electorates, with the winner in each electorate determined by the first past the post method (i.e. most votes wins). The remaining 48 seats are filled by candidates from each party's closed party list. If a party wins more electorates than seats it is entitled to under the party vote, an overhang results; in this case, the House will add extra seats to cover the overhang.

The political party or party bloc with the majority of the seats in the House forms the Government. Since the introduction of MMP in 1996, a party has only won an outright majority of seats once, when the Labour Party won 65 out of 120 seats in 2020. As a result, parties typically negotiate with other parties to form a coalition government or a minority government.

Electorate boundaries

Electorate boundaries for the next election are due to be redrawn following the 2023 census and the Electoral (Māori Electoral Option) Legislation Act, which allows Māori to switch between the General Roll and Māori Roll at any time and as often as they like excluding during certain pre-election periods. This means that unless a snap election is called before the boundary review, the next general election will be the first to use boundaries based on the 2023 census.

The number of South Island general electorates is fixed at 16, with the number of North Island general electorates and Māori electorates increasing or decreasing in proportion. For the 2020 and 2023 elections, there were 49 North Island general electorates and seven Māori electorates.

On 25 October 2024, Statistics New Zealand announced that population changes necessitated reducing the number of North Island general electorates by one, bringing the total number of North Island general electorates to 48 and the overall number of electorates to 71 (increasing the number of list seats available by one). Statistics New Zealand also announced that 17 North Island electorates, one South Island electorate (Invercargill), and one Māori electorate (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) were below 5% tolerance, while seven North Island electorates and one South Island electorate (Selwyn) were above 5% tolerance.

Election date

Unless an early election is called or the election date is set to circumvent holding a by-election, a general election is held every three years. The last election was held on Saturday, 14 October 2023.

The Governor General must issue a writs for an election within seven days of the expiration or dissolution of the current Parliament. Under section 17 of the Constitution Act 1986, Parliament expires three years "from the day fixed for the return of the writs issued for the last preceding general election of members of the House of Representatives, and no longer." The writs for the 2023 election were returned on 9 November 2023. As a result, the 54th Parliament will expire, if not dissolved earlier, on Monday, 9 November 2026. Consequently, the last day for issuance of writs of election is 16 November 2026. The writs must be returned within 50 days of their issuance (save for any judicial recount or death of a candidate), which will be Tuesday, 5 January 2027. Because polling day must be a Saturday and two weeks is generally required for the counting of special votes, the last possible date for the next general election is Saturday, 19 December 2026.

Parties and candidates

Since the 2023 election, three parties have been deregistered: DemocracyNZ on 15 February 2024, Leighton Baker Party on 27 May 2024, and New Zealand Loyal on 26 July 2024.

Party		Leader(s)	Founded	Ideology	2023 election result		Current seats
					% party vote	seats
	National	Christopher Luxon	1936	Conservatism	38.08%	48	49
	Labour	Chris Hipkins	1916	Social democracy	26.92%	34	34
	Green	Marama Davidson / Chlöe Swarbrick	1990	Green politics, Social democracy	11.61%	15	15
	ACT	David Seymour	1994	Classical liberalism, Right-libertarianism	8.64%	11	11
	NZ First	Winston Peters	1993	Nationalism, social conservatism	6.09%	8	8
	Te Pāti Māori	Debbie Ngarewa-Packer / Rawiri Waititi	2004	Māori rights, tino rangatiratanga	3.08%	6	6
	Opportunities		2016	Radical centrism	2.22%	0	0
	NewZeal	Alfred Ngaro	2020	Social conservatism	0.56%	0	0
	Legalise Cannabis	Maki Herbert / Michael Appleby	1996	Cannabis legalisation	0.45%	0	0
	Freedoms NZ	Brian Tamaki / Sue Grey	2022	Right-wing populism	0.33%	0	0
	Animal Justice	Anna Rippon / Robert McNeil	2023	Animal rights	0.17%	0	0
	New Conservatives	Helen Houghton	2011	Conservatism, Traditionalism	0.15%	0	0
	Women's Rights	Jill Ovens / Chimene Del La Veras	2023	Gender-critical feminism	0.08%	0	0
	New Nation	Michael Jacomb	2022	Social conservatism	0.05%	0	0

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the next New Zealand general election

Graph of opinion polls conducted

Seat projections

The use of mixed-member proportional representation allows ready conversion of a party's support into a party vote percentage and therefore a number of seats in Parliament. Projections generally assume no material change to the electorate seats held by each party (ACT retains Epsom and Tāmaki, Greens retain Auckland Central, Rongotai and Wellington Central, Te Pāti Māori retains all six of their Māori electorates, etc). Parties that do not hold an electorate seat and poll below 5% are assumed to win zero seats.

When determining the scenarios for the overall result, the minimum parties necessary to form majority governments are listed (provided parties have indicated openness to working together). Actual governments formed may include other parties beyond the minimum required for a majority; this happened after the 2014 election, when National only needed one seat from another party to reach a 61-seat majority, but instead chose to form a 64-seat government with Māori, ACT and United Future.

Source	Seats in parliament							Likely government formation(s)
	NAT	LAB	GRN	ACT	NZF	TPM	Total
Roy Morgan 23 Sep – 20 Oct 2024 poll	39	37	18	11	9	6	120	Labour–Green–Māori (61)
1 News–Verian 5–9 Oct 2024 poll	47	37	15	10	6	6*	121	National–ACT–NZ First (63)
Taxpayers' Union–Curia 3–7 Oct 2024 poll	44	38	13	12	9	6**	122	National–ACT–NZ First (65)
Talbot Mills 1–10 Sep 2024 poll	46	39	12	10	8	6*	121	National–ACT–NZ First (64)
2023 election result 14 Oct 2023	48	34	15	11	8	6**	122	National–ACT–NZ First (67)

* indicates an overhang seat

Potential four-year-term referendum

A potential four-year-term referendum might be held during the election.