What if I have had more than one job as a self-employed person?

Some people are engaged in more than one type of self-employed work - for example, bee-keeping and gardening. Where you do different types of work at the same time (concurrently) during a six or 12 month period, this is treated as one period of self-employment. Enabling you to group different types of work into one period of self-employment may help you meet eligibility criteria around the number of hours worked.

Where you do different types of work one after the other (consecutively) during a six or 12 month period, this is also treated as one period of self-employment, as long as any breaks between this work are no greater than 30 days.

Your self-employment must involve one or more of the following:

• Providing goods or services for hire or reward under a contract for services
• Running a business (including a profession, a trade, a manufacturing operation or an undertaking for profit), including in partnership for another person
• Working for a trust in a business run by the trust.

This could mean, for example, manufacturing and selling goods is your primary self-employed work. But you also run occasional sessions on small business management, at a fee, for a local employer group. When calculating your average weekly income these jobs should be treated as one set of self-employment.

If you are eligible as both an employee and as a self-employed person (for example, a carer who works part-time for a residential care facility and also privately provides weekend respite care), you can apply separately as an employee and a self-employed person to maximise your payment level.  Your payment will not exceed the maximum amount ($391.28 before tax).  

If you do apply as an employee and a self-employed person, you need to fill in both application forms, and send them in together to Inland Revenue.

This page was last updated on: 29-Jun-2007 and is current.