Your rates

All property owners in Canterbury pay rates. There are different types of rates that make up the total you pay. You can also find out how Regional Council activity is funded through your rates using our Rates Tool.

How your rates are calculated

Environment Canterbury collects different types of rates.

• General rates — are charged based on the capital value of your property and location.
• Targeted rates — are charged where there is a specific benefit to the property owner. Occasionally there is a ‘targeted’ rate that is charged to everyone as the funds are targeted to a specific piece of work eg the Civil Defence Emergency Management. Rates can be targeted by service or geographical area.
• Uniform Annual General Charge (UAGC) — this is essentially a ‘general rate’ but it is the same for every property ie not based on value or location of the property.

Rates are not the only source of income for Environment Canterbury. We also receive grants from other agencies, for example the significant income from NZTA for the public transport system, and user-payers when a specific fee for a service is charged, such as bus fares. 

Setting rates

When setting rates and fees/charges, we need to balance what is affordable for the community and who should pay for the activity, with the outcome that the activity will give the community and how quickly it needs to be achieved. It isn’t possible to do all the things that need doing immediately, so this balance is crucial to keeping rates affordable and activity on track. 

As rates vary from property to property, we talk about ‘total rates revenue’ when talking about rates increases or decreases. This means a 4% rates increase won’t necessarily mean your individual rates will increase by 4%, this percentage applies to the total income from rates received. We have a policy limit on rates increases of 5.3%. The Council works hard to keep it below that or must be satisfied that the exceedance is justifiable.

Payment of rates

The details for payment options, dates of payment, penalties and locations for payment will be the same as for your City or District Council.

Remission/postponement policy

In certain circumstances payment of rates may be postponed or remitted.  See our Rates Postponement Policy (PDF File, 150.13KB) for more information.

Rates Tool

You can use the Rates Tool to see how the different portfolios and programmes of work are funded in general terms in project view and also geographically in map view.

Sample property rates for 2020/21

The table below compares 2020/21 rates with 2019/20 rates for sample properties across Canterbury.

Not all districts are represented in this table; it is provided here to give indicative numbers.

Your actual rates may differ from those shown as rates are based on where you live, the capital value of your property, and the services you receive.

These rates fund activities and services, outlined in our Annual Plan and Long-Term Plan.

View the Draft 2020/21 Annual Plan (PDF File, 3.94MB)