Levy round

Big bikes take a 46% ACC levy rise, and one training course claws most of it back

From 1 July 2026 the ACC levy on a petrol bike over 750cc jumps 46% to $624.93 a year, the steepest rise of any engine band. Mid-size riders pay more only because ACC redrew the bands. A Ride Forever Gold course takes 25% off the levy for two years, which covers most of the increase.

By Henry Smith · ACC · 2026-08-20

What this means for you Petrol bikes over 750cc take the steepest rise this round. Mid-size riders pay more only because ACC redrew the engine-size groups, not because anything about their bike changed. Other vehicle owners still fund roughly two thirds of motorcycle injury costs, and a Ride Forever Gold course claws back most of the rise for two years.

Written by Henry Smith · Reviewed by Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931)

On 1 July 2026 the ACC levy on a petrol bike over 750cc jumps 46%, from $428.19 to $624.93 a year, the steepest rise of any engine band this round. Even after it, ACC's own page says riders will fund only about 33% of what motorcycle injuries cost. The rest comes out of the Motor Vehicle Account, the pool every registered vehicle pays into (ACC, 13 May 2026).

Divide the new levy by that 33% and the full annual cost of covering one big bike works out at about $1,894, leaving a gap of roughly $1,269 a year per big bike that riders do not pay.

The method behind that, stated once and used throughout. ACC publishes each levy, and separately publishes the share of motorcycle injury costs those levies recover. It never puts the two together. Every full cost, percentage change and subtraction below is our arithmetic on those published ACC figures, and none of the results appears in an ACC document.

So what does this round mean for me?

This is a piece about a motorcycle bill. If you ride, the number on your rego moves a lot, and which way depends on engine size. One training discount then decides how much of the rise you actually keep. Past the next paragraph, all of it is for you.

If you drive a car, one paragraph is the whole of it. Riders fund 28% of their own injury costs now, 33% from July 2026 and 37% from July 2027 (the same ACC page). On those shares, the slice other motorists carry falls from about 72 cents in every dollar of motorcycle injury cost to 67 cents in this round, and reaches 63 cents only after the further step in July 2027. Neither figure appears on a car rego, which carries no motorcycle line, so the subsidy is real but invisible. That is your answer, and the rest of this piece prices a bike.

What changes on 1 July 2026?

ACC has redrawn the lines between bike sizes, refining "two to three risk groups" in its own words. Mopeds take the largest cut, 18.8%, and bikes up to 250cc come down 2.9%. Everything from 251cc up pays more, and the 751cc+ band takes the biggest single increase of any band, $196.74, or 45.9% (the same ACC page).

Chart: petrol levy rates as published by ACC.

The stranger rise is the mid-size one, up 37.7%, because nothing about a 500cc bike changed. ACC moved a boundary. A 251-600cc bike used to be priced alongside small commuters and now sits with 601-750cc bikes at $442.18. Had the line stayed put, that rider would have taken the small-bike cut to $311.70, so the regrouping alone costs them $130.48 a year. The 601-750cc rider is the mirror image, once priced with the biggest machines and now escaping with a $13.99 rise because 751cc+ has a band of its own. A 700cc bike and an 800cc bike sit $182.75 a year apart.

That boundary is the heart of a court case. Motorcycle Advocacy Group New Zealand has asked the High Court to review whether ACC and the minister followed the law in setting the 2025-2028 levies, a question about lawful process, not fairness. Its chief executive asks: "If ACC says larger motorcycles create greater risk, then where is the evidence?" The case, Mark Chapple v ACC, was first before the Wellington High Court on 10 August 2026 (MAGNZ via Scoop, 6 August 2026). Chapple calls the engine-size method "victim-blaming"; ACC would not comment while the matter is before the courts (NEWS WIRE, 29 June 2026).

What would riders pay if they covered the full cost?

If a levy covers only part of the cost, the whole cost is that levy divided by that share. Run it across the three bands and the full annual bill behind each rider's rego looks like this.

Engine band	Published 2026/27 levy	Full cost at the 33% share
0-250cc	$311.70	about $945
251-750cc	$442.18	about $1,340
751cc+	$624.93	about $1,894

Published levies and the 33% recovery share from the same ACC page.

So about $1,269 of the yearly cost of covering one big bike sits outside the rider's levy. The Motor Vehicle Account picks that up, which is to say every other vehicle owner in the country. Next year narrows it: at the 37% rider share ACC has published for 1 July 2027, 37% of that $1,894 is about $701, roughly $76 more for the rider. ACC has not published 2027/28 rates, so that is direction of travel, not a forecast.

Can a training course claw the rise back?

Mostly, yes. Finish a Ride Forever Gold course and the Rider Reward takes 25% off your ACC motorcycle levy for two years, on every motorcycle registered in your name (Ride Forever). At the new rates that is $77.93 off a small bike, $110.55 off a mid-size bike and $156.23 off a big bike.

On a big bike that claws back 79% of the rise, taking the net levy to $468.70, only $40.51 above what that rider paid last year. For a mid-size rider it covers 91%. And the course costs little: Ride Forever prices its coaching "from just $20" and says "All Ride Forever courses are free for a limited time when completed between 1 September and 31 December 2026" (Ride Forever). Book inside that window on a big bike and it is around $312 of discount over two years for one day of coaching.

The fine print: the course must be completed on or after 1 July 2025, it applies to licence periods starting on or after 1 July 2026, and overseas licences do not qualify (same Rider Reward page).

What does this mean for my insurance?

This round changes who pays ACC's injury bill. It does not change what ACC would pay you, and the holes in ACC cover sit exactly where they were.

ACC covers injury from an accident whether or not anyone was at fault, and it never covers illness. A rider whose income stops because of cancer gets nothing from any levy, and that is what income protection is for. A serious crash can leave you alive but permanently changed, and ACC then pays on its own rules and its own timeline, in treatment and weekly compensation rather than a sum you can put against a mortgage. Trauma insurance pays that lump sum on a defined list of diagnoses, illnesses included. And no levy round changes what a family would need if a ride ended badly, a figure set by the mortgage and the people living on the income, which is the ground life insurance covers.

So, one line each. Big-bike riders take the steepest rise of any band, and the Gold discount plus the free-course window is the closest thing this round has to an escape hatch. Mid-size riders are paying for a boundary decision, not a verdict on their riding. Other vehicle owners keep carrying most of the cost of motorcycle injuries, it is itemised nowhere on the rego, and on ACC's published path it shrinks in 2027 rather than ending.

What could we not check?

We could not put a per-car figure on the subsidy. That would take the total cost of motorcycle claims and the number of vehicles sharing it, and ACC's levy page publishes neither. It publishes the share, and the share is what we have used.

ACC also publishes one recovery share for all motorcyclists, not one per engine band, so the full-cost column applies that single share to every band. If big bikes account for a bigger slice of claims costs than small ones, their true full cost is higher than the $1,894 shown. ACC does not publish the per-band data that would settle it.

Part of a rider's bill is a separate motorcycle safety levy, which NEWS WIRE reports at $25. ACC's page does not say whether the 25% discount comes off that part too, so treat $156.23 as the most a big-bike rider could save, not a promise. Nor could we confirm the booking fee for a Gold course: those pages were missing or blocked to us, so the "from just $20" floor and the free-course window come from the programme's on-road coaching page, which we did read.

RNZ's report on the challenge was blocked to us too, so the court detail rests on NEWS WIRE and on MAGNZ's own release via Scoop. MAGNZ is a party to the case and argues its own side, and its headline registration totals bundle in fees that are not ACC's, so we have not used them. NZTA's page on the 2026 changes returned no readable content on 20 August 2026, so it could not cross-check anything.

What this means for your cover

ACC pays for accidents, not illness, and it stops at a published ceiling. Income protection is the cover that answers both. Income protection in New Zealand

Sources

Every source below was read and checked on 21 August 2026.

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