Road User Charges (RUC) are a tax applied to users of vehicles that use a fuel not taxed at source, i.e. diesel fuel, administered by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and enforced by the New Zealand Police. 

Because our transport network mainly uses diesel-powered vehicles, Road User Charges add significant cost to our operations.  In the past RUC had been a modest figure which we were able to absorb within our general operating costs.  However, in 2015 the government significantly increased RUC (and have continued to increase) to such a point that we had to look at new ways of managing this cost. 

Rather than concealing these increasing costs within rates increases, we have a separate RUC surcharge to cover a portion of these costs. 

The intention is to only adjust this surcharge (up or down) if the government alters RUC rates. We believe it is important to keep this as transparent as possible, as it is a cost that we as a business cannot control. 

This surcharge will be operating separately from our existing Variable Fuel Factor and be applied to the base price independently. 

For example: 

If the base price is $10.00, VFF is 2.7% for the month and RUC’s is 2.0% then the total price would be calculated as follows: 

The RUC surcharge will not change on a monthly basis and will only be adjusted in line with publicly announced RUC changes. 

View the latest RUC figure