Reserve Bank looks to sublet part of new $4.2m Auckland office

Author: Azaria Howell,
Publish Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2026, 5:00am

Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman plays a waiting game on potential OCR hike. Image / NZME

The Reserve Bank is aiming to sublet a third of its new Auckland office, which it has occupied for less than a year.
In an Official Information Act response to Newstalk ZB, the central bank confirmed it was currently in the process of seeking a sublease tenant for one of the three floors of the office.

The RBNZ’s current annual lease cost of all three floors is $4.2 million - excluding GST.

The bank said costs were made up of the annual base rent of $3.1m, and an estimated share of the building’s operating expenses of $1.1m.

A decade-long lease for the Takutai Square office came into effect in August 2025 after being signed in November 2024.

“The Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua (RBNZ) is currently in the process of seeking a sublease tenant for one of the three floors of our Auckland Office, but as of the date of this letter [June 11] has not yet sublet any parts of our Auckland Office," it said.

The bank added the reason it moved to a larger office in the first place was to make room for future growth.

“The primary driver for the move to the new Auckland office was to provide a long-term strategic presence in a key location that allowed for additional growth of staff in Auckland in the long term. The decision to sub lease follows the acknowledgment that initially there will be some surplus space that eventually the RBNZ will require for our own staff,” the bank said.

A separate Official Information Act response that has been proactively released said the size of its new office was 4807.12 metres squared - a significant jump from the prior Queen Street office’s 1734.28 metres squared offering.

The RBNZ’s Queen Street office’s base rent and operating costs were roughly $1m annually.

The bank had also said its new office could accommodate between 216 to 252 workstations, whereas its Queen Street office could facilitate 125.

In October 2025, the RBNZ cut its total number of jobs by 20.5% in a restructure that

It has also been previously reported that the RBNZ’s new lease provides for a 3% annual fixed rent review.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has previously labelled the Britomart lease a “legacy of the previous Government” - and said last year the board had commissioned work to explore sub-leasing options.

Azaria Howell is a multimedia reporter working from Parliament’s press gallery. She joined NZME in 2022 and became a Newstalk ZB political reporter in late 2024, with a keen interest in public service agency reform and government spending.