Best KiwiSaver options in NZ

Choosing the right KiwiSaver fund is quite an important decision. Make an informed choice and your retirement could be much better, or you may be able to buy your first home sooner. MoneyHub reckons it’s a $100,000+ decision.

The problem is, it’s not an easy decision. The highest performing fund last year won’t necessarily repeat those returns, and you don’t want to rely on what your bank or your mate says. You almost certainly don’t want to leave your KiwiSaver fund in a default fund. So what’s the secret?

If you find you’re in the wrong fund for you after reading this, no worries. Switching between funds or providers can take as little as five minutes. All you need to do is choose a new provider and follow the prompts on their website. They then contact the old provider.

Read our guide to switching KiwiSaver funds

This may be a strange thing for a KiwiSaver provider to publish. But the truth is, there is no one best KiwiSaver fund. With KiwiSaver, it’s more of a ‘what’s best for you’ situation.

To decide what type of fund and provider is best for you, here are some things to consider:

• Your financial goals
• When you want to achieve those goals (your investment horizon)
• Your investment approach and risk appetite
• Your values - e.g, climate change, ESG
• Reputation, online reviews, and support of providers
• Fees of funds and providers

It’s a good idea to spend some time browsing funds and providers online, checking out their websites, their fees, and their reviews. For help making your decision, check out our KiwiSaver guide.

Once you’ve got an idea of what you need, and what you care about, it’s time to compare providers and funds to decide which one fits the bill. Thankfully Sorted have this sorted - they’ve built a nifty tool that makes it easier to compare all the KiwiSaver funds available.

Use the tool

There are two ways to search for funds using the Sorted tool. You can either do a simple search, where you sort for fund type (growth, conservative, etc.), or an advanced search where you create a far more specific list of criteria.

If you know what you’re after, we suggest using the advanced option (switch to this by clicking on the button next to quick search under the page heading).

Once you’ve searched, you’ll see the name of the fund, the investment approach (i.e. aggressive - which is an awful name for what is just 80%+ growth assets regardless of riskiness, which is why we prefer “High Growth”), fees and how they compare against the average, the mix of assets, and five year return average.

A word of warning: this tool is fantastic for initial research, but it’s important to take a closer look at any funds you’re considering on the provider website, and read their product disclosure statements - especially the bits about fees. Sometimes this tool doesn’t list key details around fees, like transaction, admin and currency costs, giving a skewed impression of what a fund really costs.

Let’s say you were looking for a low fee provider that can tolerate some ups and downs, as you have 5+ years until you need the long-term investment - you might set your risk indicator to 6, then sort fees lowest to highest.

Take a look at the results here.

• Up top of this search, you’ll see a Currency Hedged US 500 Fund with fees of 0.03%. This figure doesn’t include the 0.50% fee charged on each buy or sell transaction. This makes the actual fee you’re charged higher.
• Next, there’s a similarly low fund fee, also a US 500 Fund. This one has a 0.09% fee, and there are no other fees listed on the tool, but when you visit the provider’s website, you’ll see there’s a 0.50% currency exchange fee charged when buying or selling units.

The next five funds on the list are Kernel funds (go Kernel!). These funds have a 0.25% p.a fee, which appears higher than the top two - but if you dig deeper, you’ll see that Kernel funds charge no extra fees.

Fees are charged as a percentage of the total investment managed per year. Some funds also charge transaction, admin, or performance fees, on top of the regular management fees (these are the sneaky ones that Sorted might not have explicitly in their tools).

Total fees vary between providers and can go up to almost 2.00% per year.

These fees are deducted from your fund balance at regular intervals, which affects your balance and reduces the power of compounding returns.

In fact, a small increase in fees can reduce your total return by thousands or tens of thousands over time. And the problem is, there’s also little evidence that higher fees equal higher returns (and plenty of evidence that the opposite is true). According to S&P Index vs Active (SPIVA) data, 85%+ of actively managed funds fail to beat their respective index benchmark over 10 years or longer.

The reality is, fees are one of the only things you have total control over when it comes to investing, along with your choice of platform. Given there’s little evidence that higher fees tend to provide higher returns, the funds with better value fees are always worth considering.

Read a beginner’s guide to investment fees.

Another aspect to consider is the performance against the fund’s chosen benchmark, even for an index tracking fund this can be surprisingly large. Often due to expenses (including the trading costs of the fund) or mismatches of timing or composition, the performance can be well behind the benchmark, ignoring the impact of taxes which are investor specific. For example for the year to 30 September 2025 the fund with 0.03% management fee underperformed its benchmark before tax by 1.19%!

Kernel has four core diversified funds available in their KiwiSaver plan, with an additional option for customisation that’s better suited to experienced investors.

All core options have the same low fee of 0.25% p.a, with no other fees charged - here’s a summary:

The Kernel High Growth fund is more suited for long-term investors who want higher expected returns and don’t mind ups and downs

• 5-10+ years - minimum suggested investment time frame
• 98+% invested in shares

This fund is ideal for long-term growth. For example, if retirement is 20 years away, it’s generally sensible to have most of your investments in a fund like this one to maximise compounding.

For shorter time periods, volatility can be a problem though - without enough time to ride out the highs and lows, and benefit from a long-term upward trend you risk losing money (especially if you need to withdraw at a specific date).

If you’re likely to withdraw in five years or less, the following funds may be more suitable.

The Kernel Balanced fund is suitable for medium-term investors, who want some capital growth and moderate volatility.

• 3-7 years - minimum suggested investment time frame
• 60% shares & 40% cash and bonds

Balanced is ideal for medium-term growth. For example, let’s say you’re buying a house in the next 3-7 years, and you’re flexible on the purchase date - this could be a great fund for you.

If you prefer a smoother ride with less exposure to market swings, consider the Conservative fund below.

The Kernel Conservative fund is suitable for short/medium-term investors who want to keep a foot in the share market while prioritising the stability of their balance.

• 3-7 years - minimum suggested investment time frame
• 30% shares and 70% cash and bonds.

While it shares a similar timeframe to Balanced, Conservative is the preferred choice if your goal date is firmer or your tolerance for dips is lower.

By tilting heavily toward cash and bonds (70%), it aims to protect your savings from significant drops, while the 30% share component helps your money keep working harder than a standard bank account.

It’s about finding the balance between protection and growth.

For short-term investors who want to fend off inflation and retain the value of their funds.

• No suggested minimum investment time
• Made up of primarily short-term interest-bearing assets

Need to put your cash away somewhere safe, where it can earn a return that’ll (usually) beat inflation? Cash Plus is a good option. It’s invested mainly in cash and cash equivalents, like floating rate notes or cash and term deposits with banks, and earns a steady return that’s less affected by market volatility. For example, this is where I’ve put my rainy day fund and holiday savings outside of KiwiSaver.

For experienced investors who want to customise their portfolio

• Timeframe, return, and volatility will vary according to your choices

The majority of investors will be well served by one of the above options, but if you’re an experienced investor and want to build your own custom portfolio, Kernel makes it easier than ever. You can choose between 25 funds and decide which allocation to give to each within your portfolio.

Using this function, you can build a highly volatile, high-growth fund for the long term - or a conservative, less volatile fund for the short term.

You can also customise your fund to provide broad exposure to markets, sectors, and trends, using funds like the Australia 100, Emerging Markets, Global ESG, NZ Bond, S&P Global Clean Energy, and NZ Commercial Property.