Waterproofing membrane being applied to a bathroom floor before tiling

Cost calculator

What does a bathroom renovation cost in New Zealand?

Name: Infinity Bathrooms
Price range: $$

Set the options below for an indicative range, built from published New Zealand price guides. It is a budgeting starting point, not a quote. Builders set their own prices and only a site visit can confirm what your bathroom costs.

How much of the room is changing

Scope is the single biggest driver. Everything below moves the figure within a band, not across to the next one.

New tiling and fixtures, same layout

Bathroom size

Plumbing

Moving a toilet or shower drain means opening the floor, which is the most common reason a bathroom quote jumps.

Where you are

A directional adjustment. No published guide indexes prices by city, so see the note under the sources.

Anything else

Pre 1980s homeOlder bathrooms routinely turn up failed waterproofing, rot or wiring that has to be brought up to code. Worth carrying as a contingency rather than discovering it mid job.Apartment with body corporate approvalApproval, acoustic underlay and restricted work hours all add cost as well as time.

Indicative range

$20,000to$38,500

An estimate built from published New Zealand rates, not a quote. Providers set their own prices and only a site visit can confirm what your job costs.

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What actually moves the price

Bathrooms have the widest quote spread of any room in the house, because a small wet area packs plumbing, waterproofing, tiling, electrical and joinery into a few square metres. These are the five things worth understanding before you compare quotes.

Scope decides the band, everything else moves within it

A cosmetic refresh and a full strip out are not the same job with a different budget. They are different jobs. Once you know which one you are doing, the rest of the variables shift the number by a few thousand rather than doubling it.

Moving plumbing is the expensive decision

Leaving the toilet, shower and vanity where they are keeps the floor closed. Moving any of them means lifting the floor, re-running waste and often re-waterproofing a larger area. It is the single most common reason a bathroom quote comes back higher than expected.

Waterproofing is not optional and not visible

Wet area waterproofing has to meet E3 and AS1, and it is buried under the tiles when it is done. It is a real line in the quote that you will never see again, and it is the thing that fails silently in older bathrooms.

Older homes carry an unknown

In a pre 1980s house the odds of finding rot, failed waterproofing or wiring that needs bringing up to code are high enough to budget for. A builder who raises that before starting is being straight with you, not padding the quote.

Fixtures are the part you control

Tapware, tiles and a vanity can swing several thousand dollars without changing a single hour of labour. If the quote is over budget, this is usually the first place to look before cutting scope.

Where these numbers come from

The base ranges come straight from the sources above. The adjustments do not. Every guide names room size, whether plumbing moves, and location as major cost factors, but none of them publish a multiplier for any of it, so those adjustments are modest directional judgements rather than measured figures. The scope bands themselves are sourced, and they matter far more than anything else on this page.

Rates last reviewed 8 August 2026.

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