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Seventeen registered political parties and a total of 530 candidates will be contesting the 2026 General Election.

Candidate nominations for the election have now closed. Voters can find the party lists and electorate candidates online at vote.nz, as well as voting place locations for this election.

Registered parties seeking the party vote

The registered parties who have submitted a party list and are seeking the party vote in 2026 are (in alphabetical order):

1. ACT New Zealand
2. Alliance Party 
3. Animal Justice Party Aotearoa New Zealand
4. Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
5. Conservative Party NZ
6. Free Palestine
7. Green Party 
8. Labour Party
9. National Party
10. New Zealand First Party 
11. New Zealand Loyal
12. NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party
13. Opportunity Party
14. Te Pāti Māori
15. Te Tai Tokerau Party 
16. Vision New Zealand
17. Women's Rights Party

In 2023, 19 registered political parties contested the general election with 17 of the parties submitting a party list. 

Candidates

A total of 530 candidates (electorate and list) are standing in this year’s election. This compares with 567 candidates in the 2023 election, 667 in 2020, 534 in 2017 and 554 in 2014. 

61 candidates are on the party lists only and 22 candidates for registered parties are standing as electorate candidates only. This year, 65 electorate candidates are standing as independents or representing unregistered parties.

The number of candidates standing both as an electorate candidate and on a party list is 382.

The electorates with the most candidates are Christchurch East and West Coast-Tasman with 11 candidates each, and the electorates with the lowest number of candidates are Hauraki-Waikato, Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Hauāuru with 3 candidates each. 

The gender breakdown is as follows: 329 male, 190 female, 4 another gender and 7 not specified. In 2023 there were 329 male and 229 female candidates, 4 another gender and 5 not specified. 

The breakdown of candidates is as follows: 

A list of confirmed candidates can be found below. 

Links to more information 

• The party lists are available here. 
• Voting place locations can be found on a map here.