KiwiSaver providers publish updated one-year returns every quarter. The register behind our full fund-returns table was refreshed for the quarter ended 30 June 2026. Rather than single out any one fund, it's worth looking at what those numbers show across risk bands, conservative, balanced, growth and high growth, because that's a more honest way to read a single quarter than any one line in the table.
- Conservative: 1.7% to 10.7%, median around 7.0%.
- Balanced: 6.6% to 14.9%, median around 12.2%.
- Growth: 7.6% to 21.5%, median around 14.7%.
- High Growth: 9.4% to 26.5%, median around 19.1%.
- Two defensive funds in the register sat around 6.6% to 6.7%. Too few exist to say much about that band as a whole.
After fees, before tax, as at 30 June 2026, the gap between the lowest and highest fund in each band is wide, several times the size of the typical figure itself, even though every fund in a band holds a broadly similar mix of income and growth assets.
Funds holding more growth assets moved further over this rising twelve months than funds holding more income assets, and would have moved further the other way through a falling one. That spread within each band is the real story this quarter, not any single number.
Two funds in the same risk band can differ by ten percentage points or more in one year, purely because of what they hold and when markets moved, not because one is fundamentally sound and the other isn't. A single year is one data point about market conditions during that year. It isn't a report card on any fund, and it isn't a guide to what next year holds.
What matters more than this quarter's number is the risk band you're actually in, and how long you've got before you need the money. A conservative fund exists to move less, in both directions, than a high growth one. That's the trade-off it's built for, not a shortcoming. Where a fund's own update supports it, our table also shows computed 3, 5 and 10-year figures, which smooth out any single quarter's noise far more than a one-year number can.
See the full table: every fund in the register, this quarter's figures, and the longer-run figures where they exist. An adviser can put a single quarter's numbers into proper context against your own timeframe and goals, get in touch if that would help.