Crown fishing quota and ACE tenders

About Crown-held quota and ACE

The Crown is one of the largest quota holders due to:

new stocks entering the Quota Management Systems (QMS)
forfeited quota
surrendered quota.

Crown-held quota and ACE are transferred to commercial fishers through public tender.

Find out about ACE

New stocks entering the QMS

New stocks enter the QMS when there's quota "left over" after stock is allocated to:

Māori (20% of quota)
commercial fishers.

Forfeited quota

Quota may be transferred to the Crown if a quota owner is convicted of an offence.

Surrendered quota

When fishers leave the fishing industry, they can surrender quota to the Crown. Fishers may decide not to sell a small amount of quota because the transfer cost is more than the quota’s value.

Transferring Crown quota to commercial fishers through public tender

Crown quota is transferred to commercial fishers through public tender with a set reserve price. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) includes all crown-held quota shares in a tender round, unless:

we're concerned about sustainability of the stock
the stock is in the Kermadec Fisheries Management Area (Area 10 stocks)
there are legal proceedings involving the species or stock
there are outstanding appeals with the Catch History Review Committee (catch history is used to allocate quota for some stocks)
there are public concerns about fishing for the stock (for example, some shark species).

Where to find out about any future tenders

ACE tenders are held early in the fishing year. This is usually in November.

Quota tenders can happen at any time in the year. They're usually held around the middle of the year.

All tenders for Crown-held quota and ACE are run by FishServe on our behalf. When tenders open, the FishServe website provides information about them. The tender process will be in the news section once tenders open.

News – FishServe

To find out when tenders open, you can:

Reserve price set for quota tenders

We set a reserve price for quota tenders but not ACE tenders. Before tenders are assessed, reserve prices are calculated for each stock. This is done using all available information, including current market prices. Reserve prices aren't made public.

Make an offer for remaining ACE

After an ACE tender round is completed, you can make an ad-hoc offer to MPI for any remaining ACE. Contact FishServe to do this – email quotabroker@fishserve.co.nz

View tender results

Crown-held quota tenders

Tender results include the:

number of shares tendered for each stock (out of a total of 100 million shares per stock)
number of offers accepted by MPI for each stock (offers above the reserve price)
price per share (total bid price divided by number of shares bid for) and number of shares accepted
ACE equivalent (kg) based on the Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC) at the time.