Free blank roster template (Excel)
An empty Monday-to-Sunday grid with 20 rows, set to print on one landscape page. For pinning up and filling in by hand — with the New Zealand code legend printed alongside it.
Blank roster
Excel format (.xlsx) • Ready to download
No signup required. Works with Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
This roster template is a planning tool, not legal or payroll advice. It does not calculate holiday pay, alternative days or minimum wage for you. Check Employment New Zealand, or take advice, before relying on a roster for compliance. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Build this roster online instead
The spreadsheet works until you are chasing availability and recalculating hours by hand. Build and share the same roster in the browser — free, no signup.
What's in this template
Deliberately empty
An empty seven-day grid
Monday to Sunday, 20 rows, no sample data to delete before you can use it.
Print-ready
Print area and header rows already set, so it comes out as one clean A4 landscape page.
The legend printed on the sheet
OFF, AL, SICK, BEREAVE, PH, ALT and TR are on the page itself, not just the Instructions tab. A printed roster nobody can decode is not a roster.
A totals tab
A second sheet with the same grid plus per-person and per-day totals, if you would rather fill it in on screen.
A public holiday note
A reminder line about alternative holidays, because that is the entitlement a hand-written roster most often loses.
No signup
The file downloads directly. No email address, no gated form.
Blank, with the legend attached
The grid ships empty. What it does carry is the code legend, printed on the same page, so a roster on a wall means the same thing to everyone reading it.
| Name | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legend: OFF · AL · SICK · BEREAVE · PH · ALT · TR |
ALT is the code that has no Australian or British equivalent. Work a public holiday that would otherwise have been a working day and a whole paid day off is owed — writing it on the roster the day it happens is the only reliable way it gets recorded.
How to use the blank roster
Four steps
1. Print it
One A4 landscape page. Write the week-commencing Monday date at the top before it goes on the wall.
2. Fill it in
Times or codes. Keep to the legend on the page so it reads the same to everyone.
3. Mark public holidays before publishing
Including the regional anniversary day. Anyone working one who otherwise would have worked that day earns an alternative holiday.
4. Keep the old ones
Past rosters are the evidence behind the "otherwise working day" test. A photo of the wall copy is enough.
Want it to add up for you? The totals tab, or the weekly roster template, does the arithmetic.
Who uses this template
New Zealand teams who want paper
Small cafés and bars
A team of six where a spreadsheet is more process than the problem needs.
Trades and small sites
A roster on the wall of the site office, filled in with a pen.
Independent retail
One shop, a handful of staff, and a week that rarely changes much.
Or skip the printer
A roster on the wall is only current for whoever is standing in front of it. RosterElf puts the same roster on every phone, and a swap updates it for everyone at once.
When paper stops working
The next step up
Mobile roster app
The published roster on every phone, so the wall copy is never the only version.
See the appRostering software
Build the roster once, publish it to phones, and let swaps update it without a reprint.
See rosteringShift swaps
Swaps requested, checked and approved in the app, with the roster updating itself.
See shift swapsRecords and leave
What a wall copy does not capture
Leave management
Holidays Act annual holidays, sick leave, bereavement leave and alternative days in one place.
See leave managementDigital HR records
The wage, time and leave records the Employment Relations Act requires you to keep.
See HR recordsTime and attendance
Clock-in records that show what was actually worked, not just what was planned.
See time trackingBlank roster FAQ
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Yes. Insert rows inside the grid rather than below it so the borders and print area extend with them. Past about 25 rows it will spill onto a second page — reduce the row height or print on A3.
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The roster itself is not a statutory record. What the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Holidays Act 2003 require are wage and time records and holiday and leave records — hours worked each day, pay, and leave taken and owing. A hand-written roster is fine as a planning document, but you still need those records, and keeping past rosters helps evidence the “otherwise working day” test.
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Because a printed roster is read by people who cannot open the Instructions tab. ALT in particular is easy to misread as a typo rather than an alternative holiday, and that is the entitlement most often lost.
Before you download
General information only — not legal advice
This document is a general HR template provided for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and may not reflect the latest changes in legislation or apply to every workplace situation. RosterElf Pty Ltd and the template provider accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this document. Users should seek independent legal advice and customise the template to ensure it complies with all relevant laws, employment agreements and workplace requirements.