Annual Catch Entitlement (ACE)
Annual catch entitlement (
ACE) is the catching right generated each year from
quota. At any stage during the fishing year a person is able to sell their ACE. The ACE is bought and sold without any encumbrance of catch. ACE is generated at the start of each new fishing year.
Minimum ACE holdings
No commercial fisher may take any stock listed in Schedule 8 of the Fisheries Act 1996, unless the fisher holds, at the time of taking, the minimum amount of ACE specified in Schedule 8 for that stock.
| Stock | Description | Minimum Holding |
| ANG 11-16 | Freshwater eels (SI) | 4 tonnes |
| CRA 1-10 | Rock lobster | 3 tonnes |
| OYS 7 | Oysters (Nelson) | 3 tonnes |
| PAU 1-10, exept PAU 6 | Paua | 1 tonne |
| PAU 6 | Paua | 100 kgs |
| SCA 1 & 7 | Scallops | 3 tonnes |
| OYU 5 | Foveaux Straight oysters | 29,000 oysters |
For all other stocks there is no minimum holding required before a permit holder can commence fishing.
Under-fishing entitlements
For most stocks after the (ACE/catch) balancing has occurred a calculation is made for each person who owned ACE in the previous fishing year, to see if they had any unbalanced ACE for that year. Those ACE holders who have unbalanced ACE from the previous fishing year will be allocated under-fishing ACE based on the amount not required to be used for balancing purposes up to a maximum of 10% of the ACE (whichever is the lesser amount) for the subsequent fishing year.
Under schedule 5A of the Fisheries Act 1996, there are specified stocks that underfishing entitlements do not apply to.
The Ministry of Fisheries keeps an ACE register (a separate one for each fishing year). The ACE registers are public registers for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1993 and held electronically and are open for inspection. This has been devolved and is managed by FishServe.