The National Party has fallen short of becoming the first ever majority government under MMP in New Zealand, losing one seat in the final election results.

However National still has sufficient numbers, with its support partners, to pass legislation.

Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski

National's support fell by more than one per cent, although it still has a commanding 47 percent of party votes, after the Electoral Commmission recounted the election day votes and took more than 330,000 special votes into account.

It now has 60 seats, which means the former Westland mayor Maureen Pugh has missed out on becoming an MP.

Prime Minister John Key said that was disappointing but National still delivered a very strong result, improving on both the 2008 and 2011 elections.

He said there had never been a majority government delivered under MMP in New Zealand and it had only happened once elsewhere in the world.

National has signed coalition agreements with the ACT Party and United Future and Mr Key will be making a similar announcement regarding the Maori Party tomorrow.

He said with support from its three partners, National would have a majority over and above what was required.

Photo: RNZ / Craig McCulloch

The Green Party has edged up from 10.02 percent to 10.7 percent in the final vote tally, lifting them from 13 seats to 14 and returning the list MP Steffan Browning to Parliament.

The party's co-leader, Russel Norman, said it was a good result.

"It's very pleasing to have held our own in the context of an election where obviously the Government did quite well, where the Conservative Party picked up some percentage points as well. It was great to hold 14 MPs and to pick up another 10,000 votes compared to last time."

Mr Norman said Mr Browning would return to Parliament with a wealth of experience.

Labour's support also edged up, from 24.69 percent to 25.13 percent - just enough to secure the spot of list MP and former party president Andrew Little but not enough to bring in anybody else. Labour will have 32 seats in the House.

Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden said he was pleased voter turnout went up overall by almost 4 percent.

"We're particularly pleased that turnout in the Maori seats has on average increased by close to 7 percent but if you're asking whether we're satisfied, I think the answer to that would be we've still got a long way to go."

Other parties maintain seat numbers

Apart from National and the Greens, all the other parties maintained the same number of seats as they received on election day.

New Zealand First, which has 14 MPs, slipped from 8.85 percent to 8.66 percent.

The Maori Party jumped from 1.29 percent to 1.32 percent, securing the position of its new MP, Marama Fox, alongside its leader, Te Ururoa Flavell.

Both ACT and United Future stayed stable at 0.69 percent and 0.22 percent respectively.

The Conservatives' support dropped from 4.12 percent on election night to 3.97 percent.

All electoral candidates leading on election night were confirmed as the victors.