Cepola haastii is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Cepolidae, the bandfishes.

Cepola haastii was first formally described as Hypolycodes haastii in 1881 by the Scottish born New Zealand geologist, naturalist and surgeon James Hector with the type locality given as Waimarama on the east coast of the North Island near Wellington, New Zealand.

[2] The specific name honours the German-born geologist Johann Franz Julius von Haast, the first director of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, who tasked Hector to describe this species.

The upper part of the head, the eye, much of the body and the fins are reddish-orange marked with a number of pale silvery bars and blotches on the body and a pale horizontal streak along the middle of the flanks.

[5] Cepola haastii is endemic to New Zealand and may be restricted to the northern part of that country.