We discuss Yukawa-enhanced contributions from Z-mediated new physics to down-type quark ∆F = 2 processes in the framework of the standard model gaugeinvariant effective theory (SMEFT). Besides the renormalization group (RG) mixing of the Z-mediating ψ 2 H 2 D operators into ∆F = 2 operators, we include at the electroweak scale one-loop (NLO) matching corrections consistently, necessary for the removal of the matching scale dependence. We point out that the right-handed Z-mediated interactions generate through Yukawa RG mixing ∆F = 2 left-right operators, which are further enhanced through QCD RG effects and chirally enhanced hadronic matrix elements. We investigate the impact of these new effects on the known correlations between ∆F = 2 and ∆F = 1 transitions in the SMEFT framework and point out qualitative differences to previous parameterizations of Z-mediated new physics that arise for the left-handed case. We illustrate how specific models fit into our model-independent framework by using four models with vector-like quarks. We carry out model-independent analyses of scenarios with purely left-handed and purely right-handed new-physics Z couplings for each of the three sectors s → d, b → s and b → d. Specifically we discuss the correlations between ε /ε, ε K , K L → µ + µ − K + → π + νν and K L → π 0 νν in the Kaon sector, and φ s , B s → µ + µ − and B → K ( * ) (µ + µ − , νν) in the b → s sector and B d → µ + µ − in the b → d sector.