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loginChanges announced in Budget 2026
28 May 2026.
The Government has announced its 2026 Budget. Here are some of the changes that affect Work and Income clients.
More support for sole parents to find work
The Government is providing $93 million over 2 years to help sole parents find work. This funding is for July 2026 to June 2028 and supports:
- more case management
- increased Flexi-Wage funding
- improved work placement programs
- a flexible fund to support sole parents to get past barriers to working.
Extended funding for emergency housing support services
There is $11.2 million to continue emergency housing support services, at a lower level, to June 2027. This is to prevent people from needing emergency housing, support those in emergency housing, and help people to move into sustainable accommodation.
Changes to housing support
From 1 April 2027 there will be:
- Accommodation Supplement maximum rate increases
- Temporary Additional Support maximum rate reduction and removal of child support liability as an allowable cost
- An increase to the minimum Income-related Rent for social housing tenants and an increase to the contribution for households in emergency or transitional housing.
The social housing needs assessment will also be redesigned, and the Government is exploring other changes to move people through and out of social housing.
Most of these changes were announced on 21 May 2026.
Child Support costs for Temporary Additional Support
From 1 April 2027 child support liability (the child support people must pay via Inland Revenue) is being removed as an allowable cost for Temporary Additional Support, including for people getting NZ Super or a Veteran's Pension.
This change also applies to the small number of people who still get the Special Benefit, which was replaced by Temporary Additional Support in 2006.
Removing annual income assessments
From 3 July 2028, we'll use Inland Revenue's information on wages and salary to automatically calculate payment rates, instead of people manually declaring their wage or salary to us.
We'll get this information from Inland Revenue weekly. To prepare for this change, from June 2027 we'll start moving people from annual to weekly income charging.
This will help make sure people get the right payment at the right time. People will get less debt, as they won't get overpaid if they declare their income late, and there's less burden on them to declare salary and wages.
Further information about the Budget
You can find more information about Budget 2026 here: