Previous COVID-19 payments

Find information about previous payments that were available during COVID-19. This includes the COVID-19 Wage Subsidies, Income Relief Payment and Short-Term Absence Payment.

During COVID-19 our role was to help employers and self-employed people so they could keep paying their staff and keep them in their jobs. We also helped people who lost their jobs due to COVID-19.

List of previous COVID-19 payments

COVID-19 Short-Term Absence Payment

Available from 9 February 2021 to 17 October 2022. It was to help businesses pay their employees while they waited for PCR test results.

COVID-19 Wage Subsidies August 2021

Available from 20 August 2021 to 9 December 2021. These were a series of 8 payments to help businesses pay staff and protect jobs affected by the alert level changes from 17 August 2021.

COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021

Available from 4 March 2021 to 21 March 2021. It was to help businesses pay staff impacted by the alert level changes from 28 February 2021.

COVID-19 Resurgence Wage Subsidy

Available from 21 August 2020 to 3 September 2020. It was to help businesses who had a decline in revenue keep paying their staff.

COVID-19 Income Relief Payment

Available from 8 June 2020 to 14 November 2020. It was to help people who lost their jobs because of COVID-19.

COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Extension

Available from 10 June 2020 to 1 September 2020. It was to help businesses who had a decline in revenue keep paying their staff.

2020 COVID-19 Wage Subsidy

Available from 17 March 2020 to 9 June 2020. It was to help businesses who had a decline in revenue keep paying their staff.

COVID-19 Essential Workers Leave Support Scheme

Available from 6 April 2020 to 1 May 2020. It was to help essential businesses who had a decline in revenue keep paying their staff.

COVID-19 Leave payment

Available from 17 March 2020 to 27 March 2020. It was to help businesses keep paying their staff who could not work because they were in self-isolation.

Obligations and repayments

All COVID-19 payments had obligations which employers and self-employed people who applied were required to meet. These obligations included:

  • paying their employees correctly
  • keeping their employees in their jobs
  • keeping evidence to show they were eligible for the payment
  • following employment law
  • repaying the payment if they were no longer entitled to it.

The full eligibility and obligations details are listed in the declarations of each payment.

If a businesses does not meet these obligations, of no longer meets the criteria, they may need to repay the COVID-19 payment.

Find out when a business needs to repay this and how to repay it:

Repaying a COVID-19 payment

Paying employees

Employers had to say in their application which employees they were applying for. The payment would come to the employers first, and they must pay this on to their employees.

When they pay this to their employees, the employer must try their hardest to pay the employee either:

  • their usual wages
  • at least 80% of their usual wages if both the employee and employer have agreed this in writing.

If the employer can't do that, then they must pay the employee either:

  • at least the full amount of the COVID-19 payment, if their usual wages are more than the payment rate
  • their usual wages, if they usually get paid less than the COVID-19 payment. Any money leftover must be used to pay other staff who are also affected, or repaid.

GST and PAYE/PAYG

Employers do not pay GST on COVID-19 payments.

PAYE/PAYG should be deducted from the COVID-19 payments (i.e. $585.80 less PAYE/PAYG, etc). To calculate PAYE/PAYG deductions, employers do not gross-up the COVID-19 payment amount.

Income tax

The COVID-19 payments are "excluded income" for income tax purposes for businesses. This means businesses don't pay income tax on COVID-19 payments from us. Businesses won't get an income tax deduction for wages they pay using the COVID-19 payment. Businesses still need to make the usual PAYE/PAYG deductions when they pay it on to employees.

Self-employed people must pay income tax on COVID-19 payments, as it's a payment to replace a loss of earnings.

People who received the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment did not have to pay tax on this.

Businesses that received a Wage Subsidy

You can search on the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) website to see which businesses were paid a COVID-19 Wage Subsidy.

The search will tell you:

  • the name of the business
  • the number of employees they were paid for
  • the amount paid.
Wage Subsidy Employer Search - MSD website

Information for employees

Only employers or self-employed people could make an application for a COVID-19 payment. This means your employer had to apply for you, you could not make an application for yourself.

Before they apply your employer must tell you they're applying for you. They must also get your consent to share some of your details with us. They declare they have done this as part of their application.

Your employer can't change your employment agreement unless you agree to the change first. Your employer still has to follow your employment agreement during COVID-19, including how much you get paid.

Talk to your employer if you have questions about whether they got a COVID-19 payment for you, or how this was paid.

You can also find information on the Employment New Zealand website:

Employment New Zealand website