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Benefits and payments homepage
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Overview
Take a look at the range of benefits and payments we have available.
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Not working
Redundancy, health condition or disability or another reason you can’t work
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Living expenses
Food, school costs, power, accommodation or other living expenses you need help with
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Relationship changes
You’ve had a relationship break-up, family breakdown or violent relationship end
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Health and Disability
Counselling, prescription and GP costs, medical alarms and other costs we can help with
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Seniors
Travelling overseas, how to apply, payment rates and dates, overseas pensions, income and other info for Seniors
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Caring
Caring for someone else’s child or someone with a health condition, injury or disability
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Urgent or unexpected costs
Dental, glasses, car repairs, fridge, washing machine, funeral or other urgent costs you need help with
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Children
Childcare, school uniforms, stationery, having a baby and other costs if you have children
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Payment issues
Fixing issues with Accommodation Supplement, Special Benefit and other payments we’ve made
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16-19 year olds
Education, training, work and benefit help for 16-19 year olds
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Benefits and forms
A-Z list of benefits, forms, benefit rates
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Work homepage
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Overview
Find out what services we can offer to help you find work and when you start a new job.
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Looking for work
We have jobs available now in various industries and you can search on our job websites.
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Help with your job search
From advice on making a plan, to tips on where to look and following up leads.
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Training and experience
Our programmes can help you get ready for work with training and work experience.
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Apprenticeship Support Programme
Get help to retain and bring on new apprentices.
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CVs and cover letters
We’ve got great templates and advice for writing your CV or cover letter, and filling out job applications.
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Help with work costs
Get help to pay for the things you need to start work
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Job support and advice
Get all the support and advice you need to stay in work.
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Health and disability
If you want to work, we can support you to find the right job for you.
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Start your own business
We can help you get your business up and running.
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Job interviews
Get advice about how to prepare for and deliver a great interview.
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Help for 16-19 year olds
We’ve got extra support for young people to get ready for work and find a job.
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On a benefit homepage
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Overview
Check out what you need to do when you're getting a benefit or other payment from us.
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Something's changed
Address, contact details, overseas travel, childcare, relationship or anything else that’s changed.
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Income
Declare income, wages deduction calculator and tables
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Childcare
Change in your childcare situation, continue childcare payments, cohort entry schools and other childcare information
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Re-apply
Re-apply for Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support, Temporary Additional Support and more
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Payments
Check or stop your payments, payment cards and other information
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Debt
Check your debt, repayments and other debt information
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Rights and responsibilities
Our commitment to you, obligations, complaints, benefit fraud and more
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Housing homepage
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Overview
Find out how we can help you with housing.
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Nowhere to stay
Get help if you have nowhere to stay right now.
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Find a house
Find out where to look for private housing, or apply for public (social) housing.
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Living in your home
Get help with accommodation costs, and advice on any housing issues and public housing tenancies.
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Move house
Find out how we can help if you’re moving house.
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How to apply for the COVID-19 Short-Term Absence Payment
Businesses and self-employed people can apply for the COVID-19 Short-Term Absence Payment using our online application form.
This payment is available for businesses, including self-employed people, to help pay their eligible employees who cannot work from home while they wait for a COVID-19 PCR test result.
Information
You can't get the Short-Term Absence Payment when you or your employee (or a dependant) take a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) because the results are quick.
You can only apply once in a 30-day period for each eligible employee, unless a health official or doctor advises the employee (or their dependant) to get another test.
The Ministry of Health has information about when someone needs to get a test and what they need to do while waiting for results:
You can apply for the Short-Term Absence Payment up to 8 weeks after the COVID-19 PCR test.
If your employee (or their dependant) has a positive COVID-19 test result, you can apply for the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme to help pay their wages or salary while they're required to self-isolate. You'll need to do this three days after you've applied for the Short-Term Absence Payment.
If you're not sure which COVID-19 payment to apply for, use our online tool to check:
Fill out the online form
The online form you fill out depends on whether you have people working for you or not. If you are applying for more than one person (including yourself) use the employer form.
You must be in New Zealand, or Australia, when you make the application.
If you've made a mistake on your application
You can call us on 0800 40 80 40 and we'll fix it for you.
You don't need to submit another application.
State sector organisations
A state sector organisation can ask for an exception to become eligible to apply for the Short-Term Absence Payment. State sector organisations should contact their monitoring agency if they wish to discuss this.
The information on this page is a summary of the eligibility criteria and obligations set out in the declaration for COVID-19 Short-Term Absence Payment.
It does not replace the terms of the declaration and if there are any differences between this page and the declaration, the declaration prevails.