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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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Job Connect on Facebook
Find out how we can help you get ready to work, find work, and support available while you're working.
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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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Online application process
The full online application process when you apply for a benefit, payment or NZ Super through MyMSD.
MyMSD is our online service where you can apply and manage your information online.
You have 20 working days from the date you first contact us to complete the application process.
If you have a partner, they may need to complete some of these steps as well. They'll be able to do this in their own MyMSD.
Application process
Complete and submit the online form through MyMSD.
You'll need to register for MyMSD first if you haven't already done this.
If you're already registered, you can log in as you normally would.
The online form can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour to complete. But, as long as you've started it, you can save it and come back to it later.
It'll automatically work out what you might be able to get based on your answers.
Your obligations are things you need to do when you get a benefit or payment from us. If you don't do them, your payments could reduce or stop.
You need to confirm that you've read and understood your obligations in MyMSD.
If you don't understand your obligations, or want to talk to us about them, we can discuss these when we call you.
You'll be given a list of documents that we need to see. These will be for yourself and your partner (if you have one).
You can upload these documents in MyMSD as part of your application. MyMSD will tell you how to do this and what types of documents you can upload.
You can upload these types of files:
- JPEG and PNG files less than 5MB
- Word and Excel files less than 500KB
- PDF files less than 5MB.
If there are any documents you can't upload in MyMSD, we'll talk with you about how you can get these to us when we call you (in step 5). Our service centres are open. If you are unable to provide these documents online, you can bring them into a service centre. We'll make a copy and add it to your file or application. Find a Service Centre - Work and Income
MyMSD will tell you if you need to get a medical certificate and how to send it to us.
Some health practitioners send us medical certificates electronically. You need to make sure they include your client number on the certificate when they send it to us.
We'll contact you within 5 working days to:
- go over your application to check you get all the benefits and payments you're entitled to
- discuss your obligations, if you want to talk about them
- help you upload your documents, if you haven't done this.
In most cases we’ll need you to come in for a face-to-face appointment. Find a Service Centre - Work and Income
However, there may be times we’ll be able to support you over the phone.
We'll process your application and let you know by phone or letter when this is done.
If you disagree with our decision, you can ask for a review of decision.
Most weekly benefits have a stand-down. This is a period of time where you can't get any money from us. It's usually 1 or 2 weeks after your application is approved.
Your payments will start from the date after your stand-down finishes. If you've been working recently, your payments may take longer to start.
Once your payments start, you won't get any money in the first week. This is because we pay you for the week that's just been. This is called arrears.
MyMSD will tell you when your payments will start.
Once you're getting paid, you can log in to MyMSD to access some of your personal information and complete certain transactions yourself, eg telling us about your income.