New Zealanders get the support they require

Providing the income support people need

Main benefit numbers are increasing 

As at 30 June 2025, approximately 406,100 people were receiving a main benefit. This number has increased by 6.6 percent (around 25,200 people) since 30 June 2024, primarily due to challenging economic conditions. We are responding with policy and operational changes to support people back into work, which continues to be our priority (see ‘Getting New Zealanders working’ section on pages 37 to 39 for more detail).

Our work to improve accuracy and timeliness of income support entitlement assessments is focusing on the most complex areas

We monitor our performance in providing income support through timeliness and accuracy measures on our entitlement assessments. Our accuracy and timeliness in assessing most types of entitlements remain above our performance standards despite the demand we are experiencing on our income support services. We are working hard to improve the measures we are not currently meeting.

For working-age income support, our accuracy performance remains below standard but has improved since last year, and our timeliness measure is now slightly below standard. The accuracy of main benefit assessments, which account for the majority of payments we make to clients, although below standard is considerably higher than supplementary benefits at 86.1 percent for 2024/25.

For seniors income support, our accuracy and timeliness performance is below standard and has decreased since last year. Accuracy results are influenced by the high proportion of assessments relating to supplementary benefits and reviews of entitlements, which are the more complex types to process. The accuracy of our New Zealand Superannuation-related assessments remains higher than supplementary benefits, at 94.4 percent for 2024/25.

For Veteran’s Pension entitlement assessments, our performance is now slightly below standard for accuracy, but we remain above standard for timeliness.

While we are showing progress in our working-age accuracy performance, we are not satisfied with our current levels of accuracy and timeliness across these income supports and are working to improve this for our clients.

MSD has an accuracy improvement plan in place to reduce processing variation and lift national accuracy. As part of this, priority sites introduced manual checking of all TAS supplementary benefit applications before being processed, as this is a high-impact area in terms of complexity for both working-age and seniors assessments.

We have improved our guidance and processing standards to remove the requirement to navigate between multiple systems when assessing client entitlement to TAS.

MSD is looking into ways to support the reductions in backlogs to increase our timeliness results for working-age and seniors assessments. For seniors assessments, where our timeliness performance needs the most improvement, we implemented a taskforce which focuses on processing the oldest work on hand to help reduce waiting times. Shifts in practice are being embedded to reduce the rework created.

Our planned improvements are ongoing, and we are expecting to see increases in our performance in 2025/26. Through Budget 2025, there are further supports coming to improve accuracy and timeliness, including enabling the use of Automated Decision Making and Inland Revenue income matching. Inland Revenue information on PAYE salary and wage income will be used by default by MSD from July 2028. This is in addition to the longer-term transformation programme improvements reducing the number of systems staff need to navigate.

Cost of living pressures are making it harder for clients to sustain debt repayments

The average amount of overpayment debt per client (current and former) for people who have overpayment debt with MSD has increased slightly since last year. MSD is aware of the impacts of overpayment debt on clients' wellbeing and continues working to stop new debt being created.

Where debt exists, MSD is engaging with clients to encourage and support manageable and sustainable repayment arrangements. This is supported by increasing staff capability around debt management conversations and improved self-service options for those who have exited the benefit system. This contributed to $143 million in recoveries from non-current clients in 2024/25, an increase of approximately $31 million from 2023/24.

Debt recovery continues to increase year on year, but the ability of those with overpayment debt to sustain repayments may also be adversely impacted by wider economic factors.

Supporting people with their housing needs

The Emergency Housing Government Target was met

The target was met in December 2024, with an 84 percent reduction from baseline at the end of June 2025. Our focus is on maintaining this reduction. As at December 2024, around 85 percent of households exiting emergency housing can be identified as going into either social housing (most of which was through Kāinga Ora), transitional housing, or private housing.

MSD’s emergency housing support services received further investment through Budget 2024, including supporting people with Integrated Services Case Managers, Emergency Housing Navigation services, Housing Brokers and Ready to Rent courses.

The Priority One category ensures that families with dependent children in emergency housing for longer than 12 weeks move to the top of the social housing waitlist so we can get them into stable housing sooner. This priority category has resulted in 1,041 of these households, including 2,220 children, being housed since it came into effect in May 2024. Priority One has had a positive impact on Māori, with around 65 percent of those housed through this category being Māori households with children.

To support people into private accommodation, MSD offers HSPs, which provide financial assistance to clients needing help to obtain and retain housing. Through an evaluation published in May 2025, these were found to be highly successful at getting households into private accommodation.

The Emergency Housing Gateway changes introduced through Budget 2024 helped to ensure that emergency housing is made available to those in genuine need who are willing to meet their responsibilities. We are focused on ensuring frontline practice aligns with the policy intent.

There are fewer people on the Social Housing Register, including both the Housing Register and the Transfer Register

The number of people on these registers is coming down. MSD actively maintains the registers to ensure they remain accurate. This allows us to better understand the needs of those on the registers in order to support them effectively.

We also maintain effective working relationships with housing providers to ensure we make the best use of the supply of social housing that becomes available.

The average time taken to place clients on the Social Housing Register has improved from 25 days for the 2023/24 year to 17 days. MSD continues to focus on ensuring that clients in emergency housing have a housing assessment in a timely manner.

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