KiwiSaver hardship withdrawal

What counts as significant financial hardship

You can apply if:

• you can't cover your basic living costs
• you're behind on your mortgage and your lender is taking action against the home you live in
• you need to pay for medical treatment for yourself or a dependant
• you have a serious illness
• you need to modify your home because of a disability
• you need to pay for a dependant's funeral
• you need palliative care

If your illness permanently stops you from working or puts your life at risk, you can apply for a serious illness withdrawal instead. This may allow you to take out some or all of your savings.

Buying your first home is a separate withdrawal with its own rules. Nester's guide to the KiwiSaver first home withdrawal explains how it works.

What you can take out

The scheme supervisor will only approve what you reasonably need to deal with the hardship, which may be less than you ask for. You can only withdraw your own and your employer's contributions, and government contributions stay in your account.

How to apply

Ask your KiwiSaver provider for their hardship application form. If you joined KiwiSaver less than 2 months ago, apply to IRD instead. You'll need to show your income, expenses and debts, with bank statements and bills as proof. If you're behind on your mortgage, include the letters from your lender.

You also need to show you've tried other ways to cover the cost first and used them up, such as your savings, your bank or a payment arrangement with the people you owe.

If you're behind on your mortgage

Contact your bank as soon as you can. Banks have hardship teams that can extend your loan term, let you pay interest only for a while or pause your repayments. Any of those can help without touching your KiwiSaver. A mortgage adviser can also check whether moving your loan would lower your repayments.

You can also use Nester's mortgage repayment calculator to see how a longer loan term would change your repayments.