Te tō muri noa o te hoki mai ki Aotearoa ina he pūtea taurewa ākonga tāku Unexpected delay returning to New Zealand when I have a student loan

You can apply for your loan to be interest-free if you were intending to travel for less than 6 months but, because of events outside of your control, you could not return to New Zealand as planned.

Some examples of these delays are:

• personal illness or accident
• death or illness of a family member
• natural disasters.

To apply, you’ll need to have been a New Zealand tax resident while you were overseas and show that you were intending to stay overseas for less than 183 days.

You’ll need to provide the following proof:

• evidence of the reason you were delayed
• your original flight reservations
• a completed New Zealand tax residence questionnaire - IR886 if you were overseas for more than 325 days.

Tax residency status for individuals

Apply to keep my student loan interest-free overseas