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Planned system outage | Our online services (including myIR and submitting information using software providers) will be unavailable from 6pm Friday 14 to approximately 4pm Sunday 16 March while we complete some system upgrades. The outage will not affect any saved drafts or web requests in myIR, our website, general tools and calculators. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes.

Hamilton (Home Straight) public counter is temporarily closed | Our Hamilton Public Counter will be closed from Monday 3 March 2025 and re-opens on Monday 17 March 2025. For anything urgent, you can call our contact centre.

It's easy to restart your Working for Families payments. Log in to myIR and we'll guide you through the rest.

If you've ever been a Working for Families customer, you do not need to register again. Just go into myIR and reactivate your Working for Families account.

If you are eligible, payments will restart.

Before you start

To reactivate your Working for Families you will need:

  • IRD numbers for any new members of the family (such as a partner or child)
  • your estimated family income for the tax year including any other family income adjustments (if you want to get Working for Families each week or fortnight) - if you apply in myIR we'll fill in the income information we know about
  • any child support amounts paid or received by private agreement
  • your bank account number
  • not be a transitional tax resident or partner of a transitional tax resident.

Working out your family income

Select 'Reactivate Working for Families' on the myIR home screen

Reactivate Working for Families on the myIR home screen

If the 'Reactivate Working for Families' option is not available, it means your Working for Families account is still active.

You just need to update your details instead.

Complete and submit your details

Log in to myIR

You can also restart your Working for Families by contacting us.

Working for Families and Best Start - contact us

What happens next

You will get a notice of entitlement from us. It will tell you how much your payments will be and the date of your 1st payment.

You will get the notice:

  • the next day if you use myIR
  • within 10 working days if you do not use myIR.

Your responsibilities

As a Working for Families customer you must:

  • check your information
  • tell us about changes to your family situation
  • tell us about changes to your income or hours of work
  • tell us about changes to your contact details or bank account.

Partner access

You can give your partner access to your Working for Families information in myIR. Your partner will be able to see the same information as you and make some updates. 

It’s up to you if you give your partner access. You can cancel your partner’s access at any time.

Using myIR

If you do not have a myIR account you can register for one.

myIR lets you see and update your Working for Families information at any time. You can:

  • see your payment amounts and dates
  • see the information we have about your current and past income, partner and dependent children
  • update your information.

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Last updated: 11 Mar 2025
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