How the Student Allowance and Student Loan work in New Zealand

Short answer first: StudyLink, the Ministry of Social Development's service for students, runs both schemes. The Student Allowance is a weekly payment you never repay. It goes to full-time students aged 18 to 65 who meet the residency rules, and under 24 without children it depends on your parents' income. For a single student without children, the maximum is 286.35 to 380.43 New Zealand dollars a week after tax. The Student Loan pays your compulsory fees, up to 1,000 dollars of course-related costs and up to 333.48 dollars a week for living costs. Inland Revenue collects 12 per cent of every dollar you earn above the repayment threshold.

This guide follows both schemes as StudyLink and Inland Revenue publish them in September 2026, in New Zealand dollars, with a link to the page that decides each rule so you can check your own case before you apply.

Who can get the Student Allowance?

StudyLink's Student Allowance page tests your age, your study load, your residency and your course. If you have had an allowance before, you must also have passed enough of your last course and still have weeks left on your lifetime limit.

• Most students need to be 18 to 65 and studying full-time. StudyLink allows 16 and 17-year-olds and part-time students only in set circumstances, each described on its own page.
• Residency usually means citizenship or three years. You qualify as a New Zealand citizen, or if you are ordinarily resident, have lived in New Zealand for at least 3 years and have held a residence class visa for at least 3 years. StudyLink lists other residency routes for people who meet neither.
• The course must be undergraduate or honours. It has to be an approved course at an approved provider, at level 7 or below on the qualifications framework, or a bachelor's degree with honours.
• Some people cannot get it at all. That covers anyone on a benefit they can keep while studying, anyone who gets NZ Super or Veteran's Pension or whose partner does, anyone in prison and anyone over 65.
• At 16 or 17 the routes are narrow. StudyLink's page for 16 and 17-year-olds accepts tertiary students who have a child, who have no relationship with their parents and do not live with them, who have completed Year 13, or who hold 42 NCEA credits at level 3 or an equivalent.

Full-time has a StudyLink meaning, and it is not always your university's. StudyLink's definition works in equivalent full-time student units, or EFTS: a course of 32 to 52 weeks needs at least 0.8 EFTS, and a semester of 16 to 19 weeks needs 0.4. Its EFTS table puts 96 points at 0.8 EFTS, so a year below 120 points can still count.

How much is the Student Allowance each week?

The figures below are the maximums on StudyLink's rates page as of September 2026. StudyLink says they assume an M tax code and may be lower on another code, and that your own income can reduce them, as can your parents' income if you are under 24. Couples have their own rows on the same page.

Payments run a week behind the study they pay for. If you are approved before your course starts, the first weekly payment arrives in the second week of the course and the last one a week after it ends. The allowance keeps paying over breaks of 3 weeks or less, according to StudyLink's page on when payments start.

The Accommodation Benefit

If you get the allowance, the Accommodation Benefit is assessed in the same application and paid with it. If you qualify, it is 60 New Zealand dollars a week. In a hostel it can be up to 60 dollars depending on the hostel, and for sole parents StudyLink uses the same calculation as the Accommodation Supplement. In a home your parents own or pay for, you qualify only in set cases, such as paying market rent or having a child. It never pays the lump-sum fees of a hall of residence.

How do your parents' income and your own pay change it?

Under 24 without children, StudyLink counts your parents' income, whether or not you have a partner. With two parents it uses their joint earnings before tax, against fixed thresholds.

• The rate starts to fall above 72,108.92 New Zealand dollars a year. That is your parents' joint earnings before tax, on StudyLink's two-parent page.
• The cut-off depends on where you live. There is no allowance if their joint earnings while you study are above 131,670.35 dollars and you live with them, or above 141,451.55 dollars if you do not.
• Other students in the family lower the figure. StudyLink deducts 7,000 dollars for each other full-time student aged 16 to 23 your parents support, and 3,400 dollars if your parents live in separate houses.
• A drop in their income can be reassessed. If their income was above 72,108.92 dollars when you were approved and falls by 25 per cent or more, a reassessment before your course finishes can raise your rate from the date it fell.
• Your own pay has a weekly free zone. You can earn up to 284.70 dollars a week before tax; above that, the allowance falls cent for cent.

If you have no parents, or no relationship with them, StudyLink may not count their income at all; the rates table lists the Independent Circumstances Allowance at the same maximum as a student under 24 living away from home. How a part-time job feeds into this week by week is in the guide to working while studying.

What can the Student Loan pay for?

A Student Loan has three parts, and you choose which to take. StudyLink pays the fees part to your university and the other two to you. You repay all of it, and the balance moves to Inland Revenue as soon as the loan is approved and the first payment is made.

• Compulsory course fees go straight to the university. Your provider tells StudyLink the amount. If you or a scholarship pay part of it, that share must be paid before the loan is approved. Otherwise StudyLink pays the full amount, and the provider may have to refund the overpayment to StudyLink.
• Course-related costs stop at 1,000 New Zealand dollars. StudyLink sets that cap per loan account, generally 52 weeks. You claim it in MyStudyLink after returning your loan contract, all at once or in parts, from 14 days before your course starts.
• Living costs stop at 333.48 dollars a week. You need to be full-time and under 55, and you can choose an automatic Consumer Price Index adjustment each 1 April, the living costs page says.
• The allowance and living costs share one ceiling. If your allowance is below 333.48 dollars, living costs top you up to that total. If it is above, you get no living costs.
• A one-off establishment fee of 60 dollars applies. It is added to your balance once a payment is made.
• Some costs are never covered. These include lump-sum hostel or hall fees, late enrolment penalties, charges for paying by instalments, and optional fees such as student association fees.

Age changes the package too: at 55 or over the loan covers compulsory fees only, and under 18 a parent has to give permission. The table sets the two schemes side by side.

One more scheme sits beside these two. Fees Free now pays toward final-year fees only and ends on 31 December 2026; the NCEA to university guide explains who can still claim it.

What happens when you fail papers or courses?

Both schemes check your results when you ask for the next allowance or loan, and both count in EFTS rather than grades. StudyLink usually treats a 15-point paper or course as 0.125 EFTS.

The allowance rule

• Pass more than half of a full-time load. StudyLink's passing requirement looks at the last course you had an allowance for. For study of 32 to 52 weeks you must pass more than 0.4 EFTS, whatever load you took; for a semester of 16 to 19 weeks, more than 0.2 EFTS.
• Limited full-time is measured on what you took. If StudyLink approved you as limited full-time, you must pass more than half of the EFTS you studied: more than 0.3 of 0.6, in its example.
• Some reasons do not count against you. A serious illness, an accident with time in hospital or a civil defence emergency can be accepted with evidence. Pregnancy, not being able to afford study and losing interest are not.
• Otherwise you earn it back. You regain the allowance by passing more than half of another approved course without an allowance, on a loan for example. Where you withdrew before the exam period began, repaying the full allowance for that course also restores it: within 12 months of the start for a course of 32 weeks or more, and before the end date for a shorter one.

The loan rule

The loan test starts later and looks further back. Once you have studied 1.6 EFTS since your first loan after December 2008, about 192 points or two years of full-time study, you must have passed at least half of all your study in the last 5 years. The window rolls forward each year. If you fall short without a good reason, you either stop and wait until old results leave the window, or keep studying without a loan until your record meets the test. StudyLink may also leave out a course you withdrew from with a full fee refund, or a paper or semester you withdrew from.

Payments can stop before any result is in. StudyLink expects you to meet your course requirements by attending classes, lectures or tutorials and handing in work. Your provider tells StudyLink when you are not, payments stop from that date, and a long gap can leave you with a debt. The last dates for withdrawing with a fee refund are in the academic year guide.

Is there a limit on how long you can get them?

Both are lifetime limits, so earlier study still counts when you come back.

• The allowance stops at 200 weeks if you are under 40. That is about 5 years of tertiary study. Over 40 the limit is 120 weeks, about 3 years, including weeks you had before.
• The allowance can be extended. A serious illness, an accident or a civil defence emergency that stopped you finishing inside the limit can earn more weeks, with a form and evidence.
• The loan stops at 7 EFTS. StudyLink puts that at around 840 points, or 7 to 8 years of full-time study, counting every loan since 2010 that paid fees, course-related costs or living costs.
• Three kinds of study can go past 7 EFTS. A postgraduate qualification begun before the limit can get up to 1 more EFTS. Medicine and surgery at Auckland or Otago, optometry at Auckland, veterinary science at Massey and dental surgery at Otago can get up to 3, and so can a doctorate.

MyStudyLink shows how many allowance weeks you have used, back to 1999, and how many EFTS your loans have covered.

How and when do you apply?

You apply online, and you can do it before you have settled on a university or a course. StudyLink's guide for first-time applicants asks for your bank details, IRD number, email address and approximate study dates, plus your parents' income if you are under 24. Its current campaign says that applying by 16 December gives you the best chance of being sorted before your course starts, and that later applications are still accepted.

1. Create a RealMe login if you do not already have one.
2. Complete the eligibility test. Your answers carry into the application and are saved for 5 days.
3. Complete the online application, saving as you go. An unsubmitted form is deleted after 59 days.
4. Sign the loan contract and send the documents StudyLink asks for. They must arrive before your course ends, or the application is declined.
5. Enrol fully at your university. StudyLink confirms your enrolment with the provider, and it can only do that once you are fully enrolled.

Apply after your course has started and StudyLink can only pay you from the date you submit, so a late application loses the weeks in between. Both schemes need a new application for each year you study, and in your last year at school you do not need to wait for NCEA results before applying.

The summer break

The allowance cannot be paid over a break longer than 3 weeks, and loan payments may stop too, StudyLink's page on study breaks says. The fallback is Jobseeker Support Student Hardship. StudyLink asks you to apply 4 weeks before the break; you must register with Student Job Search and look for full-time work of at least 30 hours a week, and there is usually a one-week stand-down. A StudyLink news item of 14 May 2026 describes a proposed Parental Assistance Test for most 18 and 19-year-olds from 2 November 2026, subject to the Bill passing, and StudyLink's news page still lists it as proposed in September 2026. Summer School can sometimes be added to an existing application if the total stays within 52 weeks.

What changes for part-time and postgraduate students?

Part-time study mostly narrows the loan to fees. StudyLink's part-time page says a part-time student may get only compulsory course fees unless StudyLink classes them as limited full-time. A part-time course of under 32 weeks needs at least 0.25 EFTS even for fees.

• Limited full-time restores the full package. With it you may get all three parts of the loan and the allowance.
• The grounds are set in advance. You study part-time with your provider's support because of a medical condition, a reason you cannot control such as a disability, or your academic best interests; or you are finishing an approved course you started while studying more than half of a full-time load.
• The provider signs the application. You and an authorised staff member there complete the limited full-time form.
• Postgraduate study gets the loan, not the allowance. StudyLink's postgraduate page treats level 8 and above as postgraduate and pays the allowance only for a bachelor's degree with honours, inside the 200-week limit.

A course offered only part-time usually does not qualify for limited full-time. The master's, diploma and PhD routes, with their fees and entry grades, are in the postgraduate study guide.

How do you pay the loan back?

Inland Revenue manages the balance from the first payment. Its repayment page sets the rule: you repay 12 per cent of every dollar you earn above the repayment threshold, which it gives as 24,128 New Zealand dollars for the 2026 tax year; Inland Revenue's page for other income dates that year as 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. StudyLink's income page uses the same figure today and says it applies even while you are still studying.

• The threshold is split by pay period. It is 464 dollars a week, 928 a fortnight, 1,856 every 4 weeks and 2,010.66 a month.
• Your main job repays only above that line. In Inland Revenue's example, 600 dollars a week before tax repays 16.32 dollars.
• A second job repays on every dollar. The main job uses up the threshold, so a secondary job repays 12 per cent of all its pay. If your main job pays under the threshold, a special deduction rate can move the unused part across.
• Students with a holiday job can switch deductions off. A repayment deduction exemption covers full-time students who expect to earn under the annual threshold, and it runs until 31 March.
• The loan is interest-free while you are New Zealand-based. Inland Revenue charges overseas-based borrowers interest, 5.6 per cent for the 2027 tax year. A 40-dollar administration fee applies if you owe 20 dollars or more at 31 March, except in the year of the establishment fee.

Inland Revenue says you must add SL to your tax code once you have a loan and earn a salary or wages; it is what tells an employer to deduct repayments. StudyLink says you need to contact Inland Revenue before you leave New Zealand.

Where Notibo fits

None of the money above depends on a study app, and on an allowance-sized budget it makes sense to know what a tool costs before you rely on it. Notibo records a lecture on a computer, or takes an audio file you upload, and returns a transcript and structured notes. You get Pro free for 14 days, with 240 minutes of audio, and no card is asked for. After those 14 days the free plan gives you 30 minutes of audio a month. Flashcards with spaced repetition from a recording come with Pro, at 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year; the local amount is shown at checkout. Record a lecture only where your university and lecturer allow it, as the guide to recording lectures in New Zealand explains.