From first-home buyers to people experiencing financial hardship, New Zealanders are diving into their KiwiSaver accounts to make early withdrawals - with May hitting a new monthly record high of $234 million.
In May, 9420 KiwiSaver members made withdrawals totalling $234,192,710.
This data comes from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) which tracks monthly KiwiSaver statistics.
About 4940 people had withdrawn $44,233,844 because of financial hardship, according to IRD data, and there were 4490 people who made a total early withdrawal of $189,958,866 to buy their first houses - this was also a new monthly record high for home ownership withdrawals.
For the number of KiwiSaver fund withdrawals, IRD rounds up to the nearest 10.
The previous monthly record high was in March with withdrawals over $225 million.
People usually withdraw money from their KiwiSaver when they reach 65, which is retirement age, but you can also apply for early withdrawals to buy your first house or because of financial hardship.
From May 2024 to May 2025, withdrawals for first houses had gone up $40.1 million and financial hardship withdrawals had increased by $11.5 million.
In May, there were 84,202 savings suspensions - this is when people temporarily stop their contributions. Of those, 1052 stopped their contributions due to financial hardship.
As of May, 789,952 members had their accounts closed or chose to opt out of KiwiSaver. Of this, 602,195 members had closed their accounts while 187,757 chose to opt out.
Members usually have their accounts closed because of death, permanently leaving the country, retirement, serious illness or other reasons.
When it came to KiwiSaver scheme entry methods, 651,751 people were in default allocated schemes, 211,231 were in employer nominated schemes and 2,528,957 had actively chosen their schemes in May.
At 740,304 - the 25 to 34 age demographic had the largest number of KiwiSaver members. The 35 to 44 age category follows with 734,103 members.
May was also the month when 3331 people became active or provisional (you have eight weeks before you can choose to opt out) KiwiSaver members. There are a total of 3,401,607 active or provisional KiwiSaver members, IRD data shows.
Changes for KiwiSaver
On Budget Day, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced changes to KiwiSaver including:
- increasing employer and employee contribution rates from 3% to 3.5% from April 2026. This will move to 4% in April 2028
- KiwiSaver members can choose to stay at the current 3% rate and still be matched at this rate by their employer
From July, some changes are already in place
People aged 16 and 17 are now eligible for KiwiSaver so they can access employer and Government contributions.
The Government’s contribution rate has also gone down to 25 cents for each dollar a member contributes. This was previously 50 cents for each dollar.
To get the Government’s full contribution of $260.72, people need to put in at least $1042.86 of their own money between July 1 to June 30 each year.
5 Comments
Which illustrates the folly of pretending that KiwiSaver is the future of superannuation. It's just a nice-to-have for those who can afford to contribute to it ... and leave it alone till they hit 65.
We need a firm commitment by all political parties to our existing NZ Superannuation as the universal retirement social welfare benefit. To keep it affordable a surtax will have to be imposed on all other income of those who sign up for it.
We need means testing, land tax and income tax reform or we will not be able to afford universal super. Period
A $2.5b injection pulled from the future into the economy for the 12 months. Sums up our economic system to a tee.
But hey, those never-ending capital gains are great right? Until they're not, and people pull not only their current kiwisaver, but in doing so kill all future gains made under their kiwisaver at that level, just to keep their overpriced house. Once again, unproductive housing investment saps from the economy for the benefit of the bankers and the wealthy.
In macro-economics government deficit spending is a net contributor to private sector income and savings. When government spending contracts the private sector has to drawn down savings or take on debt to maintain its economic position. Which is what is happening now in NZ without the taking on debt part - ergo 0 growth, falling investment and rising unemployment.
Standard Keynesian economics that has been known since the 1930's but no-one in NZ discusses it - I have no understanding of why that is. Do NZ economist read or learn anything about macro-economics?
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