Over the weekend of 6 and 7 December 2025, we implemented a fix to the student loan system to correct an error in the way student loan interest has been calculated on some customers' accounts.
Student loan customers will not have an unexpected bill to pay due to this error. We have notified customers who will receive a refund, or whose status has been updated to correctly reflect where they are living.
What this means for student loan customers
If you are affected by the error, you may:
- get a refund or have a credit applied to your loan balance
- see on your student loan statement that interest has been applied and then written off
- notice your status change from being New Zealand-based to being an overseas-based borrower, or the other way around.
To check your student loan details, log in to myIR and click on 'View loan breakdown'. If you are affected by this error, you will see a transaction on 6 or 7 December.
If you do not have a myIR account, you can register on our website.
https://www.ird.govt.nz/myir-help/register-account
Common questions
We discovered that we had incorrectly calculated interest on some student loan accounts. We have fixed the error and credited the student loan accounts with the overcharged amount. For those who have paid off their loan, we have issued a refund.
No. If the customer still has a student loan balance, the credit will be applied to their student loan account. If they have already paid off their student loan, they will receive the amount as a refund.
No. Refunds due to this student loan error will not be used to repay other existing debt with Inland Revenue.
We will let customers know in the following ways.
- Customers who receive a credit can view this in their myIR account.
- Customers who receive a refund will be notified by letter or in their myIR account.
- Customers who have had their status changed will receive an updated notice of assessment.
- Customers who have interest added then written off will be notified in their Annual Statement (due April 2026) and can see these transactions in myIR now.
As part of the fix, we discovered that some customers were not correctly registered as living overseas. We have updated their status to reflect where they live (New Zealand-based or overseas-based) and will send them an updated notice of assessment for each year that their status has changed.
We will be writing off interest that has been added to a group of customers' accounts due to this error. These customers were not aware of the error or missing interest.
When the fix was applied to this group, interest was added to their balance. We have then written off (removed) this interest, as these customers had been managing their accounts based on the information we had provided to them.
If you are based outside New Zealand for 184 days (6 months) or more, you are generally considered an overseas-based borrower and are required to notify Inland Revenue. You can do this by sending us a message in myIR.
To view your international travel details, log in to myIR. Under the student loan section, select 'More...' then click on 'View international travel dates'.
If the details are wrong, send us a message in myIR. You can find out more on our website.
Going overseas or returning to New Zealand
You can also find out how to contact us.
The main reason was that the customer did not inform us they had moved overseas. It was not until we did this fix that we could match their details as being overseas.
If you have any questions about managing your loan from overseas, you can find out more on our website.
Repaying my student loan when I live overseas
You can also contact us.
Part of this error relates back to before our system upgrades through our business transformation. In 2020, as part of the transformation, student loan accounts were moved from an old system into START, our new system. This was extremely complex and with complexity errors can arise. Some errors take time to be discovered and appropriate fixes to be worked through.