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 couldn’t 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.
