Using SSA countries to meet residence criteria for NZ Super and Veteran's Pension

You need to have lived in New Zealand for a certain amount of time to get NZ Super or Veteran's Pension. If you haven't, you may be able to use a Social Security Agreement (SSA) country to meet this criteria.

Residence criteria

You must have lived in NZ for a certain number of years from age 20. This must include 5 years from age 50.

The total number of years you need is based on your date of birth when you apply. If you're a refugee or protected person, this may be different depending on the age you started living in NZ.

These years (including the 5 years from age 50) do not need to be consecutive.

Using an SSA country to meet residence criteria

If you haven't lived in NZ for the required number of years, you may be able to include time you've spent:

living in a country that NZ has a SSA with, and/or
contributing to a SSA country's pensions scheme.

You can only include time from one of the SSA countries. You cannot combine time across multiple SSA countries.

If you're ordinarily resident in the Cook Islands, Niue or Tokelau when you apply, you usually cannot include time from an SSA country. You may be able to use time from some SSA countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Malta and the Netherlands) if you meet certain criteria. If you want to talk about your situation, contact our International Services team.

How to include time from an SSA country

Some agreements have certain criteria you have to meet if you want to include time from their country.

If you meet the criteria, you can add together your time:

in NZ from age 20, and
from the SSA country from age 20.

This needs to add up to the total number of years you need to meet the residence criteria. The total must include 5 years from age 50 (you can use your time from the SSA country for the 5 years too).

The criteria is outlined further down the page.

If you don't meet residence criteria using SSA country

You may have spent time living in a NZ Realm country - that is the Cook Islands, Niue or Tokelau. If so, you may be able to use this time to meet the residence criteria as well.

If you want to talk about your situation, contact our International Services team.

Criteria you need to meet to include time from an SSA country

Select the SSA country below to find out what time you can include towards the residence criteria.

If you're ordinarily resident in an SSA country when you apply, you can only use time from that country. The exception to this is Jersey and Guernsey, as you can combine time from both of these.

Information

If you want to talk about your situation, contact our International Services team.

Australia

If you meet certain criteria, you can include your time of Australian residence between:

age 20, and
age 67 (the age you qualify for Australian Age Pension).

Australian residence means that while you lived in Australia you either:

were an Australian citizen
had an Australian residence class visa, or
were a NZ citizen with a Special Category visa.

Criteria you need to meet to include the time

To include this time you must:

have been living in Australia (as defined by Centrelink) for 12 months from age 20, of which at least 6 months were continuous, and
be age 67 or older (the age criteria for the Australian Age Pension).

Canada

You can include time you’ve spent:

living in Canada from age 20
contributing to the national insurance scheme in Canada from age 20.

Criteria you need to meet to include this time

To include this time, it needs to be considered a 'Canadian creditable period' by Service Canada.

Overlapping Canadian creditable periods

You may have Canadian creditable periods under the Old Age Security Act and under the Canada Pension Plan. If any of these periods overlap, we’ll only take them into account once.

Denmark

You can include time you've spent living in Denmark (as defined by Udbetaling Danmark) from age 20.

Greece

You can include time you've spent:

living in Greece (as defined by e-EFKA) from age 20
contributing to the national insurance scheme in Greece.

Criteria you need to meet to include the time

If you're ordinarily resident in Greece when you apply for NZ Super, you must meet extra criteria to include this time. You must have been ordinarily resident in NZ for 12 months at any time before you apply for NZ Super.

If you're ordinarily resident in NZ when you apply for NZ Super, you don't need to meet this extra criteria.

Ireland

You can include time you’ve spent contributing to the Irish insurance scheme from age 20.

Jersey/Guernsey

You can include time you’ve spent contributing to the insurance schemes in Jersey or Guernsey.

You must have contributed to either scheme for at least 12 months.

You can also use your partner’s, or former partner’s, time they’ve spent contributing to these insurance schemes.

Malta

You can include time you’ve spent contributing to the insurance scheme in Malta from age 20.

Criteria you need to meet to include the time

To include this time you must:

have at least 1 year of continuous NZ working age residence, and
be ordinarily resident and present in NZ or Malta when you apply for NZ Super.

Definition of NZ working age residence

NZ working age residence means that you were living in NZ between age 20 and 65.

If you were overseas during this time, you may still have NZ working age residence if you were:

employed outside of NZ and your employer deducted and paid income tax to Inland Revenue in NZ, or
with your partner who was employed outside of NZ and was paying NZ income tax on their earnings.

Netherlands

You can include time you've spent contributing to the national insurance scheme in the Netherlands from age 20.

South Korea

You may include time you’ve spent contributing to a Korean scheme from age 20.

Criteria you need to meet to include the time

To include this time you must:

have at least 1 year of continuous NZ working age residence, and
be ordinarily resident and present in NZ or South Korea when you apply for NZ Super.

Definition of NZ working age residence

NZ working age residence means that you were living in NZ between age 20 and 65.

If you were overseas during this time, you may still have NZ working age residence if you were:

employed outside of NZ and your employer deducted and paid income tax to Inland Revenue in NZ, or
with your partner who was employed outside of NZ and was paying NZ income tax on their earnings.

United Kingdom

You can include time you’ve spent living in the UK from age 20.

You can also include time where you:

lived outside of the UK from age 20, and
were paying contributions to the UK National Insurance scheme.