NZ First Moves to Restrict Pension to Citizens as Ageing Population Drives Up Costs

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters attends a press conference during a Nordic Council Meeting within the framework of the informal foreign and security policy cooperation (N5), in Stockholm, Sweden on October 29, 2025. Claudio Bresciani/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has unveiled a campaign policy that would restrict New Zealand Superannuation, the country’s government-funded pension, to citizens from 2029, reopening a long-running debate over the cost of the country’s universal pension as its population ages.

Under the policy, announced ahead of November’s general election, only New Zealand citizens would qualify for NZ Super after a three-year grace period. The change would end eligibility for non-citizens who currently qualify, including people who hold a resident visa.

Unlike Australia’s means-tested Age Pension, NZ Super is paid fortnightly to eligible people regardless of their income or assets, a design dating to the scheme’s establishment in 1977.

Peters argued that the growing cost of NZ Super, combined with increased migration, was placing an unfair burden on taxpayers.

“With our growing older population and the increasing costs of super on taxpayers, how is it fair that the tax burden of supporting seniors now goes to paying for the full retirement of someone who has migrated to our country and only lived and paid taxes for sometimes less than half of the time compared to those who have worked their whole lives here?” Peters said.

He said the annual cost of NZ Super payments to older migrants had exceeded $1 billion and more than doubled over the past decade.

NZ First said that in December 2025, the New Zealand government was paying about $2 million a week to more than 42,000 people who had become New Zealand residents aged 50 or older. That amounted to more than $1 billion a year, compared with about $500 million in 2015.

The overall cost of NZ Super is also rising as the population ages. Treasury forecasts put spending on the pension at $24.7 billion in the 2025/26 financial year, rising to $31.2 billion by 2029/30 (pdf).

Treasury has warned that an ageing population will place growing pressure on government finances, with higher spending not only on NZ Super but also on healthcare and other services.

Under unchanged policy settings, Treasury has modelled substantial increases in government spending over coming decades and said stabilising NZ Super costs as a share of the economy could eventually require the eligibility age to rise from 65 to 72.

Current rules do not require recipients to be New Zealand citizens. Applicants must have lived in New Zealand for a minimum number of years from age 20, including at least five years since turning 50. The required total is being gradually increased from 10 to 20 years depending on the applicant’s date of birth.

NZ First, a junior partner int he outgoing coalition government, has long campaigned for tighter immigration settings. Its proposed citizenship requirement would represent a significant change to NZ Super eligibility, but remains an election policy rather than government policy and would need to survive both the election and subsequent coalition negotiations before taking effect.