Summarised by Centrist
More than 44,000 New Zealanders withdrew money from KiwiSaver because of financial hardship during the first nine months of 2026, exceeding the number who accessed their savings to buy a first home.
More than 82,000 people tapped their KiwiSaver between January and September, an 8% increase on the same period last year.
Financial hardship accounted for 44,110 withdrawals, up 6.2%. Just over 38,000 people used KiwiSaver for a first-home deposit, a 10.3% increase.
Tella Mortgages chief executive Andrew Chambers said he was “quite shocked” by the numbers. Since late 2023, more people have withdrawn KiwiSaver because of financial strain than to purchase their first home.
Valocity senior analyst Wayne Shum linked the increase to unemployment, which rose from about 3% in 2021/22 to approximately 5% in 2025.
“That lines up with people not being able to get employment and taking money out for financial hardship,” he said.
The average KiwiSaver withdrawal reached $46,060 last month, the second-highest amount recorded.
The peak was $46,113 in July.
Retirement planning expert Liz Koh said accessing KiwiSaver could be preferable to accumulating high-interest short-term debt, but warned that people were sacrificing future retirement savings to address immediate financial problems.
“You might run into a period of financial hardship, but it doesn’t last forever, so I think the key is getting back on track to save for retirement,” she said.
KiwiSaver is also becoming increasingly important to the housing market. First-home buyers accounted for a record 29.5% of property purchases during the three months to September.
Mortgage adviser Claire Williamson said most first-home buyers were not making partial withdrawals.
“It’s pretty rare to see people do a partial withdrawal,” she said, explaining that most were emptying their accounts to assemble a deposit.
Re-published from the Centrist with permission
![[The Good Oil] Stuff Up of the Day](https://storage.ghost.io/c/31/f4/31f4e20a-0315-499e-83ff-139e8eab53bf/content/images/size/w1304/format/webp/2024/09/Stuff-up-image-1.webp)