Bond lodgements are now fully digital, and we will be introducing more changes throughout 2025. Find out what this means for you and what you need to do.

Changes coming soon

You must now lodge bonds digitally through our website or by using third-party software that is integrated with our business-to-business connection. In the coming months, we will continue to move more bond transactions online.

More ways to top up your existing bond

For now, you must lodge your top up bonds by using the online form on our website. We will soon introduce this function in our business-to-business connection. This means software vendors can integrate their property management software to allow top up bonds to be lodged via their software.

Bond refunds and other transactions going digital

In the coming months, you will be able to request online for bond refunds and other transactions, such as change of landlord or tenant details. This digital self-service means you will no longer need to fill in paper forms and it will make it easier to manage your bond and keep your bond records up to date.

Pet bonds to be introduced later in 2025

Pet bond transactions will be introduced online by the end of 2025, after the law changes relating to tenants keeping pets takes effect. For now, you cannot charge a pet bond. Also, you cannot charge a pet bond for tenancies that started before the new rules take effect.

There is not yet a date for when the new rules will take effect, this will be set by parliamentary processes (Order in Council) later in 2025. We will provide more information on our website on what it means for you when the new rules take effect.

Tenancy law changes

Keeping up to date

Lodge your bonds online

You must now lodge bonds digitally through our website or by using third-party software that is integrated with our business-to-business connection. Bond lodgements by email or post are no longer accepted.

Lodge your bond online(external link)

If your bond was lodged before 2 December 2024, you do not need to do anything and your bond money will remain safe and secure with us.

Charging a bond

Business-to-business connection for lodging new bonds

Bond lodgements are now available in our business-to-business connection. This means software vendors can integrate their property management software to allow their users to lodge new bonds via their software. This currently does not include the function to top up existing bonds.

There are benefits for landlords and property managers in using third-party software to help manage the tenancies and bond transactions. Software that is integrated with our business-to-business connection may have features such as:

• bulk bond lodgements, or lodging more than 1 bond in a single transaction
• direct debit and direct credit payments.

Lodge your bond using the business-to-business connection

The following software vendors have already integrated with our business-to-business connection:

• Console (ReapIT)(external link)
• Keyhook(external link)
• MRI Palace(external link)
• MyRent(external link)
• Quinovic(external link)
• RentHQ(external link)
• Renti(external link)
• Tenancy(external link)

Software vendors who would like to integrate with our business-to-business connection can subscribe to the Tenancy Bond API through MBIE’s API cloud platform. Read about how to set up and use the API.

Tenancy Bond API – API.business.govt.nz(external link)

Topping up existing bonds

For now, you must lodge your top up bonds by using the online form on our website. Bond top ups by email or post are no longer accepted.

Lodge your bond online(external link)

If you use property management software, top-ups will soon be available through our business-to-business connection. We expect software vendors will have access to this functionality in July 2025. Talk to your software vendor to find out more about the top-up functionality in their software when it is available.

Bond refunds and other transactions

For now, bond refunds and changing information on bond records must still be requested by using the correct paper form. There are updated forms for these requests, download and use the latest version available on our website.

For bonds lodged on or after 2 December 2024, or if your bond number starts with “BN”, you need to submit a copy of the signature page from your tenancy agreement when requesting a bond refund. This is a temporary process until we move bond refunds online later in the year.

Refunding a bond

Changing information on a bond record

Benefits of our changes

The upgrades to the tenancy bond service are all about providing a better service to tenants, landlords and property managers. They will enable us to provide more efficient and effective services to you when lodging, updating or refunding your bond.

Our current system has been in use for 25 years, it is mostly paper based and can take us some time to manually process the information you provide. Moving bond services online will help speed up making bond requests and processing bond transactions. It will also allow for better data accuracy in your bond records.

Landlords and tenants will benefit from real time visibility of their bond status and bond transactions. This means greater consistency in service levels during busy periods. As we continue to roll out new functionalities in the new services, all bond transactions will eventually be streamlined and quicker.

Help and support

If you need help with lodging a bond on the Tenancy Services website, call our Customer Service Centre. We cannot lodge the bond for you over the phone, but we can talk you through how to use the online form.

Customer Service Centre: (Call-free from within New Zealand.)
0800 TENANCY
0800 836 262

If you use property management software, please contact your software vendor for queries about their software and functionalities. They will be able to confirm if and when any new functionality is available, and how it will work in their system.

Keeping up to date

We will be keeping tenants, landlords, property managers and software vendors up to date with our tenancy bond service changes in the coming months. We will be updating our website so you can know what the changes mean for you and if you need to take any actions. Keep an eye on this page for the latest updates.

We will be hosting a series of information sessions online to provide updates in the coming months, as well as attending various sector conference across New Zealand. We look forward to seeing you there and hearing your feedback on our services.

You can subscribe to our Tenancy Matters newsletter or follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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