We make bulk payments to tertiary education organisations (TEOs) to cover the cost of Fees Free enrolments for each calendar year.

How allocations and payments work

For provider-based enrolments, at the start of each year, we use your TEO’s information from prior years to determine your indicative allocation for this calendar year. We create a payment schedule based on that allocation, which usually includes monthly payments. Throughout the year, we monitor your reported delivery. We make adjustment payments in-year as required, if your delivery is trending significantly higher or lower than your allocation for the calendar year.

For work-based enrolments, we pay you each month based on the fees reported and validated for your work-based learners that calendar month.

At the end of each year, after we’ve received your final provider-based and work-based first-year Fees Free returns, we complete a wash-up of all Fees Free allocations and make a final payment or recovery, so that your final allocation matches your delivery for the year.

Find out more about your allocations and payments

All information on your organisation’s allocations can be found in the My Allocations and Payments application in DXP Ngā Kete:

My Allocations and Payments

To see how we calculated your 2025 allocation, read the 2025 methodology:

2025 Global Indicative Allocation Methodology (PDF 1 MB)

To see how we will calculate your 2025 wash-ups, read the 2025 wash-up methodology:

Funding wash-ups by year

You have until 30 April 2026 to finalise your first-year Fees Free reporting for 2018 to 2025. This includes correcting any outstanding errors, and adding any learners that have been missed. Remember to check for a Single Data Return (SDR) and/or Industry Training Register (ITR) reconciliation report in Workspace 2, which will help you identify any eligible learners that have been missed.

If you need any help with your reporting or errors, check the reporting guides, or contact us for assistance.

Guidance – first-year Fees Free

We’ll run a final validation of your first-year data in May 2026 and make final payments. After this, we won’t be able to make any further Fees Free allocation changes, so it’s important that you ensure your data is complete and accurate before 30 April 2026. TEOs will not be able to charge learners for fees that would have been eligible for Fees Free, where we did not make payment because of an error or delay in your reporting.

How to check learners’ eligibility for Fees Free

Eligibility statuses can change daily based on statutory declarations, eligibility appeals, and other information submitted to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). It’s important to check the eligibility status of your learners regularly, so that you can report eligible enrolments to us.

You can check learners’ eligibility status through Workspace 2, or by emailing us.

Checking learner eligibility on Workspace 2

On the home page of Workspace 2, there is a Shared Documents section. Here, you’ll find several Fees Free Eligibility CSV files that list all eligible learners (those with a “Yes” or “Starter” status) that have remaining Fees Free entitlement, for each calendar year. These are the learners you will need to report for Fees Free.

If a learner is not on this list, then:

• they are ineligible for Fees Free, or
• their status is "Unknown", or
• they are eligible but have already used their full entitlement in a previous year.

There is a different file for each calendar year. Please check a learner’s eligibility status for the year they started their study or training.

The 2018 to 2024 files are updated daily, and the 2025 file is updated monthly.

Workspace 2

Checking learner eligibility by email

For large numbers of learners, you may wish to send a CSV file containing a list of National Student Numbers (NSNs) enrolled with your organisation in the current calendar year to customerservice@tec.govt.nz.

We’ll return this file to you with the learners’ eligibility statuses within two business days and give you the status of every learner enrolled with your TEO, whether the learner is eligible or not.

Reporting

As with other funds, you must report your Fees Free eligible enrolments to us so that we can monitor Fees Free entitlement use, and calculate the allocation due to you for each enrolled learner.

Reporting provider-based study

Each month, we provide you with a blank Fees Free All Enrolments and Costs template on Workspace 2, which you should use to report all your eligible Fees Free enrolments, to date, for the calendar year.

We email the lead contact and the data return contacts for each TEO at the start of each reporting round. You can also find the dates of the reporting rounds in the TEC business calendar.

When you submit your returns to us, we validate the information and send you two reports in return. One lets you know any errors we have found in your return (the Fees Free All Enrolments and Costs Data Validation report). The other tells you how much we intend to allocate to you for each learner you have reported to us (the Fees Free Multiple Providers and Cap Limit report). For guides to help you fill in and understand your reports, see Guidance – first-year Fees Free.

If you have any questions, please contact your Relationship Manager or Advisor, or the Customer Contact Team on 0800 601 301 or customerservice@tec.govt.nz.

Reporting work-based training

Each month, we give you a blank Fees Free Programmes and Fees template on Workspace 2, which you use to report the fees you are charging for eligible learners in that month.

You also receive a Fees Free Schedule of Fees, which you need to fill in the first time you report to us. After that, you should only fill it in when you make changes. The Schedule of Fees is a complete list of fees that you charge to learners enrolled in eligible programmes. We use it to help us validate the information you submit in your Programmes and Fees return.

We email the lead contact and the data return contacts for each organisation at the beginning of each reporting round. You can also find the dates of the reporting rounds in the TEC business calendar.

When you submit your returns to us, we validate the information and send you a Remittance. This lets you know any errors we have found in your return, and tells you how much we intend to allocate to you for each learner you have reported to us. For guides to help you fill in and understand your reports, see Guidance – first-year Fees Free.

If you have any questions, please contact your Relationship Manager or Advisor, or the Customer Contact Team on 0800 601 301 or customerservice@tec.govt.nz.