Unclaimed money and inactive accounts

If you received a message from us about unclaimed money or inactive accounts, you’ll need to reactivate your account by the deadline given, or your funds may be transferred to Inland Revenue (in accordance with the Unclaimed Money Act 1971).

Reactivate your account

Reactivating your account

Complete our online form

Fill out the form below. You’ll need to provide your reactivation code, which is on the letter, email, or SMS we sent you.

Complete the form

What happens to the funds

If you haven’t checked your balance or transacted on your bank account or term deposit for five years or more, or you haven’t contacted us during this time, we will close your account and transfer the funds to Inland Revenue.^ Once we have transferred money to Inland Revenue, you’ll need to contact ird.govt.nz to claim it back.

Before we transfer money to Inland Revenue, we’ll notify you by letter, email, SMS and/or phone (depending on the contact information we have for you on file) that your account will be closed if you don’t take steps to reactivate it.

If the balance in your account(s) is $100 or less, we’ll donate these amounts to charity instead. Once the funds are donated, you’ll need to contact BNZ if you’d like this money back.

Bank accounts

We will pay Inland Revenue unclaimed money in a bank account where all the following apply;

  • a bank account has not been touched for five years 
  • an account owner has not interacted^ with us on other matters 
  • we haven’t been able to contact the account owner.

Term deposits

We will pay Inland Revenue unclaimed money in a term deposit where all the following apply; 

  • we haven’t heard from the account owner for five years or more after the end of the first period for which the term deposit funds were invested
  • an account owner has not interacted with us on other matters
  • we haven’t been able to contact the account owner.

Keeping your account open

You can keep your account open by:

Reactivate your account

Only one reactivation code can be used per form. The form can be completed by: 

  • an individual who is named as the account authority
  • any authorised person listed on the account authority, for non-personal entities, such as companies and trusts
  • any joint account holder, on behalf of all joint account holders
  • a parent or guardian, for accounts held by a minor.
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