When ACC Weekly Compensation Stops: What Actually Happens
ACC weekly compensation does not run until you feel better. It ends for a defined set of reasons, and the one that ends long claims is a vocational independence determination. Under section 112 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, if ACC determines you have vocational independence you lose your entitlement to weekly compensation three months after the date you are notified. The part almost nobody explains: under section 133 an ACC decision stays in full effect even after you apply for a review of it. Lodging a review does not keep the payments coming while the dispute runs.
This guide sets out each way payments stop, what notice the law requires, what a vocational independence assessment actually involves, and the review and appeal path.
Every reason ACC can stop weekly compensation
| Why payments stop | What sits behind it |
|---|---|
| You can do your pre-injury job again | Your incapacity ends when you are no longer unable, because of your injury, to engage in the employment you were in when you were injured (s103(2)) |
| Your incapacity is no longer injury related | ACC establishes that non-injury issues are causing the incapacity (ACC weekly compensation guide) |
| A vocational independence determination | You are assessed as having capacity to work 30 hours or more a week in work you are suited to (s6 definition) |
| You do not take part in rehabilitation | ACC may decline an entitlement for as long as you unreasonably refuse or fail to comply with the Act, undergo treatment, or comply with your rehabilitation plan (s117(3)) |
| ACC is not satisfied you remain entitled | ACC may suspend or cancel an entitlement, and must give written notice a reasonable period before the proposed start date (s117(1) and (2)) |
| You reach New Zealand Superannuation qualification age | If you have been entitled for 24 months or longer before reaching that age, you lose entitlement on reaching it (Schedule 1, clause 52) |
| Prison sentence, or death | Both are listed as endpoints in ACC's weekly compensation guidance |
Note the age rule cuts both ways. If you first become entitled less than 24 months before reaching New Zealand Superannuation qualification age, or on or after it, you are entitled to weekly compensation for 24 months from the date of entitlement (Schedule 1, clause 52). That age is 65 under section 7 of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001.
The quiet one: your medical certificate lapses
Most unexpected payment stops are not a decision at all. They are an administrative gap. A GP or nurse practitioner can certify you on the initial ACC45 claim form for a maximum of 14 days, and an ACC18 is used to certify beyond that first period, according to ACC's guidance for providers. If your certificate runs out and a new one has not reached ACC, there is nothing on file supporting continued incapacity.
The obligation is on you as well as your doctor. Under section 72 a claimant receiving an entitlement must, when reasonably required, give ACC a certificate from a registered health professional, provide other relevant information, and undergo assessment at ACC's expense. ACC's own recovery guidance is blunt about the practical step: visit your GP before your medical certificate expires, not after.
Fitness for work is a spectrum, not a switch
A doctor can certify you as fully unfit, fit for selected work, or fully fit. Being certified fit for selected work does not end your claim. ACC states that it pays weekly compensation of up to 80% of your earnings, that you do not need a fully unfit certificate to receive it, and that if you return on reduced hours or different duties your employer pays for those hours while ACC reduces its payment so the combined total does not exceed 100% of your pre-injury income.
That abatement mechanic is where a lot of income quietly disappears before any formal decision is made. You must report your hours and earnings each week, and ACC recalculates. Payments then usually stop, per ACC's guidance for employees, when you are able to return to the job you were doing before your injury or your health provider says you are able to.
Vocational independence: the assessment that ends the claim
Vocational independence is the statutory test for ending a long-running claim. It means your capacity, as determined under section 107, to engage in work you are suited to by reason of experience, education or training, and for 30 hours or more a week (section 6). Note what it does not require: that the work exists near you, that anyone will hire you, or that it pays what you used to earn.
The assessment has two parts, both at ACC's expense (section 107(2)):
- An occupational assessment. The assessor reviews your rehabilitation plan, discusses with you all the types of work identified as suitable, and must take into account your earnings before your incapacity (Schedule 1, clause 25).
- A medical assessment. A doctor must take into account ACC's information, your rehabilitation plan, prior medical reports, the occupational assessor's report, a clinical examination of you, and any information you ask them to consider (Schedule 1, clause 28).
The medical assessor's report must give an opinion on your vocational independence in relation to each work type the occupational assessor identified, and must record comments you made (Schedule 1, clause 29). ACC describes the same two-step process and confirms the doctor is considering work options you could do 30 hours or more per week in.
Two protections are worth knowing. ACC must give you written notice stating the purpose, nature and effect of the assessment, that you are required to participate, the consequences of not doing so, and your right to be accompanied by another person (section 110(1) and (2)). ACC also must not require you to participate unless you are likely to achieve vocational independence, and not until you have completed any vocational rehabilitation it was liable to provide under your plan (section 110(3)).
The three months, and what they are counted from
The notice period runs from notification, not from the assessment or the report. You lose entitlement three months after the date you are notified of the determination (section 112). A determination of vocational independence is treated as a determination that you no longer have an incapacity for employment (section 111).
It is not necessarily permanent. ACC may reassess at reasonable intervals, and must reassess if it believes, or has reasonable grounds to believe, that your vocational independence may have deteriorated due to the injuries previously assessed (section 109). If ACC then determines you no longer have vocational independence, you regain entitlement at the higher of your previous adjusted rate or a freshly calculated rate (section 113).
If you disagree: review, then the District Court
| Step | Time limit |
|---|---|
| Apply to ACC for a review | Within 3 months of the decision (s135(2)(f)), on the ACC33 form or by letter (ACC) |
| Hearing date set | If no date is set within 3 months of ACC receiving your application, and you did not cause the delay, the decision is deemed in your favour (s146) |
| Reviewer's decision | Within 28 days after the hearing finishes (s144(1)) |
| Appeal to the District Court | Notice must reach the registry within 28 days of the review decision (s151(3)) |
| Appeal to the High Court on a question of law | Leave must be sought within 21 days of the District Court decision (s162(2)) |
A reviewer must put ACC's decision aside and look at the matter afresh on the substantive merits, then dismiss, modify or quash it (section 145). ACC meets the reviewer's costs, and the reviewer must award you costs and expenses if the decision goes fully or partly in your favour (section 148). Late review applications must be accepted where extenuating circumstances affected your ability to meet the time limit (section 135(3)).
Now the hard part. Because the decision continues in full effect while the review runs (section 133(1)), your payments stop on the scheduled date even if your review is unresolved. A review lodged the day you are notified can still be waiting for a hearing well after the money has gone.
The income cliff
Weekly compensation does not taper. On the cessation date it goes to zero in a single step, and it was already only a partial replacement of your earnings. It was also taxed on the way in, because ACC compensation has tax deducted before you are paid, according to Inland Revenue. The gross figure you were living on was never the figure that arrived.
Three months of notice sounds generous until you are the person planning around it while also being told you are fit for 30 hours a week of work you have not yet found. That is the gap worth understanding before you are in it, and it is a different gap from the one covered in our guide to what ACC does not cover.
Where private income protection works differently
A private income protection policy is a contract, not a statutory scheme, so the terms that decide when payments end are written into the policy rather than set by the 30-hour vocational independence test. The variables that matter are the occupation definition, the waiting period and the benefit period, and they differ between insurers. Two structural choices also shape what the cover does over time: stepped versus level premiums and agreed value versus indemnity.
The other structural difference is the trigger. ACC responds to injury. Illness sits outside it entirely, which is set out in our comparison of ACC and private cover and in the broader ACC gap explainer. If your household plan assumes ACC will carry you, it is worth testing that assumption against the rules above.
Your next step
If ACC payments have stopped, or you have been told a vocational independence assessment is coming, the first job is to understand what your own cover already does and where the gap sits. Our free cover check compares what you have against what the market offers and puts you in a conversation with an adviser. It is a comparison and a conversation, not a quote or an outcome.
Sources
- Accident Compensation Act 2001, sections 103 to 117
- Accident Compensation Act 2001, sections 133 to 162
- Accident Compensation Act 2001, Schedule 1, clauses 24 to 29 and clause 52
- New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001, section 7
- ACC: How weekly compensation payments work
- ACC: Finding alternative employment after an injury
- ACC: Issuing medical certificates
- ACC: Request an independent review
- Inland Revenue: My income is taxed before I get paid
Statutory references were checked against the version of the Accident Compensation Act 2001 in force at 10 July 2026.
Disclaimer
This article is general information about how the accident compensation scheme operates. It is not personalised financial advice and it is not legal advice about your claim. Your entitlements depend on your own circumstances, your cover decision and your medical evidence. QuoteHub is a brand of Craig Smith Business Services Limited, a licensed Financial Advice Provider, FSP712931.
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