The Government has announced changes to Total Mobility funding settings to ensure the continued financial viability of the scheme.
The Government has decided to:
- reduce the fare subsidy from the current 75 percent down to 65 percent, starting from 1 July 2026. This means that Total Mobility users will pay the remaining 35 percent of fares from the middle of 2026.
- work with public transport authorities to lower the regional fare caps and the maximum subsidy by approximately 10 percent.
The Government will also provide some additional funding to public transport authorities to reduce their funding shortfalls and support them to stay fully within the scheme, starting from 2025/26. This additional support to public transport authorities will come from within the existing Government funding for Total Mobility.
These changes aim to strike a balance between managing overall costs – which are increasing unsustainably – the impact on users, and ensuring the scheme can continue in a nationally consistent way.
The Government has also announced a public consultation on proposals to strengthen Total Mobility. The consultation has opened and will close on 22 March 2026.
Alternate formats of the consultation materials are being prepared and will be made available on the Ministry of Transport website as soon as they are ready.
Read more about the consultation and provide feedback at https://www.transport.govt.nz/consultations/proposals-to-strengthen-total-mobility and https://tinyurl.com/3nhj2z2s.
Read the Transport Minister’s media statement at the Beehive website: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/.
Please note that the Transport Minister’s media statement is not available in alternate formats.
Review of the Total Mobility scheme