New Jersey senior homeowners this week will begin receiving the initial installment of enhanced property-tax relief benefits first promised by legislative leaders in 2023.
Such residents with annual incomes of up to $500,000 were made eligible for the $600 million Stay NJ program. The application process began around this time last year.
Enough funding was set aside in the state budget for the current fiscal year to send Stay NJ benefits to more than 430,000 senior homeowners, according to budget documents.
The amount of recipients’ first quarterly installments depends on several factors, including how much they’ve received in other state relief. Stay NJ payments don’t count as income on New Jersey state tax returns.
Stay NJ was named for its intention to help seniors remain in their homes, rather than move out of state to escape New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation property tax bills. The average New Jersey 2025 property tax bill rose by $475, to a record $10,570, according to the latest state data.
Even as the first Stay NJ installments are sent, applications are being distributed for the next round of benefits, according to officials for the state Department of the Treasury.
An estimated 500,000 households will receive paper versions of an application booklet called PAS-1, the officials said. Treasury’s Division of Taxation is also sending postcards to another 162,000 applicants who last year applied online.
Launched last year, the PAS-1 is a single application that allows seniors and disabled homeowners to seek benefits simultaneously through the state-funded Anchor, Senior Freeze and Stay NJ programs. After seniors complained about an onerous sign-up process, the combined form was mandated in a law enacted by then-Gov. Phil Murphy.
The three-in-one application deadline is Nov. 2. More information, including income limits, is available here.
Property taxes are levied at the municipal level in New Jersey, though a sizable portion of the state’s annual budget goes toward offsetting the local levies, which fund key services like K-12 public schools and police and fire departments.
Funding for the direct property-tax relief programs is always dependent on appropriations set by the governor and lawmakers in the annual budget.
For New Jersey’s current fiscal year, more than $4 billion was earmarked for direct property tax relief.
Even as the new applications for relief programs are mailed, funding for those initiatives has yet to be finalized. Such appropriations are dependent on agreements set by the governor and lawmakers prior to the start of each July-to-June fiscal year.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill is to put forth her first annual budget proposal in early March.
It remains to be seen whether Sherrill will seek to revise Stay NJ, which has been criticized by advocates for low-income residents for prioritizing homeowners who make up to $500,000 annually over tenants of little means who struggle to afford ever-rising rents.
Funding questions also continue to cloud Stay NJ’s long-term outlook.
To start the payments in 2026, Murphy and lawmakers set aside funds over several prior years. They decided to spend all those funds in the current fiscal year, though, even as the cost of funding Stay NJ benefits is projected to double in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.
