Applications to Round Tahi, our first funding round of the 2025/26 financial year, close next week on Thursday 22 May at 4pm.
For many of you this may be the first time applying in the new NZ On Air Portal – this is where applicants will now submit their applications, as well as manage drawdowns and do all their invoicing.
If you are planning to apply for funding in Round Tahi, please firstly make sure you are signed up in the new portal. Only applications submitted through this portal will be accepted. You can find the link to sign up here.
The portal has been designed to be as straightforward and intuitive as possible. However, we would recommend you give yourself plenty of time to submit your application in the new portal as late applications will not be considered.
To help you, there are some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on our website which you can find here. Or, if your question can’t be answered there, you can email us at portal@nzonair.govt.nz.
(Please remember, if you are a Music applicant, signing up in the new portal only applies to New Music Project, New Music Project Kids and Music Features rounds which previously used Tahua for funding applications.)
Webinar
We held an Applicant Information webinar for Round Tahi webinar on 24 April where the NZ On Air Funding team went through the priorities for this round and answered questions on Round Tahi. If you missed that webinar, you can find a recording of it here on our website.
We also held a portal webinar where stakeholders could learn more about using and applying in the new NZ On Air portal. This webinar been broken up into three sections – General, New Music Project and Invoicing – and the links to those three recordings can be found at the top of the portal FAQs.
2025-26 Funding Priorities
Just a reminder that we have also recently published a 2025-26 Funding Priorities: Advance Planning Guide for Scripted and Non-fiction content which is available here on our website.
This is the first time we have produced this guide. It was in response to requests from our stakeholders for more advance warning on the key priorities and project funding allocations for the year ahead.
Please do note, however, that the projected funding allocations are based on our 2024/25 baseline funding. Following Budget 2025/26 next week, any changes to our funding will be considered and funding allocations will be updated accordingly. This document does not confirm or pre-empt any potential changes to funding levels under Budget 2025/26.
More information
If you have any questions, check out our funding pages or email us at communications@nzonair.govt.nz.