ANCHOR payments started Sept. 15, most within 90 days of filing. The June budget changed Stay NJ's income tiers, ended the $250 senior homeowner bonus and left three programs applying to one tax bill in a fixed order.

ANCHOR, New Jersey's largest property tax relief program, started paying out this week. The state Division of Taxation began sending the money September 15; it continues in waves as applications are processed, most within about 90 days.

The Affordable New Jersey Communities for Homeowners and Renters program pays homeowners making up to $150,000 a year $1,500 and those making up to $250,000 $1,000. Renters receive $450 — $700 for those 65 and older. None of it comes off the tax bill: the state measures each benefit against the property taxes a household paid — or rent, for renters — and sends the money separately.

The bonus does not break evenly this year. Senior homeowners used to receive a $250 bonus on top of the tier amounts; the budget signed in June let it lapse; the Division of Taxation has said Stay NJ would carry that relief instead. Senior renters kept theirs — the $250 is the difference between $450 and $700. A bill to make the bonus permanent for both groups, introduced in May by State Sen. Carmen Amato Jr. (R, 9th District), sits in the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee.

A household that gets a letter and needs no changes does not have to do anything — the money arrives by direct deposit or paper check. Seniors who filed the combined application themselves are in the first payment wave, Division of Taxation Director Marita Sciarrotta said in an interview with WHYY. Households that the division filed for automatically, most of them under 65, should see payments around October 15.

June budget law rewrote the terms

New Jersey's property tax bills are the highest in the nation — the only state where the average tops $10,000. The average bill hit a record $10,570 for 2025, up 4.7 percent over 2024, according to NJ Spotlight News.

Stay NJ, the state's newest relief program, pays senior homeowners half of up to $13,000 in property taxes on their home, minus whatever ANCHOR and Senior Freeze already paid. The 2023 law set the cap at $6,500 for seniors earning up to $500,000. This spring Governor Mikie Sherrill proposed cutting the cap to $4,000, calling the change an effort "to safeguard Stay NJ for middle class seniors." Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D, 19th District) called the proposed cap "too low."

The Legislature sent her a budget that set the Stay NJ income ceiling at $250,000 and capped combined relief from the three programs at $2,000 across the first two quarters of 2027.

Sherrill signed the budget June 30, striking the $2,000 cap by line-item veto and substituting a $200,000 income ceiling. The final terms set three tiers: for incomes of $100,000 or less, the benefit tops out at $6,500, stepping down to $5,000 at $150,000 and $4,000 at $200,000. Each tier pays half the property tax bill, capped at those amounts. Her office called the final package "record property tax relief."

The budget puts $2.186 billion into ANCHOR and $756 million into Stay NJ, with $345 million going to Senior Freeze — the largest pieces of a broader $4.1 billion relief envelope. Coughlin said the final deal keeps Stay NJ "so that homeowners can count on that benefit being there for them."

Treasury officials told the Assembly Budget Committee in written answers that keeping the maximum at $6,500 while trimming the income ceiling as the governor proposed would have pushed the cost up by $344 million to $372 million. Holding the line near $600 million, according to the office, would have meant cutting the ceiling to roughly $125,000. "They just cut $500 million out of that program," Senate Republican Leader Anthony Bucco (R, 25th District) said in March, when Sherrill first proposed shrinking Stay NJ.

AARP had praised an earlier version of the deal, then called the final budget a disappointment. "We are disappointed that it falls short of maintaining the full Stay NJ property tax relief benefit that older New Jerseyans were promised for 2026," state director Chris Widelo said in a statement. He cited "a 25 percent reduction in this year's Stay NJ benefit across the board" and "the lack of transparency surrounding the final budget negotiations." Older New Jerseyans, he said, "deserve certainty—not shifting promises that make it difficult to plan their finances."

New Jersey Policy Perspective faulted the budget process but praised the Stay NJ restructuring for keeping "very-high-income households" from receiving the relief. Senior policy analyst Peter Chen called the remaining exclusion of renters "a real problem" and warned the program may not last — by his count, even after the changes, it is still expected to run above $740 million a year in a state carrying a structural deficit.

Whether the three programs ever consolidate is an open question. The 2023 law that created Stay NJ also commissioned a task force to study merging the programs into one; its report landed May 30, 2024, and nothing has happened with it since.

The money moves in a fixed order

The state figures the three benefits in a fixed order: ANCHOR first, then Senior Freeze — which reimburses seniors and disabled homeowners for tax increases above a base year — then Stay NJ, calculated on the remainder of the bill, up to the program's cap. Stay NJ pays in quarterly installments by mailed paper check; the other two come as mailed checks, or as direct deposits for online filers. The new budget covers the February and May installments; the August and November 2027 checks, which fall in fiscal 2028, ride on that year's budget, a dependency written into the appropriations language. If the appropriation runs short, the budget language directs that the difference come out of the Property Tax Relief Fund, with sign-off from the director of the state Division of Budget and Accounting.

Senior Freeze runs on a different calendar: the 2025 income limit was $172,475, and payments began in July.

The payments also attract scams. The Division of Taxation warns that scammers are sending texts and emails that look like they came from the agency, asking people to confirm bank details or follow a link to track a refund. The division says it never starts a text or email exchange to request personal information. Applications filed online also put filers through ID.me, the private vendor the state uses for identity verification. Anyone with doubts about a message can call the division's hotline, 1-888-238-1233.

The payments moving this week run under terms set in June. Those terms carry through May, when the last funded installment goes out the door. After that, the August and November checks depend on next year's budget — one the governor must sign by June 30.

Related Articles

• Sherrill's $60.7B Budget Passes as GOP Calls Process a 'Disaster'
• NJ Governor Sherrill Submits $60.7B Budget With Record $4.2B Relief
• NJ Budget Crunch: StayNJ Fight, CWA Rally and World Cup Collide in Trenton
• NJ Republicans Refuse Budget Resolutions as Democrats Stay Silent

Sources

• New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation, "ANCHOR Program" (accessed Sept. 16, 2026)
• New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation, "Property Tax Relief Programs — Frequently Asked Questions" (accessed Sept. 16, 2026)
• New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation, "Scam Alert" (accessed Sept. 16, 2026)
• New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation, "Stay NJ — Property Tax Relief for Senior Citizens" (accessed Sept. 16, 2026)
• New Jersey Legislature, Bill No. S-4306, "An Act concerning the ANCHOR Property Tax Relief Program and amending P.L.2023, c.75" (introduced May 18, 2026)
• New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2023, c. 75, "Stay NJ Act" (2023)
• New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2024, c. 88, "An Act concerning the Stay NJ property tax benefit program" (2024)
• New Jersey Legislature, P.L. 2026, c. 27, "FY 2027 Appropriations Act" (June 30, 2026)
• New Jersey State League of Municipalities, FY 2027 Appropriations Act budget language, transcription (accessed Sept. 16, 2026)
• Office of the Governor of New Jersey, "FY 2027 Budget Address" (March 10, 2026)
• Office of the Governor of New Jersey, "Governor Sherrill Signs FY 2027 Appropriations Act" (June 30, 2026)
• Office of the Governor of New Jersey, signing statement and line-item veto message, FY 2027 Appropriations Act (June 30, 2026)
• Stay NJ Task Force, report to the Governor and the Legislature (May 30, 2024)
• Krystal Knapp, The Jersey Vindicator, "New Jersey's $60.7 billion budget signed into law by Gov. Mikie Sherrill" (July 1, 2026)
• New Jersey 101.5, "How To Track Your Stay NJ Property Tax Rebate Status" (Feb. 5, 2026)
• New Jersey 101.5, "NJ ANCHOR payments start Tuesday" (Sept. 11, 2026)
• New Jersey Monitor, "Gov. Sherrill proposes record $60.7B in spending in first budget address" (March 10, 2026)
• New Jersey Monitor, "Republicans blast NJ governor's first budget as 'more of same'" (March 10, 2026)
• Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor, "Governor's proposed Stay NJ benefit 'too low,' Assembly speaker says" (June 3, 2026)
• John Reitmeyer, NJ Spotlight News, "Average NJ property-tax bill hit another record high last year" (Feb. 6, 2026)
• NJ Spotlight News, "Expert panel urges NJ to improve property-tax relief process" (May 31, 2024)
• NJ Spotlight News, "State blocked nearly 1M fraudulent applications for Anchor property-tax relief last year" (Sept. 16, 2024)
• NJ Spotlight News, "NJ warns of tax refund scam" (Sept. 17, 2025)
• NJ Spotlight News, "NJ sees uneven property tax bills as state aid, local budgets shift" (March 16, 2026)
• John Reitmeyer, NJ Spotlight News, "Seniors' Stay NJ tax relief on way while lawmakers consider cuts" (May 21, 2026)
• NJ Spotlight News, "NJ set aside $2B for Anchor tax-relief payments. Don't miss out" (Sept. 8, 2026)
• News 12, "How to get ANCHOR, Stay NJ and Senior Freeze benefits" (Aug. 24, 2026, updated Sept. 15, 2026)
• WHYY, "NJ ANCHOR payments: What to do to get your money" (Aug. 14, 2026)
• Nicole Rodriguez, President, New Jersey Policy Perspective, "Governor Sherrill's First Budget Showed the Way Forward. Now Comes the Hard Part." (June 30, 2026)
• Chris Widelo, State Director, AARP New Jersey, statement on Stay NJ budget agreement (June 23, 2026; carried by Insider NJ)
• Chris Widelo, State Director, AARP New Jersey, "AARP NJ: FY27 Budget Falls Short on Stay NJ Promise" (July 1, 2026)
• New Jersey Policy Perspective, "Was it included in the budget?" FY 2027 budget analysis (July 16, 2026)