12 Feb I’m confused about the ANCHOR benefit year. Why did it change?

Q. I’m confused about the ANCHOR benefit year. Why did it change?
— Homeowner

A. The Stay NJ benefit, a new property tax relief program, is why the ANCHOR tax year has changed.

When you received last year’s ANCHOR payment, it was for the 2021 tax year. The next ANCHOR you receive will be for the 2024 tax year,

This goes back to Gov. Chris Christie and the Homestead Rebate, which was the property tax relief plan that ANCHOR replaced.

The program is funded each year in the state budget. It’s never guaranteed.

Christie twice delayed the Homestead Rebate because of a budget crunch. He didn’t skip the benefit years, but only delayed them. That’s why the benefit year runs behind the calendar.

When ANCHOR was created, it kept the same benefit year that the Homestead Rebate had, so it still ran behind the calendar year.

Now, when Stay NJ was created, one of the provisions was to line up the benefit years for ANCHOR, Senior Freeze and Stay NJ itself.

Supporters of the program would argue that even though the benefit year name is changing, you’re not actually losing out on payments because it will still be paid each year — pending the budget — going forward.

But in reality, that’s just semantics. You did lose benefit years, but that was during the Christie administration. The state would never be able to afford to catch up by actually making payments for the calendar years that were missed.

Important to note on the change of benefit year, though, is that some people will indeed lose out on a year of benefits because of eligibility changes for the program.

As we wrote in a piece on the topic for The Star-Ledger:

“To qualify for the 2021 ANCHOR, which was paid in 2024, you had to be a resident as of Oct. 1, 2021. But the new application says to receive the 2024 ANCHOR benefit — skipping over the 2022 and 2023 tax years — you need to be a resident as of Oct. 1, 2024.”

That means some estates, which can apply on behalf of someone who died, that would have been eligible under the older benefit year qualification for 2022 or 2023 will no longer be qualified.

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This story was originally published in February 2025.

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