04 Oct I no longer live in N.J. How do I stop my ANCHOR?

Q. I keep getting ANCHOR benefit confirmation letters, but I haven’t lived in New Jersey for more than four years. If I’m still eligible for a check, terrific! If I’m not, then how do I get removed from the mailing list? I moved out of New Jersey in April 2022 and I haven’t filed a New Jersey tax return since that year. I received $450 checks in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
— Moved out

A. The confusion over the payment years hopefully won’t be confusing going forward.

The benefits you received in those years were probably for the years you actually were in New Jersey. Until last year, the state paid ANCHOR benefits for years in the past. For example, the payments received in 2024 were for the 2021 benefit year.

The year-name mess-up was because then-Gov. Chris Christie twice delayed the Homestead Rebate, the precursor to ANCHOR, when the state’s budget was in trouble. It was delayed rather than cancelled outright, which would have been a politically unpopular move. When ANCHOR started, it kept the same delayed benefit year.

But when Stay NJ became law, the state renamed the benefit years so that all the state’s property tax benefits would have the same — current — year in their names.

So you received the benefit letter this year, and this would have been for the 2025 benefit year. Because you did not live here in that year, you should not get the benefit.

The state asked people who wrongly received the letter because they are no longer eligible to change their application online by Sept. 15. If you receive the payment, they ask you return it to the New Jersey Division of Taxation at PO BOX 266, Trenton, NJ 08695-0266.

You can email the agency to let them know about your eligibility at , or when you return the payment you receive, you can include a note to the address above. You can also call the ANCHOR hotline at (888) 238-1233.

Email your questions to .

This story was originally published in October 2026. 

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