Sport and recreation injury statistics
Find statistics on injury claims for injuries that happened while playing sport.
Data covers the date range, 1 January 2026 to 30 June 2026.
- 2026 ytd injury costs
- 2026 ytd new and active claims
- Sports claims and costs by year from 2017 to 2026 ytd
- New sport injury claims by common team sports and individual sports for the years 2024, 2025 and 2026 ytd
- Regional breakdown of sports claims
- Caveats to this data
2026 ytd injury cost
$498,299,355
The costs of all active claims in 2026 ytd
New claims
272,589
in 2026 ytd
Active claims
363,182
in 2026 ytd
Sports claims and costs by year
| Year | New claims | Active claims | Cost of active claims |
| 2017 | 486,581 | 556,554 | $571,951,405 |
| 2018 | 468,226 | 547,208 | $612,887,297 |
| 2019 | 455,348 | 537,426 | $621,454,552 |
| 2020 | 402,801 | 486,282 | $633,384,194 |
| 2021 | 418,146 | 507,546 | $694,658,549 |
| 2022 | 421,613 | 502,068 | $731,857,385 |
| 2023 | 452,882 | 539,956 | $839,155,027 |
| 2024 | 487,003 | 585,088 | $1,007,655,259 |
| 2025 | 496,456 | 602,738 | $1,078,779,506 |
| 2026 ytd | 272,589 | 363,182 | $498,299,355 |
Regional breakdown of sports claims
Did you know – Canterbury has the second-highest number of claims relating to rugby?
More information
Find out about the work we're involved in to prevent injuries while playing sport:
- A calendar year is 1 January to 31 December.
- This report includes accepted sport-related injury claims managed by ACC.
- Declined claims and claims managed by accredited employers aren't included.
- New claims is the count of claims which were lodged with ACC between 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2025. The lodgement date may be any date after the accident occurred.
- Data were extracted on 12 January 2026 and may differ if re-run at a later date.