New Zealand Investor Visa

Growth category: keep at least NZD 5 million in acceptable investments in New Zealand for 36 months. Balanced category: at least NZD 10 million for 60 months.

Evidence that the nominated funds remain invested must be filed at the 24-month and 36-month marks for Growth, and at the 24-month and 60-month marks for Balanced, each time within three months of that date.

The two categories differ not only in the sum but in the kind of asset accepted, and that is what decides liquidity: Growth accepts direct investments, managed funds and philanthropy, with philanthropy capped at no more than 20% of the total invested;

Balanced additionally accepts listed equities, bonds and property developments.

The agency warns about the Growth category in its own words: these are higher-risk investments, typically illiquid, and the commitment can extend beyond the minimum investment requirements of the visa. The 36 months is therefore a floor on the visa, not a floor on the money.

The agency also states plainly two things intermediary pitches tend to omit: the scheme is not designed to cater to every investment opportunity available in New Zealand, and Invest New Zealand only determines whether an investment is acceptable and does not endorse or guarantee that it will succeed.

On the source of funds: they must have been earned or acquired lawfully, and gifted money may be used where the gift was unconditional and lawful — but not where those gifted funds are already in New Zealand, or were in New Zealand at any time, as part of the nominated funds.

One favourable timing rule: where funds are already held in an acceptable New Zealand investment, the investment period can start from the date the residence application is approved.

What is finally received is a resident visa allowing the holder to live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely, with permanent residence available after three years of keeping the funds invested under the Growth category, or after five years under the Balanced category.

But it does not arrive in one step, and that is the part a reader needs before building a timetable. The agency first approves the application in principle; only from that date does the applicant have six months to transfer and invest the nominated funds.

During that window nobody is yet a resident, so the family travels on three different temporary documents: the principal applicant applies for a specific purpose work visa to come and arrange the transfer and investment, the partner must apply for their own visitor visa, and dependent children apply for student visas.

Anyone who misses the six months has one door left: the agency may grant a further six months, but the holder must make contact before the transfer period expires and show that reasonable steps were taken.

And that residence carries a travel right bounded by category, which the word indefinitely easily obscures: the holder may travel in and out of New Zealand as a resident for four years from their first day in the country under the Growth category, and six years under the Balanced category.

Finally, holding the visa is not the same as being let in: the agency reserves the right to refuse entry permission where the holder no longer meets the character requirements, where circumstances have changed since the visa was issued, or where the holder refuses to allow a photograph, fingerprints or an iris scan.

This route requires a statistic to be kept strictly apart from a deadline, because the agency publishes both and they are not the same kind of thing.

The statistic: 80% of applications are approved in principle within four months — a rate achieved in the past, not an undertaking for any particular file, so there is nothing to invoke if a given application falls outside that 80%.

The real deadline, and the only one where lateness has a direct consequence: six months from the date of approval in principle to transfer and invest the nominated funds, extendable by a further six months but only if asked for before it expires.

The point most easily miscalculated is that these two clocks do not run end to end: the 36-month or 60-month holding period starts when the money is invested, not when the application is approved, so the six-month transfer window sits outside the investment period and adds to the total wait for permanent residence.

The evidence deadlines and their marks are recorded in the capital threshold cell; the agency also supplies a worked example so that nobody miscounts, taking an investment date of 18 March 2026, where the two-year evidence falls due on 18 March 2028 and may be filed up to 18 June 2028 at the latest.

Two further periods sit on the holder side: the right to travel in and out as a resident runs for four years from the first day in the country under the Growth category and six years under Balanced, and across the investment period a post investment questionnaire must be completed exactly twice.

The presence obligation is measured in days and counts only while the resident visa is held: the Growth category requires at least 21 days in New Zealand across the 36-month investment period; the Balanced category at least 105 days across 60 months.

The Balanced category carries a mechanism for buying days down, and the agency table has four rows: NZD 10 million is 105 days, 11 million is 91 days, 12 million is 77 days, and 13 million is 63 days.

For each additional NZD 1 million invested in acceptable Growth category investments, excluding philanthropy, the requirement falls by 14 days, and the maximum reduction is 42 days — so 13 million is where the mechanism stops, not a midpoint.

Two conditions that no price table shows: the additional funds must be nominated before the application is approved in principle.

So they cannot be added afterwards; and the agency checks that the additional funds remain invested throughout the 60-month period, making this a commitment as long as the original one rather than a single payment.

Beyond the day count sit two status obligations whose neglect has a real consequence: the holder must provide an address and contact details and must report any change, because the agency states it needs to stay in touch to check that conditions are being met — and if it cannot confirm that, the holder may not be able to stay.

And to travel, the visa must sit in a valid passport: where the passport expires, the visa must be transferred to the new one, for a fee, before flying.

The scope covers a partner and dependent children aged 24 and younger, but the part most worth reading is that on this route including family is sometimes not a choice but an obligation.

The agency states it plainly: if a partner or dependent child holds, or has applied for, a New Zealand temporary entry visa based on their relationship with the applicant, they must be included in the residence application.

Leaving them out is not a valid option.

The evidence differs by relationship: for a partner, the relationship must be shown to be genuine and stable with at least 12 months of living together; for children, birth certificates, custody documents where applicable, and for children aged between 21 and 24, evidence that they still rely on the applicant for financial support.

Every person included must complete a resident visa declaration form, INZ 1242.

One opening for later that few pitches mention: additional dependent children not in the original application — the agency gives newborn children as its own example — can still be supported for residence after the application has been approved in principle, through the Dependent Child Resident Visa.

And one deadline with a heavy consequence: family members included in the visa must come to New Zealand within 12 months of their visa being granted — miss it and they must reapply for residence from the start, not ask for an extension.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the New Zealand passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a New Zealand passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the New Zealand passport reaches 196 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The immigration authority sets no tax rule for this route: the route page does mention tax, but never as a tax rule.

Those mentions fall into three distinct roles, and telling the three apart is what makes this cell readable.

The first is a warning with advice attached: the agency states that investing in New Zealand can have tax consequences and recommends that applicants seek professional tax advice, then points to Inland Revenue general guidance on tax residency under international tax for individuals.

The immigration authority is expressly disclaiming this as its own subject.

The second is a character condition: to be a fit and proper person, all businesses the applicant has been involved in must have complied with immigration, employment and taxation laws — here tax is a test about the past, not an obligation about the future.

The third is rarely noticed and it inverts how tax paperwork functions: tax returns or tax certificates appear in the list of evidence accepted to prove the lawful source of funds.

On this route, in other words, tax documents serve as evidence of where the money came from rather than as the basis for a sum payable. Anyone who needs the actual tax obligation must open the Inland Revenue source, not this page.

The published figure is a floor rather than a total: the authority states from NZD 27,470 and prints no breakdown of its components, so anyone costing the route out cannot tell how much is the application fee and how much is anything else.

Beyond that sum, three groups of mandatory documents all cost money and sit outside it. The first is health: a chest X-ray and a medical examination are required as proof of good health.

The second is character, and the test on this route is wider than on other New Zealand routes, which makes it easy to underestimate.

Anyone aged seventeen or over, including every other person named in the application and not only the principal applicant, must provide a police certificate from every country of which they are a citizen, plus every country they have stayed in for twelve months or more over the last ten years.

The authority states expressly that those twelve months need not have been in a single continuous stay.

Those certificates must be less than six months old at the date of application, so a file assembled slowly will need them obtained again. The third is translation: a police certificate not in English must be accompanied by a translation. In addition each person in the application needs two acceptable photographs of the head and shoulders.