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What visas do migrants arrive on?

Non-NZ migrant arrivals included 2,650 on work visas, 1,377 on resident visas, 5,380 on student visas, 2,391 on visitor visas (Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa, Jul 2026).

Updated

Estimated long-term migrant arrivals each month, split into New Zealand citizens and non-NZ citizens, with non-NZ arrivals broken down by the visa they arrived on (work, resident, student, visitor, Australian citizens and other). Visa detail is available from 2003.

Visa is the visa held when arriving, not later changes (many people move from student or work visas to residence). Visa type is not a measure of skill. Skilled Migrant Category and work-visa detail come from MBIE immigration data (manual download, to be added).

Net migration subtracts departures from arrivals. A positive net figure can sit alongside a large number leaving, because the arrivals are larger. The citizenship and visa breakdowns answer different questions about those movements.

Read the period beside each number before comparing it with another figure. A monthly observation, a quarterly result and a financial year cover different spans of time. The latest release can also revise earlier observations. The chart and downloads keep the published periods so you can check which figures are being compared. A change in visas describes what happened during that period; it does not by itself explain why it happened or identify the effect of a government policy. Definitions and coverage matter as much as the size of a change.

Non-NZ citizens: work visa was 2,026 in Jul 2025, a year earlier.

The earliest observation on the same basis was 747 in Jul 2003.

Visas: definitions

Estimated long-term migrant arrivals each month, split into New Zealand citizens and non-NZ citizens, with non-NZ arrivals broken down by the visa they arrived on (work, resident, student, visitor, Australian citizens and other). Visa detail is available from 2003.

  • Visa is the visa held when arriving, not later changes (many people move from student or work visas to residence).
  • Visa type is not a measure of skill. Skilled Migrant Category and work-visa detail come from MBIE immigration data (manual download, to be added).
  • Only arrivals are broken down by visa; departures by citizenship are in the migration totals dataset once the history is backfilled.
  • Recent months are provisional and revised for up to 16 months; the 2020–2022 border closure shows as a sharp drop.
Non-NZ citizens: work visa. Non-NZ citizens: work visa, Jul 2003 to Jul 2026, latest 2,650.05,00010,00015,000Jul 2003Jul 2026
Show the figures
PeriodNon-NZ citizens: work visa (number)
Jul 20262,650
Jun 20262,926
May 20262,601
Apr 20262,116
Mar 20262,956
Feb 20262,753
Jan 20262,472
Dec 20252,393
Nov 20252,886
Oct 20253,091
Sep 20253,105
Aug 20252,406
Jul 20252,026
Jun 20252,209
May 20252,077
Apr 20251,614
Mar 20252,333
Feb 20252,745
Jan 20252,187
Dec 20242,201
Full data: migration arrivals by visa
Non-NZ citizens: work visa. Non-NZ citizens: work visa: 2,650 in Jul 2026.

Calendar months. A migrant is someone who stays in (or out of) NZ for 12 of the following 16 months.. Source: Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa. Lines break at basis changes and missing periods.

Full chart, data table and downloads

More on migration

Visas: questions for your AI

Download the data, attach it in your assistant, then paste the prompt.

The attached CSV is Migrant arrivals by citizenship and visa type, from Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa. Answer: What visas do migrants arrive on? Name the unit and period. Use only directly supported observations. Definitions: Estimated long-term migrant arrivals each month, split into New Zealand citizens and non-NZ citizens, with non-NZ arrivals broken down by the visa they arrived on (work, resident, student, visitor, Australian citizens and other). Visa detail is available from 2003. Limits: Visa is the visa held when arriving, not later changes (many people move from student or work visas to residence). Visa type is not a measure of skill. Skilled Migrant Category and work-visa detail come from MBIE immigration data (manual download, to be added). Only arrivals are broken down by visa; departures by citizenship are in the migration totals dataset once the history is backfilled. Recent months are provisional and revised for up to 16 months; the 2020–2022 border closure shows as a sharp drop.

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More questions about visas

Other questions this topic can answer directly.

How many people are leaving New Zealand?What is net migration?How much debt does the New Zealand government have?

Visas: sources

The source publication, licence and snapshot used to build this page.

Organisation
Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa, International migration: arrivals by citizenship and visa
Licence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This work is based on Stats NZ's data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Reuse limits
Photos, graphics and logos are excluded. Stats NZ logos and government emblems must not be used.
Snapshot
data/raw/statsnz-migration-visa/2026-10-10_f5b515a7f1a5.csv
SHA256
f5b515a7f1a5f6c0342e44b8891794e04be0002d63ab481a47fd8dae42870941
Retrieved
10 October 2026