Facing population loss, New Zealand loosens residency restrictions. Again.
New Zealand’s government has unveiled plans to make it easier for certain types of foreign workers to remain in the country as permanent residents from next year onward.
Two new pathways for skilled workers who already have experience in their fields working in New Zealand were announced by Nicola Willis, the government’s minister for economic growth. “Businesses told us it was too hard for some migrants to gain residence, even when they had crucial skills and significant experience that was not available in the existing [New Zealand] workforce,” Willis said in the announcement.
“We’re fixing it,” she added.
The new pathways, which will apply to certain types of skilled work, including both professionals with college diplomas and technical and technician type roles that do not require a university degree, but do require specialized technical training, will have additional eligibility restrictions placed on certain roles, which will be announced at a later date.
The government will also reduce the period of time non-citizens with degrees from New Zealand universities will need to work in the country before being eligible for a pathway to permanent residence.
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More than 126,000 New Zealand residents left the country in 2024, and more than half of those were New Zealand citizens—a substantial outmigration for a country with just 5.3 million inhabitants. Many of those left because of faltering economic opportunities after the country’s central bank raised interest rates to slow inflation, which in turn dried up the job market and reduced overall GDP.
Earlier this year, New Zealand relaxed visa rules to allow remote workers to do work for companies outside New Zealand while on short residencies without the need for an additional work visa, provided they come from one of 60 countries, including the United States.
Also relaxed were the requirements for New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus Visa—also known as the “Golden Visa,” which allows a fast track to permanent residency with a substantial investment. The English fluency requirement was removed, investment levels were lowered, and the amount of time visa holders would need to spend in the country before applying for permanent residency under the program was reduced from three years to three weeks. Following the rule changes, a surge of applications were received—many of them from Americans.
Some in New Zealand’s business communities welcomed the new visa rules, agreeing that they would make it easier for non-citizens to keep jobs they already have, contributing to New Zealand’s economy. However, New Zealand First, a right wing populist party, a small partner of the coalition government led by the center-right National party, pushed back on the move, saying that making it too easy to gain New Zealand Citizenship could make the country attractive to foreign workers who actually prefer to live and work in Australia, noting that a significant number of the New Zealand citizens who emigrate to Australia each year were not born in New Zealand. NZ First currently holds eight seats in the New Zealand House of Represenatives, or just under 7% of the seats.
It’s worth noting that the pathways to permanent residence do not alter the requirements for gaining New Zealand citizenship. New Zealand citizens can live, work, and study in Australia indefinitely using a special subclass of visa, and gain Australian citizenship after four years without separately applying to become an Australian permanent resident. Australia’s economy has continued growing in recent years, in contrast to that of New Zealand.
