Immigration New Zealand successes in 2025

2025 was another big year for Immigration New Zealand (INZ) as we worked hard to deliver a trusted and effective immigration system.

• We made more than 1 million decisions on visa applications for people to visit, work, study or live in New Zealand.
• We helped more than 1,500 refugees make New Zealand their home.
• We introduced 5 new visa categories (Active Investor Visa, Business Investor Visa, Parent Boost Visitor Visa, Global Workforce Seasonal Visa and Peak Seasonal Visa).

We did all this while continuing to keep New Zealand and our borders safe from immigration harm.

Other highlights

• Facilitating more than 13.4 million movements at the New Zealand border.
• Deciding more than 470,000 visitor visa applications, with 89% approved.
• Issuing more than 1.6 million NZeTA (New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority) requests, including more than 31,000 eligible China and Pacific nationals able to travel from Australia with an NZeTA.
• More than 17,500 employers either renewed accreditation, or became newly accredited employers, under the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) policy. This brought the total number of current accredited employers to more than 27,000.
• Completing nearly 2,500 AEWV post-accreditation checks on more than 2,300 employers.
• Deciding more than 43,000 AEWV applications, with 91% approved.
• Deciding more than 45,000 working holiday applications, with 98% approved.
• Deciding more than 97,000 student visas, with 91% of these approved.
• Deciding more than 18,000 Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) applications, with 99% approved.
• Resettling 550 people under the Refugee Family Support Category.
• Making 1,330 decisions on asylum claims.
• Successfully prosecuting 16 people, from 11 investigations, for breaching immigration laws.
• issuing 151 infringement notices totalling $520,000 for immigration offences.

All of this work supported growing New Zealand's economy, helped employers access the key skills and capital they need, reunited friends and families, contributed to New Zealand's international and humanitarian commitments and kept our borders safe.

Improved processing times

We saw significant improvements in processing times across our 3 main visa categories - visitor, student and the Accredited Employer Work Visa - while maintaining quality decision making and managing risk.

These visas were processed faster, giving applicants more certainty and timely decisions on their visa applications.

Throughout 2025:

• Visitor visas were processed in an average of five working days, compared to 7 days in 2024
• International Student visas were processed in 12 days on average, compared to 18 in 2024.
• AEWV applications were processed in 12 working days on average, compared to 23 days in 2024.

First milestone for our Future Services programme

We transitioned student visas onto our enhanced immigration online system. This makes it easier for students to apply and means they can get real-time updates on the status of their application.

This was the first milestone of the Our Future Services programme, to deliver a more cost-effective immigration system that:

• is more productive
• is more effective at managing immigration risk, and
• provides a better experience for customers and staff.

Building on our achievements in 2026

We didn't do this alone - our immigration system partners and stakeholders played a vital role in helping us deliver these achievements.

We look forward to building on these achievements in 2026 as we continue to deliver an immigration system that is simple to use and easy to engage with.