Group and Tour Escort visitor visa applications moving to enhanced Immigration Online

From 20 July 2026, Group and Tour Escort visitor visa applications are moving to Immigration New Zealand's enhanced Immigration Online system. If you are applying for one of these visas over this time, there are some important things you need to know.

Immigration New Zealand's ambition is to provide a trusted and effective immigration service. The Our Future Services programme was set up to accelerate us towards that goal. The programme aims to deliver a modernised immigration system by improving efficiency, agility, risk identification and management, and customer experience through a more sustainable digital service model.

We will embrace smart technologies to unlock value in the immigration system by streamlining our processes and tools, using data to manage risk early and leveraging automation - ultimately providing a better experience for our customers and staff.

Customers and staff are at the heart of the Our Future Services programme design. We are aiming to deliver a simpler, faster and more user-friendly visa application process to reduce waiting times, provide clear communication on application status, and increase self-service capabilities so everyone feels more informed and better supported. 

Group and Tour Escort visitor visa changes from 20 July 2026

Visa products are transitioning to enhanced Immigration Online in phases. The following visa products will transition on 20 July 2026:

Group Visitor Visa

• General
• Approved Destination Status (ADS)

Visitor Visa

• Tour Escort Visitor Visa
• General Visitor Visa for ADS Free and Independent Travellers (FIT).

If you would like to know more about these visa types, see the visa pages below.

Group Visitor Visa

Tour Escort Visitor Visa

New application form and system

Other visitor visa applications are already on enhanced Immigration Online. With this transition, we are taking a big step towards having all visitor visa products on this system. The small number of remaining visitor visas will transition with other visa products they are closely linked to.

We have engaged with visa processing staff, immigration professionals and the international tourism sector - including ADS agents - to design an efficient and effective Group Visitor Visa and Tour Escort Visitor Visa application and processing product that works well for everyone.

These conversations gave us the feedback we needed to ensure we designed the new process in response to those with the real-world experience applying and processing these types of visas.

Our approach to designing the enhanced Immigration Online visa application process focuses on an improved customer experience - ensuring that the process is easy to understand, and people know what is expected of them.

We are also building functionality for applicants to share their Group Visitor Visa application with other people, including other group members and tour agency staff working on the applications.

Our approach to paper-based applications for these visa products may be considered as part of this transition process. There will be no changes until we communicate otherwise.

From 20 July 2026, new applications will be automatically directed through the new system. We will provide further information closer to the transition date by updating this news item and our webpages, so you have everything you need to complete your application.

More information about changes to our application systems

Over the course of the Our Future Services programme, we will move all visa applications onto our enhanced Immigration Online platform. We first introduced this platform in 2021 and have already moved several types of visa applications onto it including international student visas, visitor visas, Accredited Employer Work Visa and permanent resident visas.

If you would like to know more about the programme, including when other visa types are likely to move to the new system, you can visit Immigration New Zealand's Our Future Services page, or the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Our Future Services page.

Our Future Services programme

Our Future Services - Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment