Investors

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and suspension of many visa categories during the period from 2020 to 2022, Investor applications continued to be accepted by Immigration New Zealand. A halt in processing of applications from those based overseas for a period combined with an increased desire to move to New Zealand by many, however, resulted in a large backlog of applications under both the Investor 1 and 2 categories which continues to be worked through.

On 27 July 2009, the New Zealand government announced wide-sweeping changes to the investor policy, which came into effect immediately.  In July 2011, there was an easing of requirements, including in the time required to be spent in New Zealand for Investor Plus applicants.  From 22 May 2017, Immigration New Zealand expanded the flexibility of time required to be spent in New Zealand for Investor applicants if they invested a portion of their investment funds into growth funds.

2022 saw a major overhaul of the two Investor categories resulting in both being replaced by a single new category, the Active Investor Plus. This was the first major change to the Investor category since it was first introduced in 2009. You can read more about the changes here. No changes have been made to the Entrepreneur category at this time.