‘Golden visa’ nets $25m investment in two months

Wednesday, 11 June 2025

The Government’s new “golden visa” has netted the country at least $25 million in two months ‒ and there is $1 billion in the application pipeline.

“It's been so successful, and the people are amazing who are coming to New Zealand to share their skills and experience. I’m over the moon,” Immigration Minister Erica Stanford told The Post on Tuesday.

While Stanford could not divulge the details of visa recipients, she said they included tech co-founders of “very big, well-known companies that you would probably use everyday”.

Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) data shows that, as of Tuesday, there have been 168 applications for the Active Investor Plus visa after changes to liberalise it came into effect on April 1.

Of these, 80 applications have been approved in principle, and four applicants had transferred their investment into New Zealand ‒ amounting to “a total minimum investment of $25m”.

However, Stanford said the total applications could were worth $1b in inbound investment.

“Now, I'm not quite celebrating the billion-dollar mark yet, because 50 of those applications have transitioned from the old AIP [visa] settings into the new.

“So once we hit a billion dollars of new applications, I'll be celebrating.”

The Government in April changed the Active Investor Plus visa settings, creating two categories under which rich foreigners could gain a residency through investment.

Under the “growth” category, visa recipients are required to provide a minimum of $5m within three years to higher-risk investments, including managed funds. For the “balanced” category, a mixture of these investments and investment in bonds, shares in a public company, and property developments can gain residency, but the threshold is $10m over five years.

The prior visa required $15m investment and disallowed bonds and property investments.

MBIE on Tuesday said 132 applications were under the growth category and 36 were under the balanced category.

Having more growth category visas was what the Government wanted, Stanford said.

Officials scrutinised not only health and character assessments of the applicants, but the source of their funds, she said.

“We want money that is clean and earned properly.”

Prior data, from the end of May, showed the most applications received for this pathway to residence were from the United States ‒ 68 applications, amounting to 199 people.

The second largest group was China, at 21 applications for 74 people, then Germany, at 13 applications for 57 people, and Hong Kong, at 17 applications for 49 people. There were also two applications from Russians, for seven people.

Former Economic Development Minister Stuart Nash said that, while “golden visas” elsewhere were sought after by wealthy people looking for a tax haven, in New Zealand they sought a safe haven.

“I've always thought that foreign direct investment of this sort is vitally important to New Zealand.”

Nash created the visa under the past Labour Government, but with tighter conditions than what it replaced to ensure value was added to Kiwi companies ‒ and not repatriated after the visa conditions were satisfied.

Now running a business that helps wealthy foreigners through the visa process, and into New Zealand life if they choose to use the residency, he said Stanford had the settings right.