The New Zealand Government announced another component in its “going for growth” agenda this week, with revamped investor visa settings. This announcement follows the recent changes to the visitor visa settings to attract digital nomads to New Zealand.   

The Government will be hoping that the changes it has announced to the Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa will make the programme more attractive to new migrants and incentivise investment in New Zealand.   

What are the changes to the Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa? 

From 1 April 2025 the AIP Visa will have two new and simplified investment categories:

Growth category

• Minimum investment of NZD5 million over a 36 month period. 
• Requires direct investment into New Zealand business and certain approved managed funds only. 

Balanced category

• Minimum investment of NZD10 million over a period of 60 months.
• Includes a broader range of acceptable investments, including managed funds and direct investments (as per the Growth category), bonds and listed equities, investments in new property developments (residential, rental, social housing, commercial or industrial) or existing commercial or industrial property developments, and philanthropy. 

The two new simplified investment categories will replace the current investment requirement of NZD15 million or the weighted equivalent in acceptable investments. For more information on the two new investment categories see here. 

The Government has confirmed that it will also be removing the English language requirements that are a condition of the current AIP programme. 

Other changes include reducing the time required for visa holders to be in New Zealand during the relevant investment period. For Growth category investors, this is a minimum of 21 days over the 3-year investment period, and for Balanced category investors, a minimum of 105 days over the 5-year investment period. For the Balanced category, investors can reduce the number of days required to be in New Zealand by increasing their investment amount above the NZD10 million minimum. 

Applications will open on the 1 April 2025 and investors will be able to apply for the revamped AIP visa using the same online application form currently in use. Investors will have 6 months from the date of approval to invest, with the option to apply for a 6-month extension. 

Our view 

In a world where there is global competition for often highly mobile capital, the previous numbers seem to suggest that the current investor visa setting may have been too restrictive. The Government has noted that in the 2 years prior to Covid-19, migrants invested NZD2.2 billion, whereas since 2022 and following changes made to the investor visa settings, migrants entering the country under the AIP visa only invested NZD70 million. 

These changes simplify many of the immigration requirements for AIP applicants and significantly broaden the scope of acceptable investments to include property and lower risk investments (which are not permitted currently) making the AIP Programme more attractive for potential investor migrants. 

We should be able to tell relatively quickly whether these changes will attract a larger pool of investors to both live and invest in New Zealand. 

What about the Overseas Investment Act? 

As reported in October last year, the Government has also announced a plan to reform the Overseas Investment Act 2005 (Act) as part of its policy objective to encourage overseas investment in New Zealand. Currently, New Zealand's foreign investment policy settings are some of the most restrictive in the OECD. However, the Government has agreed to the principles for reforming the current Act, including reversing the presumption that investing in New Zealand is a privilege and that investors must justify their investment in New Zealand to the Government.  In the words of the Associate Finance Minister, Hon David Seymour, New Zealand should move to a position where “[Y]ou can invest in New Zealand if you've got a willing buyer, a willing seller, and there are no dangers to New Zealand's interests”.

Reform of the Act offers one of those rare public policy opportunities to align multiple policy settings to maximise the benefit to New Zealand. If the Government can align its reform of the Act with the changes made to the investor visa settings, there is a real opportunity for the Government to achieve its “going for growth” agenda. 

If you would like to know more about the changes to the AIP visa, or immigration and investing options in New Zealand more generally, please get in touch with one of our experts.

This article was co-authored by Ella McCall (Law Clerk) in our Employment team.