The government of New Zealand recently announced that the costs of various visas will be raised by 1 October 2024 to fund the costs of their immigration system. The price for a student visa will even double. The NZeTA cost will remain unchanged for tourists and business travellers.
Costs of various visas are raised
The New Zealand government announced to raise the prices for almost all visa types by October 2024. The raise will apply both to visas for short stays in New Zealand and to visas for work or studying purposes. The cost of the popular Working Holiday Visa is raised from NZD 420 to NZD 670. The cost of the Accredited Employer Work Visa, which allows individuals to work for an employer in New Zealand, will double from NZD 750 to NZD 1540.
Furthermore, the cost of the New Zealand Visitor Visa will increase from NZD 211 to NZD 341. The Visitor Visa is suited for travellers who want to stay in New Zealand for 6 or 9 months for tourism purposes. Travellers from the United Kingdom and Ireland, who intend to stay in New Zealand for no longer than 3 months, may use a NZeTA instead of a Visitor Visa. Eligible persons can apply for this electronic travel authorisation for New Zealand by filling in a digital form. The NZeTA cost is lower than the Visitor Visa cost, and a NZeTA application can be completed within a few minutes online.
Most severe increases for student visas
The price increases seem to hit students particularly severely. The New Zealand authorities announced a doubling of the cost from NZD 375 to NZD 750. The cost of the Post Study Work Visa, which allows students to stay and work in New Zealand after finishing their studies, will be more than doubled. Students who want to work and stay in New Zealand after their studies currently have to pay NZD 700 for a visa. This price will be increased to NZD 1670.
According to research by IDP Education, which helps students in finding a study program abroad, around half of students do not let their choice be influenced by an increase in the student visa cost. However, 28 per cent of respondents said that a price increase would heavily influence their choice to study in New Zealand. Thus, the higher visa cost could lead to a decrease in the number of international students in New Zealand.
Shifting the costs to visa applicants
The raise in visa prices is a response of New Zealand’s government to the rising costs of the immigration service. Reviewing and processing visa and asylum applications, as well as the upkeep of all ICT-systems, come with high costs. At this time, most of these costs are financed by New Zealand taxpayers. According to New Zealand’s minister for immigration, Erica Stanford, this is an unfair system. Raising the visa prices will shift the costs towards visa applicants: those who actually make use of the immigration systems.
Criticism from the opposition
Not everyone in New Zealand is happy with the price increases. The spokesperson of New Zealand’s Green Party claims that the government increases the costs for migrants excessively to cut taxes. Also, they claim that the new system makes the immigration department financially dependent on global circumstances. For example, the covid pandemic caused a considerable decrease in the number of submitted visa applications. In this case, the new system would have caused the immigration service to get into serious financial difficulties, as they have to cover a greater proportion of their costs themselves.
According to minister Stanford, the country will remain attractive for employees, students and other types of standards, because of the high standard of living. Also, she claims that New Zealand’s new visa fees are still competitive to those of other countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom. The student visa cost will still be considerably lower than in Australia, where the student visa price was recently raised to AUD 1600. The New Zealand government expects the higher prices to generate NZD 563 million in additional income that they can use to improve and modernise their immigration systems.