New Zealand's golden visa - changes, flexibility and succession planning

The revamping of New Zealand’s golden visa has already seen a surge in overseas investors applying for visas to move to New Zealand. For those successful in obtaining visas, the focus must then turn to an update in their estate planning.

What is the golden visa?

On 1 April 2025, the Active Investor Plus Visa (AIP Visa) was revamped to a new system designed to make achieving residency through investment more accessible to overseas high net worth individuals. The new scheme has already proved to be more successful, attracting 267 applications as of 8 August 2025, amounting to a potential total minimum investment of NZD 1.625 billion.

AIP Visa categories

The AIP Visa now has two categories, the Growth category and the Balance category.

The Growth category requires investment of $5 million in one of two accepted investments, being either direct investments or managed funds, over a 36 month period. Direct investments are investments into a privately held business approved by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise.

The Balance category requires a higher investment of $10 million over a 60 month period, but affords greater diversity of accepted investments, including direct investments, managed funds, equities, philanthropy, bonds and property developments.

Changes

There are several key changes which make this updated scheme more accessible than the last including:

Lower investment thresholds, reduced from a previous requirement to invest $15 million.

• Removal of the requirement for the applicants have a reasonable level of English.
• Relaxing and broadening the scope of investment options. Global success is also no longer a requirement of investments, recognising the importance of domestic growth.
• Property development is now an accepted investment under the Balance category.

Estate planning

Migrant investors in New Zealand should seek domestic succession planning advice at an early stage in their move to New Zealand to ensure that their assets are appropriately protected.

Investors are likely to, at minimum, need to put in place a will in New Zealand to cover their New Zealand assets. However, if assets are owned across multiple countries, wills in each country may be required. The wills need to compliment each other and work together and ensure they are set up in a tax efficient manner. Your New Zealand lawyer will coordinate with your intentional lawyers and tax advisors to ensure there are no gaps in your estate plan.

For more info about cross-border estate planning, contact Morris.

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