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Nomad Visa comes with work benefits at no extra cost

Queenstown is a popular destination for overseas visitors, but its housing market remains highly competitive.
(Newsroom Photo by David Williams)

Fox Meyer
Newsroom Wellington, January 29, 2024

In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis outlined a new ‘digital nomad visa’ aimed at highly skilled, highly paid workers able to spend up to nine months in New Zealand while working for an overseas employer.

The inaugural announcement of the new ministerial position followed Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s growth-focused State of the Nation speech last week. It showed that the government was willing to overlook the possibility of people ‘bending the rules’ of the visa in the name of boosting the economy.

A $100,000 advertisement campaign will target American and East Asian workers with flexible arrangements, hoping that they will spend their high wages at local businesses while spending up to 90 days in the country on the new visa.

The Prime Minister’s speech focused squarely on economic growth, with an emphasis on foreign investment. It followed a Cabinet restructure in which Willis was given the new portfolio and power was consolidated in a handful of high-ranking Ministers.

Willis has identified visitors and international students as key areas for economic growth and hopes to attract more. But at the same time, her government nearly tripled the fee charged to international visitors last year from $35 to $100, posing a potential barrier to visitors.

Aspirational Goals

Willis spoke during Monday’s announcement about the allure of New Zealand’s outdoor sector and wildlife but also cut $48 million from the Department of Conservation in the year prior.

The Department’s Director-General Penny Nelson said at the end of last year that the cost of managing all threatened species and ecosystems came in at just over $2 billion annually. Conservation Minister Tama Potaka suggested that it would be too expensive to save every endangered species in New Zealand, a goal he called ‘aspirational.’

But these ecosystems and animals were part of what Willis said attracted high-value tourists to the country in the first place.

Speaking at Wellington Airport, Willis announced the new ‘digital nomad’ visa alongside Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston.

Upston welcomed “visitors of all types” but especially called on those able to leverage flexible working arrangements to spend their time in Aotearoa. “If you have been thinking about coming to New Zealand, book your trip today. We welcome you with open arms,” she said.

Welcoming Wealth and Talent

Willis gestured to the backdrop of Wellington’s domestic arrival gates and said, “We want more of the world’s wealthy and super talented people coming in those arrival gates behind us.”

She said that the new visa would enable them to extend their stays here, turning a family vacation potentially into a chance to fall in love with the country and go home with the desire to stay connected to local business.

Stanford said that she hoped the visitors would “fall in love with the place and maybe fall in love with a Kiwi and they end up staying.”

The National Party campaigned on a 12-month digital nomad visa with the ability to apply for further residence or work visas later. Partnership visas were not mentioned.

Stanford hoped the high-earning visitors would provide relief for Kiwi families in the tourism sector and expected them to move around the country rather than spend the full 90-day stay in one area.

No major challenges

Upston could not say where these workers would live but was not worried about putting strain on the domestic housing market. “Actually, that would be a great problem to have,” she said. The exception here was Queenstown, which Upston said had “a few additional challenges.”

Queenstown Lakes Mayor Glyn Lewers told Newsroom that the problems surrounding housing, and AirBnB specifically, would not be greatly affected by “a simple visa change.”

“Queenstown and Wanaka and Arrowtown in particular attract people that want to come and stay here. So, it is another layer that we will have to deal with. It happens anyway. We have rural connectivity through our airport and the infrastructure needed for digital connectivity,” he said.

Lewers saw the visa change as “a good step,” but believed that the government could go further. By aligning visas with companies rather than individuals, “families can come over and do a work sabbatical with their family so that they can invest in the schools and become part of the community over five, six years,” he said.

North American Visitors

He quipped that a focus on North American visitors could mean that the Queenstown Ice Hockey Team may become “even more of an envy of the rest of the country” but did not want to start a “North American grudge match” by speculating on the difference between Canadian and American players.

Other countries, including many in Europe, already offer digital nomad visas. Some, like Hungary, Greece and Estonia, have dedicated tax pathways for these visa holders that may be lower than what they may pay at home. Without this tax exemption, Willis still believed the New Zealand option would be sought by flexible workers.

“This is the most beautiful country in the world, you bet we are competitive,” she said.

Willis and Stanford explained that the visa came about by changing regulations on the standard visitor visa, not by creating an entirely new pathway.

Stanford clarified that “there will be no extra cost” to the new pathway. Currently, the cost listed on Immigration New Zealand’s site is “from $341.”

This means any visitors with the visa will remain able to work for their overseas employers, even while on shorter family vacations, but any stay beyond 90 days would require them to pay New Zealand taxes.

Primary Targets

The primary targets of the new visa are highly skilled workers with money to spend, specifically from East Asia and North America. A budget of $100,000 has been allocated to “test the waters” with an advertising campaign, and Stanford was adamant that “we will make that many times over” in revenue from the digital nomads.

Willis banked on the flexibility of these high-value workers who may be trusted by their companies to work remotely: a far cry from the ‘back-to-work’ message she sent Kiwi public service employees last year.

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said: “With one hand she is begging foreigners to come to work from home while implementing strict policies on Kiwi public servants to stop them from doing the same. We need real long-term solutions for economic growth that provide the jobs of Kiwis, not a short-term sugar hit.”

Willis conceded that some may try to bend the rules of the visa, but said the risks were outweighed by the rewards.

“We will not check how many emails they are sending and how many days they are spending working. We just want them to be here and spend their hard-earned money,” she said.

Fox Meyer is a Political Reporter for Newsroom based in Wellington. The above article and picture have been published under a special agreement.

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