Despite border fears and a cooling global economy, the NZ–US travel corridor remains surprisingly robust, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Migration lifts as golden visa interest surges
After more than a year of anaemic immigration figures, February saw the highest number of long-term arrivals for any month since September 2023, Interest’s Greg Ninness reports. Helped by a marked decrease in long-term departures, overall net immigration was 29.3% higher than in February 2024. It may turn out to be little more than a blip, Ninness warns, given that “on an annual basis the migration trend is still strongly negative, with the overall gain well down year-on-year”.
Meanwhile the government’s revamped golden visa programme is drawing unprecedented attention, with 2,500 people visiting the application page in the first two weeks alone – an increase of over 700% on the numbers visiting the old investor visa application at the same time last year, RNZ reports. While the 43 applications filed in the opening fortnight might not seem a lot, that’s nearly half the total submitted under the old policy in two and a half years. As immigration advisor David Cooper put it, he and his colleagues are starting to see “people who aren’t just talking, who are actually committing”.
US tourists top the charts
Among those contributing to the uptick in immigration in February were 537 Americans, “which if confirmed would be one of the highest monthly totals from the US on record”, The Post reports (paywalled). The number of short-term US visitors was even more impressive, with Americans making up 18% of all inbound visitors in February, second only to Australians. What’s more, “the 379,000 overseas visitor arrivals from the United States in the February 2025 year was a record for any year from that country,” Stats NZ said.
While the strong US dollar was likely key to attracting Americans over the past 12 months, the government hopes a bigger investment in marketing will keep them coming. On Monday tourism minister Louise Upston announced a $13.5 million international marketing boost, building on the Australia-focused ‘Everyone Must Go’ campaign earlier this year.
New Zealanders still crossing the Pacific
While Europeans are cancelling US holidays en masse – a trend captured in a viral X post by journalist John Burn-Murdoch – the same can’t yet be said of New Zealanders. The local Charted Daily X account noted that NZ visits to the US also dipped in March, but only after a massive 31% spike in February, likely due to the Warriors’ Las Vegas match. And though it’s easy to blame political upheaval for any drop-off, Westpac economist Kelly Eckhold suggests the main driver might be much simpler: the sky-high US dollar, which has made stateside holidays prohibitively expensive for many. The US remains Flight Centre’s third most-booked country for March and April, the Herald reports.
Border fears rising
That resilience may yet be tested. Over the weekend, The Guardian published a disturbing account of an Australian man detained, interrogated and deported from the US despite holding a valid work visa. The man, who had lived in the US for more than five years, says he was accused of drug trafficking, denied access to a lawyer and told: “Trump is back in town; we’re doing things the way we should have always been doing them.”
His story echoes others emerging in recent months – including from Germany, Canada and the UK – but coming from an Australian, it’s likely to hit closer to home in New Zealand. The University of Auckland has already warned its staff to expect “increased scrutiny” at the US border, especially for those involved in politically sensitive research, Stuff reports. MFAT is currently reviewing its advice for travel to the US and other countries, a spokesperson tells Newsroom.
Read more:
- Entering the US has become more fraught. Here’s what you need to know (Stuff)
- New Zealanders shouldn’t be complacent about the risk of being detained at the US border, says LA-based journalist David Farrier. (Newsroom)
