The following transcript was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Carlie: Hey there it’s Carlie with the Expat Focus Podcast. Great news for Digital Nomads! There’s now another country you can travel to and work, totally legitimately while you’re there! It’s New Zealand.
Immigration Advisor David Andrews returns to explain why it’s NOT technically a Digital Nomad visa however, where the employment opportunities are in New Zealand in 2025 if you’re not bringing a job with you, and whether Trump’s America has more US citizens interested in making a move to the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Have you heard we’re looking for feedback about the podcast? If you’re a regular listener, simply email contact@expatfocus.com to find out more.
David Andrews, founder and director of Visa Visa Immigration Services and Higher Minds Recruitment. It’s great to see you again.
David: Yeah. Thanks Carlie. Thank you for inviting me back.
Carlie: If you missed the first episode that we had with David last year, roll back through our podcast archives. We speak about all things moving to New Zealand and explore the various types of visas that you can apply for to get there.
But today, David, I’d like to speak about a new visa that’s not a new visa that’s been in the news recently, and that is New Zealand’s digital nomad visa. If you are listening to this podcast, you should be aware we also have a YouTube channel, Expat Focus, and David’s just given me a laugh when I said a new visa that’s not really a new visa. Explain why the digital nomad visa for New Zealand is not really a new visa. Let’s start there.
David: So basically the government realized that there are other people in other countries around the world where digital nomads is a thing, and they’re just playing catch up. So from the 27th of January, anybody that’s coming to New Zealand, which includes visitors, tourists, people visiting family, and partners and guardians on longer term visas, can now work in New Zealand as a digital nomad if you are working for an employer back in your home country.
So it’s basically, you can come here, just say you’re working for IBM in the States, and you come to New Zealand for a six weeks holiday, you can work while you are here without having to get a work visa. That’s the main change. There’s a couple of conditions on that. They must not work for a New Zealand employer. So if you come here to work for a New Zealand employer, you need a work visa. You must not provide goods and services to people in New Zealand. I was trying to work out how that would work for podcasters.
I’m still trying to get my head around if you’re coming here and doing podcasting or if you’re coming here and doing videos for YouTube and stuff like that. I suppose it depends where you’re getting paid. Another one: do work that requires them to be physically present at a workplace in New Zealand. So you can’t come here as a nomad and then base yourself in an office somewhere in New Zealand. You would then be working.
Carlie: What about coworking?
David: Coworking? Yeah.
Carlie: Does that count as an office or is that just a hot desk as long as you’re… I suppose they…
David: Say more if you go to a place every day that is an office, you are then an employee if you’re going there every day. Coworking, I don’t think that sort of works. The other thing they’re saying is, if a person is tax resident of one of the 40 plus countries which New Zealand has a tax treaty such as Australia, most of Europe, the UK, US, and much of Asia, the period of tax free can be extended to 183 days.
So normally you will get 90 days tax free, but that can be extended to 183 days if you’re coming from Europe or the States. After that, if you managed to stay here longer, you’ll have to pay the same tax as someone from New Zealand from the day you arrived. So there’s a couple of little hooks in there, but if you’re staying that long, you’re pretty much working in New Zealand.
The nomad side of it is pretty much people who come here on a working holiday visa or people who come here on the 90 day tourist visa and they want to be able to stay in touch with their head office and do some work.
Carlie: David, let’s be real. Prior to this visa coming into place or these new visa conditions coming into place, were people doing that anyway, coming on a holiday visa and just working on their laptop?
David: I suppose what’s allowed is, when you came here on a visitor visa before, the main purpose of your visa is to visit. So if you come here with your suitcases and you’re going through customs and you’ve got two laptops and a whole pile of business related stuff, they could turn you around at the border saying, “We don’t believe you are a genuine visitor.” Whereas they’re taking that away now and saying, “Okay, if you’re coming here and we know you’re gonna do some work while you’re here, you don’t have to apply for a work visa.”
And the reason they’re doing that is because they want to obviously make New Zealand a more suitable place to come. They’re saying that tourism was New Zealand’s second largest exporter, creating revenue of $11 billion a year and creating 200,000 jobs. So making the country more attractive to digital nomads, people who work remotely while traveling, will boost New Zealand’s attractiveness as a destination.
Carlie: You have an extended stay and spend more money in the country, right?
David: Yeah, pretty much. And if you can work, then you are earning money, then you can stay here longer.
Carlie: And do you think that’s gonna work for New Zealand, this approach to try to… I mean, we spoke in our first conversation about the fact that there’s a high cost of living in New Zealand. In reality, wages aren’t super high. Do you think something like this is going to breathe a bit of new life into the situation in New Zealand?
David: I think so because New Zealand currency is down low. So you come from the US or the UK, you’re getting two or two and a half times what the New Zealand dollar is worth. So if you come from the UK and for your one pound, you’re getting $3 and you can still work and still receive a salary from your home country, which is much higher than what is in New Zealand, you then have more money to spend and you’re more likely to want to stay longer.
Rather than if you have to take six weeks annual leave from your work or three months unpaid leave, then your funds are going to run out. So I think that’s a good incentive to come if you can keep earning money while you’re here.
Carlie: And you don’t have to stress about, I guess, for digital nomads that might be looking at countries with favorable currency exchanges right now.
David: Yes. It’s terrible for me if I go to the UK or if I go to the US, ’cause my money doesn’t go very far.
Carlie: So let’s speak practically. Anyone can apply basically for a tourist visa that becomes a digital nomad visa, essentially?
David: Yeah. Anybody that’s coming from one of the countries that we have agreements with can get the electronic visa that will get 90 days, that automatically is a digital nomad visa. So you don’t have to apply for anything different. I suppose they’re just relaxing the rules that when you arrive, it’s okay to come here and do some work back in your home country. I mean, I can’t think of anybody… the immigration police are wandering round and checking in cafes and saying, “Are you working?”
Carlie: And how many days have you been working from this cafe in New Zealand?
David: Yeah.
Carlie: Well, that was gonna be my other question. Is this visa now even more advantageous as a bit of a stepping stone to staying in New Zealand more permanently? If someone came to you and said, “Hey, I think I’m gonna start on this digital nomad visa and then maybe try to stay in the country long term,” is that a good strategy?
David: Yeah. And just to clear up, there isn’t a digital nomad visa, so I know I keep…
Carlie: Calling it that. It’s not that.
David: So it’s just basically if you are here on a tourist visa or whatever, you can be a digital nomad.
Carlie: It’s the visitor visa that is open for a digital nomad.
David: Yeah. I think a lot of clients that I have, since the last couple of podcasts that I’ve done, have contacted me from the US and from the UK and other countries, and the biggest thing they want to talk about is money and work.
And I always encourage them, if you’re thinking about coming here, moving your family here, come for a visit. Come and see what it’s like. Don’t just see all the glossy brochures and think New Zealand is an amazing place to come and live. Come here for a month. See the North Island. See the South Island. And if you can still work when you’re doing that, well that’s great. You’ve just got the fare and you can check in with your office. Because of the time zone as well… I mean, right now it’s 10:00 AM on Saturday morning. So they can work at night and play all day or vice versa.
Carlie: Oh, well, God, you’ve gotta sleep at some point, don’t you?
David: Yeah, yeah.
Carlie: I always have that idea in mind when I go back to Australia and do some work. And then I realize the time zone change between Europe and Australia is just so inconvenient.
David: I think it’s a good thing. It’s just legalized what people are already doing. And people are not gonna worry about it. If that is a turnoff to coming to New Zealand that, “Hey, I can’t legally work while I’m there,” then it is gonna take away that worry. They can come here, they can keep working back with their home country and earning, continue to get paid.
Carlie: David, we know you also have Higher Minds Recruitment, so I’d like to know how the job market may have changed since we last spoke.
David: Immigration New Zealand have made some changes to the job market around the accredited employer work visa, which is the main one for people coming into work in New Zealand. They’ve changed the requirement that you only have to have two years experience, not three years experience. They’ve changed some of the ways for bringing family. They’re always tweaking it to make it obviously not so hard for employers to get employees from overseas.
I was checking on the internet last night about jobs in the construction sector and the house sector. And there were over 2,000 vacancies just in those two sectors alone. What I’ve found now is student visas are on the pickup. There was a huge decline after Covid, and that hit the education sector very, very hard. And that is picking up again. Now I’m seeing more people wanting to come on student visas.
After a certain new president became a new president, I had a lot more inquiries from Americans who wanted to come here. They’ve also changed the requirements for the investment visa. The investment visa was a very, very complicated piece of legislation and it just put people off. They simplified that process. They brought down some of the financial investments that you have to have. And they’ve made quite a few changes to that.
So the new government is working to make New Zealand more attractive for people who want to visit, people who want to work, and people who want to invest. So I’ve had a few high net worth people wanting to talk to me about coming here and living permanently.
One of the things that they’ve changed that is quite attractive for people who want to invest is that they’ve reduced the amount of time you actually have to spend in New Zealand to qualify. So some people want a bolt hole in New Zealand. They want to come here, they want to buy property. They want to come here for a month every year and then go back to their home country. And that’s becoming much more doable now because of the rule changes.
Carlie: You spoke about Americans before. Do you think the current situation could be advantageous for New Zealand in terms of bringing highly skilled Americans into the country?
David: The main number of people since Trump came in is doctors. I’ve had a lot of inquiries from doctors in the US looking to move and bring their families here. People that have skills that are easily transferrable to another country are more likely to want to travel and want to relocate their families. Doctors… some other ones are quite hard.
If you have lawyers in the US, it’s very difficult to become a lawyer in New Zealand because we have a totally different legal system. But engineers, doctors, nurses, those sort of people that have transferable skills, IT professionals, are easier to come to New Zealand.
Carlie: And are they transferable qualifications as well? I was on the Expat Focus Facebook groups just the other day, and someone was asking about transferring their nursing qualification from the US to another country, and it’s not the case that all countries will accept those qualifications.
David: I just did a lot of work for an American doctor and his wife was a nurse. The first thing that I did in that process was I took their qualifications, their degrees or their master’s or their bachelor’s or whatever they did, and I sent them to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and had them assessed. Then when they’re assessed, they say, for example, your master’s degree is comparable with a level eight or level nine master’s degree in New Zealand.
So that was the first stage in working with those people, to get their qualifications assessed. For his wife who was a nurse, after we had her qualifications assessed, we then had to go through a process of working with the Nursing Council of New Zealand to look at her qualifications and look at her skills and see if that was comparable with New Zealand. And then they will look at any courses or additional training she may have to do to gain New Zealand registration.
So it’s quite a complex process, but it’s not impossible. Obviously they want to make sure that healthcare workers have the same skills and qualifications and abilities to come to New Zealand. They’ve taken away roadblocks from immigration. So that doctor and that nurse both have what they call tier one straight to residency visa.
So once their visa is approved, they get resident visa. And that is very… a lot of people who come here in the past wanted to know that once they’re here, they’re here. They’re not on a temporary visa, they’re not on a work visa, they’re on a permanent visa, they’re residents. As a resident, they can buy a house, their children go to school for free.
There’s a whole lot of extra benefits of being a New Zealand resident rather than being on a work visa. So that has sort of put some cream on the cake in a way that, “Yes, you come here and here’s your resident visa.” Same as sort of what Trump’s doing… give us $5 million and we’ll give you… you can come and live here.
Carlie: What’s the investment need to be about if you do decide to choose that pathway to go to New Zealand?
David: I think that the minimum investment right now is 5 million. 5 million New Zealand dollars, which may seem a lot, but it’s not when you take it into UK dollars. We also have other visas that we have, retirement type visas for people who want to retire here. And we have a family sort of stream of visas, people overseas who’ve got family in New Zealand who want to come and join them. There are a couple of grandparent visas and retirement visas for those people as well.
The main ones that I’m doing the most is people who want to come and live and work in New Zealand. And the biggest question that they ask me is, “What do I need to do?” And my answer is, “We need to find you a job.” So that’s where having the immigration business and the recruitment business can work together. We can say, “Okay, you’re a doctor. You want to come here, but you’re only gonna get your visa if you’ve got a job offer.” So that’s where we go and talk to myself and say, “Okay, put on my recruitment hat.”
Carlie: That’s a bit of Inception there.
David: How can I find a job for this doctor?
Carlie: Must have a really entertaining workday, David, working with yourself so closely?
David: I do, I do have staff. I do have an admin person who is my brain.
Carlie: A likely story.
David: I just changed my t-shirts. On the front it’s got Vis-a-Vis, on the back it’s got Higher Minds.
Carlie: Do a different hat for whatever call you’re on at the time. Circling back to this digital nomad visa that isn’t, it’s just the visitor visa with a relaxation of rules. We’re speaking in 2025. What are your hot tips for anyone that wants an extended stay in New Zealand to both holiday and work, which I think is a difficult balance sometime, but if you are going to do that for a few months, maybe you are just on an extended stay, maybe you’re scoping the place out to live, where would you suggest that digital nomads go during their time in New Zealand?
David: Well, I mean, New Zealand has two islands. North Island, South Island, population of 5 million. Nearly two thirds of the people live in the North Island. So the biggest city and the biggest job opportunity is Auckland. Everybody wants to live in Auckland, but that comes at a price. Housing is more expensive. The job market is probably a bit tighter up there, but there are more opportunities. So yes, go to Auckland, have a look. I used to live in Auckland. I lived in Auckland for many, many years. And then I escaped and I came down to the South Island. I now live in Christchurch.
Christchurch is beautiful. It’s not congested. The housing’s much cheaper. After the major earthquake we had a number of years ago, Christchurch has been in a rebuild and it’s a beautiful modern city. So you have to come to Auckland, you have to go to Wellington, you have to go to Christchurch. They’re the main places that you will live if you’re going to work.
If you want to be a nomad and you want to enjoy, people are going to go to Queenstown. People are gonna go wandering around the bottom of the South Island. But those are the sort of three places I would suggest – Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. And the major centers, like for tourists like Queenstown, are expensive. Their expensive accommodation is limited. So being a digital nomad, yeah, it will be expensive.
A lot of people come here and they buy a camper van. They buy a van for $10,000 and then you don’t have your accommodation costs, and they start in Auckland. Some of them travel a bit further north, and then they just work their way down. We have good internet connectivity.
Carlie: That was actually gonna be my next question. If you are a digital nomad and moving about the country during your stay, where’s the most reliable wifi? Do you have to hit a Macas?
David: A lot of digital nomads now, I’m using Starlink. And Starlink provide a mobile device, which you can stick on top of your van. So a lot of people are buying the Starlink sets and you can be right out in the middle of the back country, in the middle of nowhere and still have reliable internet connection. So if you want to seriously work as a digital nomad, rather than just doing a bit of photographs and a bit of Instagram…
Carlie: Location.
David: Get a Starlink and stick it on top of your van.
Carlie: Nice free promo for Elon there too.
David: Yeah, Elon send me some money. But I mean, the wifi is… most centers have Maccas and those sorts of places, but we do have 5G being rolled out now. And we do have pretty much, I would say 96% coverage north to south. It’s only when they go into the really remote areas that you won’t have it.
Carlie: Well, David, it’s been great to chat again. If people would like more information on the relaxed rules of New Zealand’s visitor visa or any other visa to get them to New Zealand, where can our listeners find you?
David: You can look on my website, VisaVisa.co.nz…
Carlie: Conveniently written on your shirt.
David: Yes. Visa Visa Limited. Or email me david@visavisa.co.nz and I will get back to you as soon as I hear from you.
Carlie: That’s it for today. Like, subscribe, follow us to never miss an episode, we’d also love it if you left a review. Get our monthly newsletter, packed with helpful information for anyone living abroad by signing up at expatfocus.com/newsletter, and I’ll catch you next time.