Try New Zealand Before You Buy
A smarter way to make the permanent move to New Zealand may be to try living here first.
Moving countries, lock, stock and barrel is a fairly ridiculous way to find out whether you like somewhere. People sell houses, resign from jobs, pull children out of schools, say goodbye to family and ship the contents of their homes halfway around the world, often on the strength of social media commentary or the fact they enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies.
Then they arrive here and that is usually when the more useful questions start to surface. Do we actually like living here? Can we cope with being this far from family? Is Auckland really for us, or would Christchurch, Wellington or somewhere smaller make more sense? Can we afford the lifestyle we imagined? And, perhaps most importantly, does New Zealand still feel like the right decision for us?
Until relatively recently, answering those questions properly often meant committing to the move first. Even multiple holidays here doesn’t give you a feel for what is like to actually live and work here. That has changed somewhat with the introduction of our digital nomad option. New Zealand now allows people visiting on qualifying visitor visas, including those entering under the NZeTA framework, to undertake remote work for overseas employers or overseas clients while they are here. The change has applied to visitor visa applications from 27 January 2025.
Then, from 1 April 2026, the tax rules also changed. Eligible people arriving in New Zealand can now potentially qualify as a “non-resident visitor” for tax purposes while spending up to 275 days here in an 18-month period, provided they satisfy the relevant conditions.
Taken together, those changes create an interesting possibility for anyone considering a long-term move. For some prospective migrants, you might not need to decide whether to move to New Zealand before you have actually tried living in New Zealand, and arguably this was part of the logic behind introducing these options.
Planning The Right Move
Just to be clear, New Zealand has not created some sort of nine-month digital nomad visa. The rules allow a visitor to work remotely while they are visiting New Zealand, but that remote work must be for an overseas employer or client. You cannot use a Visitor Visa to start working for a New Zealand employer, in any way, shape or form. You also cannot begin selling your services to New Zealand businesses. The work cannot require you to be physically present in New Zealand either. If any of those scenarios apply, then you technically need to hold a Work Visa to undertake that work in New Zealand.
Immigration New Zealand's operational instructions also go a step further. Remote work is not, by itself, a lawful reason for visiting New Zealand. You still need to be here for an acceptable visitor purpose, such as tourism or visiting family, with the remote work effectively travelling with you. So the proposition is not: “Move to New Zealand on a Visitor Visa and continue your life indefinitely.” It is fa more useful than that.
Checking It Out
Our current system, does give some applicants the ability to “test the water” before they take the plunge, which can be a useful exercise for such a big commitment.
Imagine someone in the UK, the United States, Europe, Singapore or elsewhere who already works remotely, perhaps in the IT or consulting fields. Perhaps they have been talking about New Zealand for years.
They may already have investigated work visas or residence but have never quite been willing to make the leap. Previously, the practical choices were fairly limited. Come for a holiday, which tells you something but not very much, or organise a proper migration and discover the reality afterwards. A three-week trip around Queenstown, Rotorua and the Bay of Islands is a lovely holiday but it is no substitute for actually experiencing what it is like to live here. Living in a country with your day to day routines is a vastly different proposition and provides for a far more useful comparison.
You discover what the supermarket costs when you are no longer mentally converting everything on the foreign exchange app on your phone. You work out what your overseas working day looks like from a New Zealand time zone. You experience the climate and in Auckland how temperamental that can be. You look at neighbourhoods, housing, schools and employment possibilities with considerably less imagination required.
You also get to answer the question that immigration advisers cannot reasonably answer for you. Do you actually want to live here?
Migration conversations tend to become consumed by eligibility and the visa process, which make sense. Can I get a work visa? Can my partner work? Is my occupation on the Green List? What salary do I need? All perfectly sensible questions. But securing a visa and building a life in a new country are not the same exercise. There are people who are exceptionally well qualified to migrate to New Zealand who probably should not. There are others for whom the visa pathway is complicated, but for whom New Zealand turns out to suit them extremely well. A few months spent here can be rather more informative than another twelve months discussing the idea from thousands of kilometres away.
The tax change makes the concept more interesting again. New Zealand's standard tax residence rules include the well-known 183-day test. Broadly, spending more than 183 days in New Zealand within a 12-month period can result in New Zealand tax residence, subject to the wider rules. From 1 April 2026, however, a new non-resident visitor regime allows qualifying visitors to remain outside that 183-day rule for up to 275 days in an 18-month period.
The person must not have been a New Zealand tax resident or transitional resident immediately before qualifying. They cannot be working for a New Zealand resident employer or a New Zealand branch of an overseas employer. They cannot be selling goods or services to New Zealand customers. Their work must not require them to be physically in New Zealand. They must remain lawfully here and must be required to pay tax in another country where they are tax resident. There are other requirements as well (where a good tax consultant can be helpful to have).
So nobody should read “275 days” and immediately book nine months in Mount Maunganui. Tax residence and immigration status are separate things. The tax rules do not give anyone a right to remain in New Zealand for 275 days. Your visa or entry permission still determines how long you can lawfully stay, and different visitors will have different immigration circumstances. Tax advice may also be necessary. International tax has a habit of becoming expensive shortly after somebody says, “I assumed it would be fine.”
Someone who can work genuinely remotely overseas may be able to come to New Zealand, retain their existing employment and income, and experience the country for considerably longer than a conventional holiday before making any decision about permanent migration. During that time, they can investigate the real immigration options.
Perhaps an employer opportunity emerges and an Accredited Employer Work Visa becomes viable. Perhaps a partner qualifies for something more useful. Perhaps there is a Skilled Migrant Category or Green List residence strategy worth pursuing. Perhaps the family decides New Zealand is exactly what they hoped it would be. Or perhaps they decide it isn't. That is not a failed migration plan and arguably, discovering that before selling your house is one of the more successful outcomes you can achieve.
There is also a broader point here about how people approach migration. Too many prospective migrants start with the visa and work backwards. They find a visa category, convince themselves they can satisfy it and then construct an entire life decision around being eligible. A better approach is often to start with the life that visa might lead to.
Where would you live? What would you earn? What would your partner do? What happens to your career? How often could you realistically see family? What does housing cost? What happens when parents overseas become older? Then look at whether immigration policy can support that plan. A visa is permission to be here. It is not always evidence that coming here is a good idea.
Try Before You Buy
New Zealand's remote working rules and the newer non-resident visitor tax regime have quietly created something prospective migrants have not always had: the ability, in the right circumstances, to spend a meaningful amount of time here without immediately dismantling their existing working life overseas.
It will not work for everyone obviously, and if your job requires you to be physically present overseas, clearly the experiment falls apart. If you want to work for a New Zealand employer, you will need to investigate an appropriate work visa. If you start dealing with New Zealand customers or creating stronger ties here, both immigration and tax issues need to be considered properly.
But for genuinely remote overseas workers, the opportunity is worth thinking about.
Migration has traditionally been sold as a leap of faith. There is something slightly strange about that. We test-drive cars worth $50,000 and inspect houses several times before buying them, yet people will occasionally relocate an entire family across the world having spent less time in their proposed new home than they spent choosing their last kitchen.
If New Zealand is somewhere you have seriously considered, perhaps the first question is no longer whether you should move here permanently. Perhaps it is whether you can come here long enough to find out.
Until next week.
