International Migration 13 November

International migration statistics give the latest outcomes-based measure of migration, which includes estimates of migrants entering or leaving New Zealand.

Key facts

Annual migration
Annual migration by citizenship
Monthly migration
Migration with Australia - year ended March 2024
Latest revisions
Update to seasonal adjustment

Annual migration

Provisional estimates for the September 2024 year compared with the September 2023 year were:

• migrant arrivals: 177,900 (± 1,100), down 23 percent
• migrant departures: 133,000 (± 1,000), up 35 percent
• annual net migration: gain of 44,900 (± 1,500), compared with a net gain of 133,300 (± 300).

The 133,000 migrant departures in the September 2024 year are, provisionally, the highest on record for an annual period.

Annual migrant arrivals provisionally peaked at 235,500 in the year ended October 2023.

Annual net migration provisionally peaked in the year ended October 2023, with a gain of 136,300.

The long-term average for September years (2002 to 2019) before COVID-19 is 120,200 migrant arrivals, 91,800 migrant departures, and a net migration gain of 28,400.

Migrants are people changing their country of residence, regardless of their country of citizenship or visa status. A 12-month threshold is used to classify migrants from non-migrants, aligned with international guidelines on measuring migration.

Annual migration by citizenship

The provisional net migration gain of 44,900 in the September 2024 year was made up of a net gain of 99,600 non-New Zealand citizens and a net migration loss of 54,700 New Zealand citizens.

Text alternative for International migration estimates (provisional), year ended September 2024.

For migrant arrivals in the September 2024 year, citizens of India were the largest group with 33,900 (± 300) arrivals. The next largest groups were citizens of:

• New Zealand: 24,900 (± 300)
• China: 20,500 (± 300)
• Philippines: 19,100 (± 100)
• Fiji: 6,500 (± 100)
• Sri Lanka: 6,300 (± 100)
• United Kingdom: 5,700 (± 100)
• South Africa: 5,400 (± 100)
• Australia: 5,000 (± 300).

For migrant departures in the September 2024 year, citizens of New Zealand were the largest group with 79,700 (± 800) departures. The next largest groups were citizens of:

• China: 7,300 (± 200)
• United Kingdom: 5,100 (± 100)
• Australia: 4,900 (± 200)
• India: 4,500 (± 200)
• United States: 3,400 (± 100).

Citizens of India, the Philippines, and China drove net migration gains in the September 2024 year. Country of citizenship is the nationality of passport used to arrive in or depart from New Zealand and is not necessarily the country of previous or next residence.

For non-New Zealand citizens, the net migration gain of 99,600 in the September 2024 year compares with a net migration gain of 172,900 in the September 2023 year. The long-term average for September years (2002 to 2019) is a net migration gain of 47,800 a year.

The September 2024 year provisionally saw two annual records for New Zealand citizens:

• 79,700 migrant departures, exceeding the previous record (before 2024) of 72,400 in the February 2012 year
• net migration loss of 54,700, exceeding the previous record (before 2023 and 2024) of 44,400 in the February 2012 year.

For New Zealand citizens, there was an average annual net migration loss of 26,600 in the September years 2002 to 2013, and net migration loss of 5,200 in the September years 2014 to 2019.

Monthly migration

Provisional estimates for September 2024 compared with September 2023 were:

• migrant arrivals: 13,300 (± 500), down 30 percent
• migrant departures: 9,400 (± 500), up 20 percent
• monthly net migration: gain of 4,000 (± 800), compared with a net gain of 11,300 (± 200).

Provisional migration estimates are revised each month until they are finalised after 16 months.

Migration with Australia - year ended March 2024

There was a provisional net migration loss of 30,000 people to Australia in the year ended March 2024. This was made up of 17,000 migrant arrivals from Australia to New Zealand, and 46,900 migrant departures from New Zealand to Australia.

Traditionally, there has been a net migration loss from New Zealand to Australia. This averaged about 30,000 a year from 2004 to 2013, and 3,000 a year from 2014 to 2019.

The provisional net migration loss to Australia in the year ended March 2024 was made up of a net loss of 28,600 New Zealand citizens, and a net loss of 1,400 non-New Zealand citizens. This compares with a net migration loss to Australia of 18,700 in the year ended March 2023, made up of a net loss of 18,900 New Zealand citizens and a net gain of 200 non-New Zealand citizens.

In the March 2024 year, 54 percent of New Zealand citizen migrant departures were to Australia.

Net migration loss to Australia in 2023 (published in July 2024 and based on provisional data to December 2023) has more information.

These net migration estimates draw on two Infoshare series (select 'Tourism', then 'International Travel and Migration - ITM'):

• Estimated migrant arrivals by citizenship, visa type, and CLPR, 12/16-month rule (Quarterly) - this uses Stats NZ monthly estimates currently available to September 2024.
• Estimated migrant arrivals to Australia by CLPR, citizenship, and birthplace (Quarterly) - this uses Australian Bureau of Statistics quarterly estimates currently available to March 2024. Data for the June 2024 quarter will be available in mid-December 2024.

As the country of last previous residence (CLPR) of migrants arriving in New Zealand and Australia is not always known, an allowance for non-response to the CLPR question on both New Zealand and Australian arrival cards has been made.

Latest revisions

Migration estimates from June 2023 are provisional and subject to revision because it is not yet known whether some travellers are migrants or non-migrants.

Why migration estimates change has more information.

From August 2024 onwards, starting with the release of June 2024 estimates, a new training period was implemented for the international migration model.

Adjusting the training window for the international migration model (published 6 August 2024) and International migration: June 2024 (published 13 August 2024) have more information on the change of training period.

We encourage customers to make their own judgement on whether to use provisional migration estimates for the latest months, which have higher uncertainty, or provisional migration estimates for older months, which have lower uncertainty. Annual arrival and departure estimates are subject to notably less revision at five to six months after the reference period.

Comparison of provisional and final migration estimates: August 2017 to September 2024 contains a history of published migration estimates and revisions.

This month, revisions to the preceding month August 2024 were:

• migrant arrivals down 300 (2 percent). The average revision size to the preceding month was 1,300 (7 percent), and revisions were generally downwards, over the previous 12 months (August 2023 to July 2024).
• migrant departures down 600 (5 percent). The average revision size to the preceding month was 2,400 (15 percent), and revisions were all downwards, over the previous 12 months.
• net migration up 200. The average revision size to the preceding month was 1,600, and revisions were generally upwards, over the previous 12 months.

Text alternative for Estimated migration by direction, monthly, November 2018-September 2024.

This month, revisions to the preceding year (ended August 2024) were:

• migrant arrivals down 4,500 (2 percent). The average revision size to the preceding year was 4,700 (2 percent), and revisions were generally downwards, over the previous 12 months (year ended August 2023 to year ended July 2024).
• migrant departures down 2,800 (2 percent). The average revision size to the preceding year was 5,300 (4 percent), and revisions were all downwards, over the previous 12 months.
• net migration down 1,600. The average revision size to the preceding year was 4,500, with half of revisions upwards and half downwards, over the previous 12 months.

Update to seasonal adjustment

With the release of August 2023 data in October 2023, we resumed publication of seasonally adjusted and trend series for international migration. This followed a long interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This resumption was possible after we developed a methodology to bridge the period interrupted by COVID-19-related travel and border restrictions.

Methodology for bridging seasonally adjusted international travel and migration series impacted by COVID-19 has more detailed information on how the bridges were created.

In the methodology paper we committed to an annual review of the bridging series.

Following a review in October 2024, we have changed the calculation of the end point of the bridge (known as T1, and corresponding to January 2023 for monthly series, and the March 2023 quarter for quarterly series) to use deseasonalised values rather than actual values. 'Deseasonalising' means taking the true underlying value and dividing it by the relevant seasonal component. This is desirable as the underlying data for calculating the bridge is trend-based.

Across most international migration series this change slightly improved the fit of the seasonal adjustment model around the bridged period. This meant the trends tended to be smoother with more consistent seasonal patterns and less irregularity.

The graphs below show the effect of the change to the seasonally adjusted series for monthly migrant arrivals and migrant departures.

This change does not affect periods before January 2023. Since the release of January 2024 data in March 2024, seasonally adjusted and trend series up to and including February 2020 are no longer revised to avoid any unintended revisions in the historical series caused by recent data. Seasonally adjusted series from March 2020 to December 2022 continue to reflect actual values without seasonal adjustment, and trend series remain suppressed.

We will continue to review the bridging methodology annually. Future reviews may result in revisions to previously released trend and seasonally adjusted values.

Text alternative for International migration estimates (provisional), year ended September 2024

Diagram shows outcomes-based (provisional) estimates of migration, by citizenship (New Zealand or non-New Zealand) for the year ended September 2024. Overall, net migration is 44,900, made up of a net loss of 54,700 NZ citizens (based on 24,900 migrant arrivals, an 8 percent increase on the year ended September 2023, and 79,700 migrant departures, a 27 percent increase) and a net gain of 99,600 non-NZ citizens (based on 153,000 migrant arrivals, a 27 percent decrease on the year ended September 2023, and 53,300 migrant departures, a 49 percent increase). Estimates are provisional as of 13 November 2024. Source: Stats NZ.

Text alternative for Estimated migration by direction, monthly, November 2018-September 2024

Graphs show monthly revisions to provisional migrant arrivals, migrant departures, and net migration for each month from November 2018 to September 2024. The data is shown in three line graphs arranged one after the other vertically, starting with migrant arrivals (top), migrant departures (middle), and net migration (bottom). The vertical axis shows estimated number of migrants. Months are labelled on the horizontal axis. Source: Stats NZ.

More data

Use Infoshare to access time-series data for international travel and migration:

Subject category: Tourism
Group: International travel and migration - ITM

Definitions and metadata

International migration - DataInfo+ gives general methodology used to produce international travel and migration statistics.

International migration concepts - DataInfo+ gives definitions of terms used in this release.

Subnational short-term NZ-resident arrivals - DataInfo+ gives methodology for determining the New Zealand-location information in short-term New Zealand-resident arrival records.

Provisional migration estimates

Comparisons between the September 2024 and 2023 months and years use the latest provisional estimates for each period.

The provisional estimates have 95 percent confidence intervals (±) beside them - the wider the interval, the greater the uncertainty about the estimate. However, these intervals reflect the model uncertainty, not the extent of future revisions to provisional data.

Migration estimates in more recent months have greater uncertainty and are therefore subject to larger revisions than estimates for earlier periods.

Provisional migration estimates are revised each month until they are finalised after 16 months.

Migration data transformation has more information about the migration estimates, including the 12/16-month rule and a monthly summary of the number of border movements, the number requiring modelling as migrants or non-migrants, and the history of revisions to migration estimates.

Comparison of provisional and final migration estimates: August 2017 to September 2024 also has more information.

Why migration estimates change

The outcomes-based measure of migration with provisional and final estimates is the official way we measure migration in New Zealand.

International migration uses new official measure has more information.

To classify a border crossing as a migrant movement, we need to observe up to 16 months of travel history, and it takes 17 months before final migration estimates are available, using the 12/16-month rule.

To produce timely results, we use a statistical model to produce provisional migration estimates. As new data becomes available each month, the provisional migration model has more information about the border crossings it is trying to estimate. This causes shifts in the estimated number of migrant arrivals and migrant departures, and thus changes in the net migration estimates.

Technical enquiries

Dave O'Donovan
03 964 8924
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2702

Next release

International migration: October 2024 will be released on 13 December 2024.