International Travel 13 March

International travel covers the number and characteristics of overseas visitors and New Zealand resident travellers (short-term movements) entering or leaving New Zealand.

Key facts

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors
Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers
Annual arrivals
Border crossings

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 370,200 in January 2025, an increase of 43,800 from January 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 22,800)
• China (up 15,200)
• United Kingdom (up 3,300)
• Taiwan (up 3,200)
• Korea (up 1,600)
• Germany (up 1,400)
• United States (up 1,300)
• Hong Kong (up 1,200)
• New Caledonia (down 1,300).

The increase in overseas visitor arrivals from China coincided with the Chinese New Year, which began on 29 January 2025. Monthly arrivals from China typically peak in January or February each year, depending on the timing of the Chinese New Year. In 2024 the Chinese New Year began on 10 February.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in January 2025 was 93 percent of the 399,300 in January 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 370,200 overseas visitor arrivals in January 2025:

• 38 percent were from Australia (compared with 36 percent in January 2019)
• 14 percent were from the United States (10 percent in January 2019)
• 10 percent were from China (11 percent in January 2019)
• 8 percent were from the United Kingdom (9 percent in January 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 330,300 in January 2025, an increase of 2,100 from January 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 6,500)
• Indonesia (up 2,700)
• Philippines (up 2,200)
• India (up 2,000)
• Japan (up 2,000)
• China (down 3,000).

The 330,300 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in January 2025 was a record for a January month. The record for any month was 345,100 in July 2018.

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in January 2025 was 103 percent of the 320,900 in January 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 330,300 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in January 2025:

• 38 percent were from Australia (compared with 39 percent in January 2019)
• 7 percent were from China (6 percent in January 2019)
• 6 percent were from India (5 percent in January 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (6 percent in January 2019)
• 5 percent were from Fiji (5 percent in January 2019).

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.36 million in the January 2025 year, an increase of 343,000 from the January 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 147,000 to 1.41 million)
• China (up 97,000 to 264,000)
• United States (up 24,000 to 371,000)
• Taiwan (up 16,000 to 50,000)
• United Kingdom (up 15,000 to 183,000)
• Japan (up 15,000 to 69,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.00 million in the January 2025 year, an increase of 224,000 from the January 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 163,000 to 1.23 million)
• China (up 38,000 to 147,000)
• Indonesia (up 30,000 to 87,000)
• Japan (up 23,000 to 78,000)
• Cook Islands (up 14,000 to 110,000)
• New Caledonia (down 11,000 to 3,000).

Border crossings

There were 1.40 million border crossings in January 2025, made up of 711,900 arrivals and 683,700 departures. In January 2024 there were 1.29 million border crossings.

January 2025 border crossings were 97 percent of the 1.44 million in January 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital arrival card

A digital arrival card (New Zealand Traveller Declaration - NZTD) became available to travellers entering New Zealand from mid-July 2023, alongside the existing paper arrival card. Christchurch and Wellington airports were the first to use the NZTD, followed by Queenstown airport in late July 2023 and Auckland airport in late August 2023.

Data from July 2023 onwards therefore includes a growing proportion of digital responses. In January 2025, just under 3 in 5 of all traveller arrivals completed the digital NZTD.

The implementation of the NZTD has no impact on the range of statistical information available to international travel and migration customers.

Early and provisional international travel data

Each week, Stats NZ releases early and provisional international travel statistics - International travel (provisional) - to facilitate analysis of New Zealand's inbound and outbound tourism sectors.

This includes:

• weekly travel data for short-term overseas visitor and New Zealand-resident arrivals
• arrivals and departures data based solely on border crossings into and out of New Zealand
• stock estimates of visitors in New Zealand and New Zealand residents travelling overseas, based on arrivals and departures.

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

International travel 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.

Technical enquiries

Mosiana Ha'unga
03 964 8838
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: February 2025 will be released on 14 April 2025.