International Travel 17 February

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

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

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.31 million in the December 2024 year, an increase of 357,000 from the December 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 127,000 to 1.39 million)
• China (up 97,000 to 248,000)
• United States (up 32,000 to 370,000)
• Japan (up 16,000 to 68,000)
• Taiwan (up 14,000 to 47,000)
• United Kingdom (up 13,000 to 180,000)
• Korea (up 12,000 to 70,000).

The number of overseas visitor arrivals from the United States was a record for a December year from that country. The United States was the second largest source of overseas visitor arrivals in 2024, behind Australia.

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 2.99 million in the December 2024 year, an increase of 310,000 from the December 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 197,000 to 1.23 million)
• China (up 63,000 to 150,000)
• Indonesia (up 29,000 to 84,000)
• Japan (up 26,000 to 76,000)
• Cook Islands (up 15,000 to 109,000)
• Fiji (up 11,000 to 212,000)
• New Caledonia (down 10,000 to 3,000).

Of the top five main destinations in 2024, the number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals from Fiji and China were records for any year.

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 469,800 in December 2024, an increase of 51,000 from December 2023. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 27,700)
• United States (up 9,000)
• United Kingdom (up 5,000)
• Germany (up 2,800)
• China (up 2,600)
• Japan (up 2,000).

The number of overseas visitor arrivals from the United States (60,900) in December 2024 was a record for any month from that country.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in December 2024 was 89 percent of the 528,200 in December 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 469,800 overseas visitor arrivals in December 2024:

• 41 percent were from Australia (compared with 37 percent in December 2019)
• 13 percent were from the United States (11 percent in December 2019)
• 8 percent were from the United Kingdom (8 percent in December 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (7 percent in December 2019)
• 3 percent were from Germany (3 percent in December 2019)
• 3 percent were from Singapore (3 percent in December 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 187,900 in December 2024, an increase of 16,200 from December 2023. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 11,900)
• China (up 2,100)
• Indonesia (up 1,600)
• Fiji (up 1,400)
• India (up 1,200).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in December 2024 was 97 percent of the 194,500 in December 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 187,900 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in December 2024:

• 49 percent were from Australia (compared with 53 percent in December 2019)
• 6 percent were from Fiji (5 percent in December 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (6 percent in December 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in December 2019)
• 5 percent were from India (4 percent in December 2019)
• 3 percent were from Cook Islands (3 percent in December 2019)
• 3 percent were from Samoa (2 percent in December 2019)
• 3 percent were from Japan (2 percent in December 2019).

Border crossings

There were 1.32 million border crossings in December 2024, made up of 668,600 arrivals and 655,800 departures. In December 2023 there were 1.21 million border crossings.

December 2024 border crossings were 92 percent of the 1.45 million in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital arrival card

A digital arrival card (New Zealand Traveller Declaration - NZTD) is available to travellers who have entered 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 December 2024, just over half 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.

Correction to overseas state/province of residence for visitor arrivals

We have corrected overseas state/province of residence for overseas visitor arrivals for the October 2024 month, which was incorrectly sampled. This error understated counts in overseas state/province of residence for visitor arrivals and overstated the 'not stated' category.

This affects the Infoshare series ITMM.SVA8+ for visitor arrivals from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, and the United States.

We have also corrected the following downloadable tables:

• 'International visitor arrivals to New Zealand: October 2024 - corrected' see Download data in International travel: October 2024.
• 'International visitor arrivals to New Zealand: November 2024 - corrected' see Download data in International travel: November 2024.

Due to the provisional of nature of length of stay, tables in 'International visitor arrivals to New Zealand' that include this variable have also been updated.

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: January 2025 will be released on 13 March 2025.