International Travel 10 December

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 262,700 in October 2025, an increase of 22,500 from October 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 13,500)
• China (up 1,500)
• Korea (up 1,300)
• Taiwan (up 1,200)
• Hong Kong (up 900)
• United States (up 800)
• Japan (up 700).

The 121,100 overseas visitor arrivals from Australia were a record for an October month. This coincided with the Australian school holiday period.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in October 2025 was 93 percent of the 283,800 in October 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 262,700 overseas visitor arrivals in October 2025:

• 47 percent were from Australia (compared with 43 percent in October 2019)
• 9 percent were from United States (8 percent in October 2019)
• 7 percent were from China (10 percent in October 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United Kingdom (5 percent in October 2019)
• 3 percent were from India (2 percent in October 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 316,100 in October 2025, a decrease of 3,200 from October 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 3,200)
• Singapore (up 1,200)
• Japan (up 1,100)
• India (up 1,000)
• United States (down 3,800)
• Fiji (down 2,700)
• Vanuatu (down 2,000)
• Spain (down 1,600).

There were record arrivals, for an October month, of New Zealand-resident travellers from some destinations, including China (15,500), the Cook Islands (12,100), and Japan (10,900).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in October 2025 was 97 percent of the 326,400 in October 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 316,100 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in October 2025:

• 44 percent were from Australia (compared with 44 percent in October 2019)
• 7 percent were from Fiji (6 percent in October 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in October 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (7 percent in October 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United Kingdom (5 percent in October 2019)
• 4 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in October 2019)
• 4 percent were from Japan (3 percent in October 2019).

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.45 million in the October 2025 year, an increase of 205,000 from the October 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 153,000 to 1.5 million)
• United States (up 20,000 to 382,000)
• United Kingdom (up 20,000 to 191,000)
• Japan (up 10,000 to 75,000).

The 382,000 overseas visitor arrivals from the United States in the October 2025 year were a record for any annual period. 

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.07 million in the October 2025 year, an increase of 101,000 from the October 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 69,000 to 1.28 million)
• China (up 20,000 to 164,000)
• Japan (up 18,000 to 91,000)
• Indonesia (up 15,000 to 96,000)
• India (up 15,000 to 113,000)
• Philippines (up 12,000 to 59,000).

The 3.07 million New Zealand-resident arrivals in the October 2025 year were a record for an October year.

Border crossings

There were 1.12 million border crossings in October 2025, made up of 589,200 arrivals and 530,500 departures. In October 2024 there were 1.07 million border crossings.

October 2025 border crossings were 96 percent of the 1.17 million in October 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 October 2025, just over 2 in 3 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

Dave O'Donovan
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: November 2025 will be released on 22 January 2026.