International Travel 10 September

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 236,600 in July 2025, an increase of 14,700 from July 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 17,700)
• China (down 3,700)
• United States (down 1,200).

The 126,700 overseas visitor arrivals from Australia were a record for a July month. This coincided with the Australian school holiday period.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in July 2025 was 93 percent of the 255,600 in July 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 236,600 overseas visitor arrivals in July 2025:

• 55 percent were from Australia (compared with 50 percent in July 2019)
• 10 percent were from China (11 percent in July 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United States (7 percent in July 2019)
• 3 percent were from the United Kingdom (3 percent in July 2019)
• 3 percent were from Japan (3 percent in July 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 321,900 in July 2025, an increase of 8,000 from July 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 9,300)
• Japan (up 1,500)
• Philippines (up 1,100)
• Fiji (down 2,600)
• United States (down 2,100)
• Vanuatu (down 2,000).

There were 14,100 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals from Indonesia in July 2025. This was a record for any month from Indonesia.

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in July 2025 was 95 percent of the 340,200 in July 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 321,900 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in July 2025:

• 38 percent were from Australia (compared with 36 percent in July 2019)
• 8 percent were from Fiji (9 percent in July 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United Kingdom (6 percent in July 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (8 percent in July 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in July 2019).

School holidays in New Zealand fell between late June and mid-July 2025.

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.39 million in the July 2025 year, an increase of 169,000 from the July 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 147,000 to 1.46 million)
• United Kingdom (up 19,000 to 189,000)
• United States (up 15,000 to 380,000)
• Japan (up 11,000 to 73,000).

The 380,000 overseas visitor arrivals from the United States was a record for a July year.

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.05 million in the July 2025 year, an increase of 111,000 from the July 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 62,000 to 1.25 million)
• Indonesia (up 26,000 to 95,000)
• China (up 23,000 to 163,000)
• Japan (up 20,000 to 88,000)
• India (up 16,000 to 112,000)
• Philippines (up 11,000 to 57,000).

Of the top five main destinations in the July 2025 year, the number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals from China was a record for any 12-month period.

Border crossings

There were 1.08 million border crossings in July 2025, made up of 569,700 arrivals and 506,900 departures. In July 2024 there were 1.07 million border crossings.

July 2025 border crossings were 91 percent of the 1.18 million in July 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 July 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

Taylor Nutira
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: August 2025 will be released on 13 October 2025.