International Travel 11 June

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
Easter and school holidays' impact
Annual arrivals
Border crossings

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 267,300 in April 2025, an increase of 42,200 from April 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 33,800)
• United Kingdom (up 4,000)
• United States (up 3,300)
• Hong Kong (up 1,600)
• Indonesia (down 1,100).

The increase in the number of overseas visitors from Australia in April 2025 compared with April 2024 was partly related to the timing of school holidays. Easter and school holidays' impact has more information.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in April 2025 was 87 percent of the 307,400 in April 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 267,300 overseas visitor arrivals in April 2025:

• 50 percent were from Australia (compared with 43 percent in April 2019)
• 9 percent were from the United States (8 percent in April 2019)
• 8 percent were from China (12 percent in April 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United Kingdom (5 percent in April 2019)
• 3 percent were from India (2 percent in April 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 244,800 in April 2025, an increase of 2,700 from April 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• China (up 1,900)
• Japan (up 1,700)
• Australia (up 1,600)
• Indonesia (up 1,000)
• United States (down 1,200)
• Fiji (down 1,000).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in April 2025 was 101 percent of the 243,300 in April 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 244,800 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in April 2025:

• 47 percent were from Australia (compared with 47 percent in April 2019)
• 6 percent were from Fiji (6 percent in April 2019)
• 6 percent were from China (5 percent in April 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (7 percent in April 2019)
• 4 percent were from Japan (2 percent in April 2019).

Easter and school holidays' impact

New Zealand-resident traveller and overseas visitor weekly arrivals both typically peak around Easter and school holiday periods. The timing of these holidays affects weekly and monthly travel numbers.

In 2025, Good Friday was on 18 April, coinciding with the New Zealand school holiday period from 12 to 27 April. In 2024, Good Friday was on 29 March and fell outside the school holiday period from 13 to 28 April.

The number of New Zealand residents arriving back from short-term trips peaked in late April in both 2024 and 2025, coinciding with the end of the school holidays.

School holidays in some Australian states started from early April in 2025, compared with late March in 2024. This contributed to fewer overseas visitor arrivals in the last week of March 2025, and more in the first three weeks of April 2025, compared with the same weeks in 2024.

International travel (provisional) has weekly updates of short-term travel trends.

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.36 million in the April 2025 year, an increase of 176,000 from the April 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 150,000 to 1.44 million)
• China (up 27,000 to 248,000)
• United Kingdom (up 18,000 to 188,000)
• Japan (up 11,000 to 71,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.02 million in the April 2025 year, an increase of 140,000 from the April 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 76,000 to 1.22 million)
• Indonesia (up 32,000 to 92,000)
• China (up 28,000 to 158,000)
• Japan (up 19,000 to 83,000)
• India (up 14,000 to 109,000)
• Cook Islands (up 10,000 to 110,000)
• New Caledonia (down 12,000 to 1,000).

Border crossings

There were 1.10 million border crossings in April 2025, made up of 519,200 arrivals and 580,800 departures. In April 2024 there were 1.02 million border crossings.

April 2025 border crossings were 93 percent of the 1.18 million in April 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 April 2025, just under 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

Peter Norris
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: May 2025 will be released on 10 July 2025.