International Travel 13 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 3.51 million in the December 2025 year, an increase of 196,000 from the December 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 137,000 to 1.52 million)
• United States (up 15,000 to 385,000)
• China (up 13,000 to 262,000)
• United Kingdom (up 12,000 to 192,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.11 million in the December 2025 year, an increase of 112,000 from the December 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 72,000 to 1.30 million)
• China (up 17,000 to 167,000)
• Japan (up 16,000 to 92,000)
• India (up 12,000 to 114,000)
• Philippines (up 12,000 to 60,000)
• Indonesia (up 11,000 to 95,000)
• United States (down 13,000 to 155,000).

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 502,600 in December 2025, an increase of 32,800 from December 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 16,100)
• China (up 6,400)
• United Kingdom (up 2,300)
• Singapore (up 1,400)
• Taiwan (up 1,200)
• Malaysia (up 1,100).

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in December 2025 was 95 percent of the 528,200 in December 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 502,600 overseas visitor arrivals in December 2025:

• 41 percent were from Australia (compared with 37 percent in December 2019)
• 12 percent were from the United States (11 percent in December 2019)
• 8 percent were from the United Kingdom (8 percent in December 2019)
• 6 percent were from China (7 percent in December 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 205,100 in December 2025, an increase of 17,100 from December 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 10,800)
• China (up 1,800)
• United States (down 1,000).

The 205,100 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in the December 2025 month was a record for a December month.

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in December 2025 was 105 percent of the 194,500 in December 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 205,100 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in December 2025:

• 50 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 China (4 percent in December 2019)
• 5 percent were from India (4 percent in December 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United States (6 percent in December 2019).

Border crossings

There were 1.42 million border crossings in December 2025, made up of 718,200 arrivals and 698,400 departures. In December 2024 there were 1.32 million border crossings.

December 2025 border crossings were 98 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) 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 December 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: January 2026 will be released on 13 March 2026.