International Travel 13 November

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 3.43 million in the September 2025 year, an increase of 197,000 from the September 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 153,000 to 1.48 million)
• United States (up 21,000 to 381,000)
• United Kingdom (up 20,000 to 190,000)
• Japan (up 10,000 to 74,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.08 million in the September 2025 year, an increase of 112,000 from the September 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 72,000 to 1.27 million)
• China (up 20,000 to 164,000)
• Japan (up 20,000 to 90,000)
• Indonesia (up 20,000 to 96,000)
• India (up 14,000 to 112,000)
• Philippines (up 11,000 to 58,000).

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 248,600 in September 2025, an increase of 21,700 from September 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 15,800)
• Taiwan (up 900)
• Malaysia (up 600)
• United Kingdom (up 600)
• South Africa (up 600)
• United States (up 500)
• Korea (up 500).

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in September 2025 was 95 percent of the 261,800 in September 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 248,600 overseas visitor arrivals in September 2025:

• 56 percent were from Australia (compared with 51 percent in September 2019)
• 8 percent were from China (11 percent in September 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United States (6 percent in September 2019)
• 3 percent were from the United Kingdom (3 percent in September 2019)
• 3 percent were from India (2 percent in September 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 280,700 in September 2025, an increase of 19,400 from September 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 14,700)
• Japan (up 1,800)
• Cook Islands (up 1,300)
• Indonesia (up 1,000)
• Fiji (down 1,600)
• United States (down 1,000)
• Vanuatu (down 1,000).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in September 2025 was a record for a September month, exceeding the previous record of 279,800 in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

There were record arrivals, for a September month, of New Zealand-resident travellers from some destinations including Australia (114,200), the Cook Islands (12,600), Indonesia (11,200), and China (10,600).

Of the 280,700 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in September 2025:

• 41 percent were from Australia (compared with 40 percent in September 2019)
• 8 percent were from Fiji (7 percent in September 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United Kingdom (6 percent in September 2019)
• 5 percent were from the United States (8 percent in September 2019)
• 5 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in September 2019)
• 4 percent were from Indonesia (4 percent in September 2019)
• 4 percent were from China (3 percent in September 2019).

Border crossings

There were 1.07 million border crossings in September 2025, made up of 540,300 arrivals and 529,200 departures. In September 2024 there were 997,000 border crossings.

September 2025 border crossings were 99 percent of the 1.08 million in September 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 September 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: October 2025 will be released on 10 December 2025.