International Travel 14 May

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 3.32 million in the March 2025 year, an increase of 137,000 from the March 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 110,000 to 1.40 million)
• China (up 38,000 to 248,000)
• United Kingdom (up 13,000 to 184,000)
• Japan (up 11,000 to 71,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.01 million in the March 2025 year, an increase of 169,000 from the March 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 95,000 to 1.22 million)
• Indonesia (up 33,000 to 91,000)
• China (up 31,000 to 157,000)
• Japan (up 20,000 to 81,000)
• India (up 13,000 to 109,000)
• Cook Islands (up 12,000 to 110,000)
• New Caledonia (down 11,000 to 2,000).

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 311,800 in March 2025, a decrease of 28,500 from March 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• China (up 3,200)
• Indonesia (up 1,400)
• Japan (up 1,200)
• Australia (down 13,800)
• United Kingdom (down 2,600)
• United States (down 2,100).

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in March 2025 was 82 percent of the 378,300 in March 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

The decrease in visitor arrivals in March 2025 compared with March 2024 was likely related to the timing of the Easter holiday. Good Friday fell on 18 April in 2025 and 29 March in 2024.

Of the 311,800 overseas visitor arrivals in March 2025:

• 37 percent were from Australia (compared with 36 percent in March 2019)
• 16 percent were from the United States (13 percent in March 2019)
• 7 percent were from China (11 percent in March 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United Kingdom (6 percent in March 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 205,000 in March 2025, an increase of 14,800 from March 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 3,700)
• United States (up 3,000)
• India (up 2,800)
• China (up 2,200)
• Indonesia (up 1,900)
• Japan (up 1,900).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in March 2025 was 105 percent of the 195,000 in March 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 205,000 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in March 2025:

• 48 percent were from Australia (compared with 52 percent in March 2019)
• 7 percent were from India (5 percent in March 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United States (6 percent in March 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (5 percent in March 2019)
• 5 percent were from Fiji (5 percent in March 2019).

Border crossings

There were 1.11 million border crossings in March 2025, made up of 525,700 arrivals and 585,600 departures. In March 2024 there were 1.13 million border crossings.

March 2025 border crossings were 90 percent of the 1.23 million in March 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 March 2025, just over 3 in 5 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: April 2025 will be released on 11 June 2025.