International Travel 22 January

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 347,600 in November 2025, an increase of 26,400 from November 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 9,500)
• China (up 7,800)
• United States (up 3,800)
• Canada (up 1,900)
• United Kingdom (down 1,100).

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in November 2025 was 93 percent of the 372,100 in November 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 347,600 overseas visitor arrivals in November 2025:

• 39 percent were from Australia (compared with 36 percent in November 2019)
• 12 percent were from the United States (11 percent in November 2019)
• 8 percent were from China (11 percent in November 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United Kingdom (6 percent in November 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 247,200 in November 2025, an increase of 15,400 from November 2024. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 11,300)
• Cook Islands (up 1,300)
• China (up 1,000)
• United States (down 1,800).

The 247,200 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in November 2025 was a record for a November month, exceeding the previous record of 233,700 in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 247,200 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in November 2025:

• 49 percent were from Australia (compared with 48 percent in November 2019)
• 6 percent were from Fiji (5 percent in November 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in November 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United States (6 percent in November 2019)
• 4 percent were from India (3 percent in November 2019)
• 4 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in November 2019).

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.48 million in the November 2025 year, an increase of 214,000 from the November 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 148,000 to 1.51 million)
• United States (up 25,000 to 385,000)
• United Kingdom (up 15,000 to 190,000).

The 385,000 overseas visitor arrivals from the United States in the November 2025 year was a record for any year from that country.

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.09 million in the November 2025 year, an increase of 111,000 from the November 2024 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 73,000 to 1.29 million)
• China (up 17,000 to 165,000)
• Japan (up 16,000 to 91,000)
• India (up 13,000 to 113,000)
• Indonesia (up 13,000 to 96,000)
• Philippines (up 12,000 to 59,000)
• United States (down 12,000 to 156,000).

In the November 2025 year, there were record arrivals of New Zealand-resident travellers for any year from some destinations, including Australia (1.29 million), China (165,000), the Cook Islands (114,000), India (113,000), Japan (91,000) and the Philippines (59,000).

Border crossings

There were 1.17 million border crossings in November 2025, made up of 604,600 arrivals and 565,600 departures. In November 2024 there were 1.09 million border crossings.

November 2025 border crossings were 99 percent of the 1.19 million in November 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 November 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: December 2025 will be released on 13 February 2026.