We have seen a lot of new things in the immigration space in the last few years. As 2024 drew to a close I thought (and hoped) that things might quiet down for a while. The opposite is the case.
Active Investor Plus Residence
We have reported on this in some detail in a recent post, and we will be covering some aspects in more detail in our Investor Newsletter soon. The revised policy opened for applications on 1 April. In the first 2 weeks alone, 43 applications have been received, compared to only about 100 under the previous scheme in the preceding two and a half years.
The investment thresholds have been lowered to NZ$5 million for the Growth Category and NZ$10 million for the Balanced Category. The lower entry requirement under Growth is offset by the type of acceptable investments, which are generally higher risk than the broader choice in Balanced. In speaking to fund managers here, it is clear that potential investors need to go through an exercise with their financial advisers of identifying their appetite for risk.
Having said that, there is a lot of excitement and activity around the new AIP offering which is keeping the industry busy in a good way.
Parent Boost Visa
Because of my role as Chair of NZAMI, I have been called upon to participate in several rounds of consultation with colleagues and officials on a number of topics. Many are driven by the Minister of Immigration through her Adviser Reference Group (ARG) to which I belong.
One is the Parent Boost visitor visa which has been mentioned in a released Cabinet paper from September 2024, and featured recently on Hon Erica Stanford’s Facebook feed. This would be a renewable 5-year Visitor Visa for parents of New Zealand Residents or Citizens, and can be seen as either a stop-gap measure for families waiting for invitations to apply under the Parent Residence category, or as an alternative for those who cannot qualify under those settings.
Sounds good, sounds simple. The thing is that there are some tricky issues hanging around the grant of such a long visa for people who are ageing. How does one apply what is called the bona fides test of whether someone “genuinely intends a temporary stay”? There is a need to balance the benefit of reuniting families against the risk that, during that 5-year period, the parent cannot be put on a ‘plane home because their health has deteriorated. Health insurance is likely to be required, but are there insurers who will provide a guaranteed product for that period of time, and to people whose health needs may be expected to increase?
Entrepreneur Visas
The second is long overdue – that is, the Entrepreneur category is being revisited. Last week I attended a direct discussion with people from Immigration New Zealand about a possible new framework which may hold out some hope that complaints by the industry about the existing rules and how they are applied have been heard.
What it means to say that a business should be “high growth” and “innovative” is being questioned – especially, to my mind at least, the rather bizarre definition of “innovation”. Given the economic volatility that we have seen through the COVID years and the more recent chaos arising from the brewing tariff war, the Residence requirement to meet the targets set in a Business Plan devised 3 years in the past is out of touch with commercial reality.
A question that many have raised in the past is what to do about all those Kiwi businesses whose Baby Boomer owners are retiring. All I can say at present is that most things are up for grabs, and I look forward to seeing where this leads.
There is more. The Minister wants to look at ways to streamline the ability of certain migrant workers to get to Residence where they currently don’t have a pathway. There may be changes to Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme which brings people from the Pacific Islands and certain other countries to work in our orchards and farms. We’ll be able to cover these things when they are announced. In the meantime. subscribe to this blog and to our Newsletters to keep up to date.