Visa fees for almost all migrant categories will steeply go up from 1 October to cover the costs associated with visa processing and to ensure system is ‘self-funding’.
In a statement issued today (Friday), Erica Stanford, Immigration Minister said the new visa charges will be introduced across almost all visa categories, freeing up more than $563 million over the next four years.
“Until now, our immigration system has been heavily subsidised by taxpayers. The changes we’re making are shifting the cost to those benefitting from the system. We’re ensuring it is self-funding and more efficient,” Stanford said.
The increase in visa fees will, however, not affect applicants from Pacific countries as New Zealand will continue to subsidize fees for such applicants because of “ongoing commitment to supporting its Pacific neighbours.”
Applicants for some of the categories of visa will have to pay even double or more. Student visa fees, for example, will increase from $375 to $750 and post-study work visas will go up from $700 to $1670. Click here for all the fee increases.
“The new charges reflect the costs associated with visa processing, assessing and managing more high-risk applications, and increased compliance costs as we deal with higher levels of migrant exploitation, managing more asylum claims, and maintaining and upgrading Immigration New Zealand’s ICT systems.
“We expect that once further improvements are made to modernise immigration systems in the coming years, the running costs will reduce over time and efficiencies will improve, ” the Immigration Minister said.
The new visa charges have been “set at an appropriate level to recover the costs of processing a visa and reflect the benefits received by people using immigration services,” according to Immigration New Zealand.
“The charges remain competitive in comparison to countries like Australia and the United Kingdom,” Stanford said.
