For years New Zealand sold a residence visa to wealthy investors while telling them they could not buy a house to live in. That changed on 6 March 2026. Since then, holders of New Zealand's main investor visa can apply to buy, or build, one home in the country, provided it is worth more than NZ$5 million.
Seven months on, the rule is settled enough to be described properly. The regulator, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), has published both a short guide and a detailed guidance note. Immigration New Zealand, for its part, has published figures on how many people are using the visa. Together they answer the practical questions: who qualifies, what can be bought, what it costs, and what does not change.
The visa it attaches to
The house rule only makes sense next to the visa. The Active Investor Plus visa was redesigned on 1 April 2025. According to Immigration New Zealand, the changes introduced two investment categories, removed the English language requirement and reduced the time investors must spend in the country if they choose more active investments.
The two categories, as INZ describes them:
- Growth: at least NZ$5 million, invested for at least 36 months, with at least 21 days in New Zealand as a resident visa holder during that period. Acceptable investments include direct investments, managed funds and, up to 20% of the total, philanthropy.
- Balanced: at least NZ$10 million, invested for at least 60 months, with at least 105 days in New Zealand. The list of acceptable investments is wider and includes listed equities, bonds and certain property developments.
The visa has been used. INZ's figures as at 24 September 2026 show 949 applications received since the April 2025 changes, 496 approved, 256 approved in principle, 148 in progress and 49 withdrawn or declined, with NZ$2.88 billion of capital committed through approved applications whose funds have been transferred to New Zealand, and a further NZ$2.26 billion in the pipeline from applications in progress or approved in principle.
What the house rule allows
The changes to the Overseas Investment Act that took effect on 6 March 2026, recorded on LINZ's reform page, created what LINZ calls the "$5 million plus house" pathway. It lets a qualifying investor visa holder, or a company or trust closely associated with them, buy:
- residential land with a house on it, for a purchase price of more than NZ$5 million; or
- residential land worth less than NZ$5 million, in order to build a house, provided the land price plus the construction price exceeds NZ$5 million.
Three visas qualify: Active Investor Plus, and the older Investor 1 and Investor 2 visas. LINZ's detailed guidance adds that investors who now hold a permanent resident visa granted on the basis of one of those visas are also eligible. Other visas do not qualify.
Once bought, the house is unrestricted under the Overseas Investment Act. LINZ states there are no limits on use: it can be lived in, used as a holiday home or used to run a business, subject only to the ordinary planning rules every owner faces.
The conditions for consent
LINZ's guidance lists when consent will be granted:
- the investor holds an AIP, Investor 1 or Investor 2 visa;
- the investor does not already own residential land bought under these rules;
- the land is residential land and not sensitive for any other reason;
- there is a dwelling on the land, or LINZ is satisfied one will be built;
- the price, or price plus build cost, will exceed NZ$5 million;
- the purchase is not contrary to New Zealand's national interest.
The last test is the general backstop in section 19E of the Act. LINZ describes it as expected to be used extremely rarely and focused on national security or public order, and says residential purchases are generally low risk and likely to be consented at the first stage.
What counts toward NZ$5 million, and what does not
This is where the detail matters, because the threshold is applied strictly.
- The NZ$5 million is the agreed purchase price of the land and fixtures. Chattels do not count: furniture, curtains, freestanding appliances, rugs, garden equipment.
- Buyer and seller must agree how the price is split between land and improvements on one side and chattels on the other.
- A seller cannot push the price over the line by adding artworks, a vehicle or a cashback arrangement.
- When building, the build cost includes everything that ends up as part of the real property: buildings, fixtures, professional fees, site works, retaining walls, driveways and landscaping. Chattels bought for the new house still do not count.
- Renovations do not count. If the purchase price of an existing house is NZ$5 million or less, renovating it will not bring the total over the threshold. A new home has to be built.
- Both the purchase price and the build cost include GST, where GST applies.
Which land is excluded
The land must be classified as "residential" or "lifestyle" on the district valuation roll. LINZ suggests checking the property's category code: it should begin with R or L. Most homes, apartments and rural lifestyle blocks qualify.
But residential land can also be sensitive land for other reasons, and then it cannot be bought under this pathway. LINZ's guidance names the main cases:
- Waterfront land that includes any of the marine and coastal area, or adjoins it and is larger than 0.2 hectares. LINZ warns that much waterfront land in Auckland is surveyed to the mean high water mark and so includes the foreshore.
- Rural land larger than 5 hectares.
- Land on islands. No special rules apply to the North and South Islands. On a listed group of islands, including Waiheke and Great Barrier, consent is possible only for land up to 0.4 hectares. On other islands it is not possible at all.
- Common property. Where land is shared as tenants in common, the whole shared area can count toward each owner's land, which can make a small lot "larger than 5 hectares" in law.
LINZ suggests that sellers marketing to investor visa holders obtain a sensitive land certificate in advance, and that buyers verify eligibility themselves if the seller has not.
One home per visa, and the family
Each investor may hold a beneficial interest in only one property bought in reliance on their visa. To buy another, the first must be sold.
Where a couple both hold visas, whether as two principal applicants or as principal applicant and partner, each person's visa can be relied on for a property. The house can also be bought through a company, if the visa holder, alone or with their partner, has more than 25% ownership or control and other overseas persons together have no more than 25%. It can be bought through a trust, if no overseas person other than the visa holder and their immediate family can benefit, and if control of the trust deed and the trustees rests with the visa holder, New Zealanders or approved independent trustees. LINZ strongly recommends legal advice for both.
The process, the cost and the time
- Apply after you have found the property. Consent is property-specific; standing consents are not available.
- Sign conditionally. You may sign a sale and purchase agreement before consent, but it must be conditional on Overseas Investment Act consent. LINZ suggests allowing about 20 working days for that condition. Without it, LINZ warns of significant penalties and a possible forced sale.
- Auctions need care. Consent cannot be granted before an auction because there is no agreed price yet. A bidder has to agree with the seller in advance that their bid is conditional on consent.
- Fees: NZ$2,040 where the land has an existing house and the price is over NZ$5 million; NZ$3,500 in all other cases.
- Timing: applications are generally decided within five working days.
If you buy land to build, the consent carries conditions: the house must be built, the combined cost must exceed NZ$5 million, you must report on the build, and the land may have to be sold if you fall short. The build must be finished within three years of consent, extendable if LINZ is satisfied of good progress.
What does not change
Two limits are easy to miss.
The house is not an investment for visa purposes. LINZ's guidance is explicit that buying or building a home for personal use under this pathway will not be considered an acceptable investment for an investor visa application. The NZ$5 million in the house is in addition to the NZ$5 million or NZ$10 million in qualifying investments, not instead of it.
The broader foreign-buyer restrictions remain. LINZ's guidance says so in its overview. The pathway is a door cut for a specific group of investor migrants, not a reopening of the residential market to overseas buyers generally. Other routes exist for migrants who intend to live in New Zealand, but they have their own rules.
Who this helps
For an investor family, the change removes one of the stranger features of the old system: a long-term resident visa with no right to own the family home. Whether a NZ$5 million minimum house is a sensible use of capital is another matter, and one that the Brief's piece on why a second home is not a second life approaches from the household's side. For families measuring a move over a decade, the ten-year test is the more useful frame than any single rule change.
What New Zealand has done is typical of how rich, stable countries compete for investors. They do not cut taxes or prices; they remove frictions, and they do it through a regulator's guidance rather than a headline. That is a pattern the Brief described in why boring jurisdictions win. The tax side for new residents, including New Zealand's temporary exemption for foreign income, is on the New Zealand country page.
Work with Sebastian
If you are weighing New Zealand's investor visa, or a move there with significant assets, and want residence, property and tax to fit together from the start, that is the kind of cross-border planning Sebastian works on with internationally mobile families. Book a consultation.
