This story has been corrected. See note at the bottom of the story for details.
Population growth from migration declined by 57% in the year to the end of January compared to the previous 12 months.
The latest migration figures from Statistics NZ show there was a net migration gain (long term arrivals minus long term departures) of 33,179 people in the 12 months to the end of January, compared to 77,808 in the year to January 2020.
It was the lowest net gain for that 12 month period since 2014, when there was a net gain of 20,064.
While the number of people settling in New Zealand has more than halved over the last 12 months, there has been an even bigger change in the mix of migrants.
Of the net gain of 33,179, 20,833 were New Zealand citizens and just 12,347 were citizens of other countries.
That is the first time New Zealand citizens have made up a bigger share of the country's net migration gain than citizens of other countries since Statistics NZ started gathering migration citizenship data in the 1970s.
Some commentators, especially in regards to the housing market, have been suggesting that the number of New Zealanders returning from overseas during the COVID pandemic, would make up for the loss of migrants from other countries, but that has not been the case.
In the 12 months to January this year, just 30,378 [corrected from 30,342] NZ citizens returned long term, a reduction of 11,964 (-28%) compared to the 42,342 NZ citizens who returned long term in the previous 12 months.
The number of New Zealanders returning in the 12 months to January this year was the lowest it has been for that period since 2012.
It was also lower than the 38,453 [corrected from 68,831] citizens of other countries who arrived long term in the year to January 2021 - down from 129,930 [corrected from 172,272] in the previous 12 months.
What pushed the net gain figure up for NZ citizens was that far fewer of them have left the country long term since the start of the pandemic, with just 9545 departing long term in the year to January this year, compared to 37,639 over the previous 12 months.
The number of non-NZ citizens leaving declined from 56,825 in the year to January 2020 to 26,106 in the 12 months to January this year.
So returning New Zealand citizens may be making up a bigger percentage of a smaller net population gain, but their numbers are still well down compared to previous years.
Another surprising change in the migration patterns is that there was a net loss of Chinese citizens in the year to January.
The figures show that 2089 citizens of China arrived long term in the 12 months to the end of January this year, while 4027 departed long term, giving a net loss of 1938 for the year.
That compares with a net gain of 853 in the 12 months to January 2020 and a net gain of 6970 in the year to January 2019.
Over the same period the net gains of citizens from the other main source countries were all well down compared to previous years but still in positive territory, led by India 4065 (11,281 in 2020), Philippines 1288 (9189 in 2020), and South Africa 1879 (12,258 in 2020).
Note: This story as originally published contained some incorrect figures in the eighth and tenth paragraphs. These numbers have been corrected, with the original figures marked in brackets next to the corrected figures.
68 Comments
Still far to many while we have families living in tents and cars. Can't do much about returning Kiwis, but all non Kiwis should be stopped.
We have a lot of Kiwis living overseas who can return at the drop of a hat. They represent a contingent liability on our economy. While they are overseas they should be taxed to compensate the country for all the costs that they will incur when they return because they have retired, lost their jobs, get sick, want to educate their kids, etc. How many Kiwis work off shore park their families and all the costs that go with them in NZ, and pay no tax here?
A lot of the kiwis in Australia need to be encouraged into taking up Australian residency and renouncing their NZ citizenship. We and they will be better off as a result. It may be cheaper for us to pay the costs of their taking up Australian residency to avoid the liability that they represent. If we had done that for the deportees I am sure that both they and NZ would be better off.
Hmmm...in the case of an expat keeping sizeable cash deposits in NZ banks, they have been indirectly supporting the bubble and the economy. Not that I think it matters, but just saying. I'm sure the ruling elite can easily adapt to the loss of cash savings with some other smoke and mirror paradigm.
Chris.. it actually works in the complete opposite way. If you are based outside of NZ for more than half the year you are eligible for the 2% AIL non resident tax rate. Yes that is 2%! My fairly significant investment income was taxed at a mere 2% as I ensured I was out of NZ for more than the 183 day minimum, some years (deliberately) by only a day or two. Last year I paid normal tax for the first time this century. Everything in NZ is designed so the rich just get richer. It needs to change.
TK... domiciled mainly in Thailand but as I understand it you do not have to be a tax resident anywhere but the IRD will not like it and will likely conduct investigations. I think if your family are based in NZ and/or you are a member of clubs etc here you are classed as a resident and liable for normal tax. Once my family moved to NZ permanently and I bought a house, as I understand it, I was liable for NZ tax regardless of where I spent my time so now I pay normal tax (although under NZ tax law profit from gambling is tax free unless it is your only source of income or you are silly enough to declare that you are a professional gambler. I spend 4 or 5 months a year in Vegas because I love the American culture and food.
Actually pad a mountain of NZ tax till I found out about the AIL tax rate and the AIL regulations state there are no reimbursements permitted. The banks try to fob you off as well and you need to insist they do it , which they have to. Unsure why they do not like doing it? Maybe as a banker you know why all the banks were reluctant? Only possibility I could guess at was that maybe the banks kept your tax interest for a while (between the time they deducted it from your interest payments) and the time they sent it to the IRD (earning free unentitled to interest off your interest) but that seems unlikely. Have always wondered about this.
I'm not a banker, that was a theory by someone who used to post here. The UK has this non-dom status where you are a tax resident there but not liable for tax on income outside of the UK if you pay the GBP40k flat fee. That's why so many Russian Oligarchs moved there. In my experience, the more tax you pay the worse you are treated, always struck me as a curious business model.
Do you recommend Thailand?
TK..OK I always guessed (incorrectly) those rich Russians were based in London due to something to do with the banking system there. Thailand, I would need to know more about you and what you want to answer your question. The people are the most friendly easy going people (really is the land of smiles) on the planet and it is as safe as anywhere in the world except on the roads (it has the highest road toll outside Africa). You can do whatever you want and nobody will ever tell you what to do. Everything is very easy and cheap. $2 meals and beer delivered to your apartment door. Decent 70sqm apartment in local area for about $500 a month. Fantastic food everywhere 24/7. Most beautiful beaches in the world. Best shopping in the world (for non multi-millionaires). Great for golf but terrible for most other sports. Very close to other places eg Hong Kong, Vietnam, etc. Very hot year round and very very humid. Monsoon season with flooding and sometimes wading through knee deep water. Dirty with street dogs, rubbish etc. True heartbreaking poverty, a huge wealth disparity and an awful class system. Openly sexist. Thais will joke about everything all the time. Crowded cities and very vibrant. Traffic and parking in Bangkok is terrible but Skytrain goes to most places. Never boring and many (older guys especially) go for a holiday and never leave. If you ever decide to have a holiday there let me know (and tell me what you want) and I can give you specific advice.
I must admit that I wasn't thinking of it in terms of investments, just the people working on overseas contracts. However if I understand you it is possible to arrange your investments and some how lend money so that you avoid all but 2% tax on the income? I think that that demonstrates the sort of issue that we need to address.
As an aside I had an aunt and uncle who did something like this. He was a resident of Australia for tax purposes and she NZ. It meant that each had to spend a month or so apart in the respective countries. All very clever until she got sick while he was stuck in Australia. She subsequently died and he lost the opportunity to be with her. He never forgave himself. Sometimes you can be too smart.
Chris.. yes to your first question but you simply have to be out of NZ and not have a base here for 183 days a year, that is it, and yes money is far less important than family. For me the covid has almost been a blessing in that I have had no choice but to spend all my time with my kids rather than be holed up in a foreign hotel room or apartment alone for long periods. You never get that lost time back and cannot put a price on it. The wife probably can't wait to get rid of me again though.
If you are based outside of NZ for more than half the year you are eligible for the 2% AIL non resident tax rate.
Not correct. Non-resident withholding tax is imposed on interest at 15 percent, and dividends at 30 percent or 0 percent if fully imputed.
That is the crux of it. Irrespective of what peoples opinions are on our overall levels of immigration, in the short term the simple fact is we have some of the highest levels of homelessness in the OECD, and some of the most unaffordable rents for low income earners. Its not JUST about house prices, their are far wider implications.
I think a lot of people think "homelessness" and assume its just people with mental health /substance abuse issues. But the reality in New Zealand is we now have thousands of families working full time jobs unable to afford a place to live. These are people working full time who can't afford thare basics of life.
Adding an additional 50k+ people a year, when we can't house the people who already live here, is just madness. For a lot of people they would prefer we just ramp up construction - and maybe that is the answer, but until we have solved the supply problem we have to look at the demand side of the equation.
Exactly ^ We need to have a vision of where we want to be and pave our own way that incorporates our values without influence from vested interests or international heavy weights. The politics of politicians is sickening, I think they should be paid the living wage but with a bonus for meeting certain key metrics fundamental to reaching our vision.
So to summarize pre covid NZ accepted over 172K non NZ long term migrants into NZ over a one year period with over 32 000 of them being from India, Philippines or South Africa. Since covid, the number of long term migrants leaving NZ dropped by over 50% or by 30 000 over a one year period.
Are the majority of kiwis happy to return to these numbers (or God forbid, even more devastating ones) once covid is gone and we return to normality? Because unless there is a strong voice for change that is exactly what I see happening and the results will cause social divides beyond imagination.
Wasn't one of Labour's campaign promises to reduce the rate of immigration? The massive spike on the graph at early 2020 shows how well they were doing. A strong voice for change means absolutely diddly-squat when you can promise anything you want on the campaign trail and then do something completely different in office.
I'm pretty sure what happens is that new governments get put into power then Treasury take them into a room and say 'look we know you want to do xy and z, but here's the facts. the boomers are about to retire and unless we increase our tax take some how the country is going to be crippled in 10 years. Mass immigration is our only option. Get on with it'.
Oddly I think baby boomers will stop buying rentals when there are no millennials to beat at auctions - I think they have a weird fetish of making young people suffer. If they leave the country and stop showing up at auctions, baby boomers won't have that ability to bully younger people out of the market - so what will be the point for them? No satisfaction going on a bidding war with a fellow boomer. Lots of satisfaction seeing the dreams of a 20 or 30 year old couple be destroyed. Its a sick fetish....some people are into feet, some people are into bad smelling cheese. Boomers are into destroying dreams. Each to their own I guess.
No...it's true we are buying 'sort of' sight unseen. Mostly not true we don't intend to return. Many of us have commitments that need to be met before we can return and also intend to avoid the cost and time in quarantine, but many of us are looking and buying before hand, rather than turn up home homeless.
Wasn't there this thing called Covid where doors were pretty much closed? With the crazy house prices for both buying and renting, and slow economy growth in the pandemic, how many smart Kiwis would return?
Truth is, the in and out cycle needs to happen again soon. Just like air flow in and out of the house otherwise there'd be mould or stiff air.
But the foreigners get blamed for the high house prices, see photos of asian faces at auctions bidding house prices out of reach of Kiwis. Well… there are now far, far less foreigners coming into NZ and house prices are escalating much faster than before… So are the foreigners really to blame?
It's disingenuous to suggest that because over the last year immigration has dropped, it can be ruled out of the house price equation. NZ's population has grown by nearly 1 million in the past 20 years - a 25% increase. We all know that pre-covid net migration was high and the effect of the extra people causes an increase in demand = price increase.
If you look at the $100,000 increase for akl houses the month of Feb with hardly any immigration... the facts state it is not 'currently' immigrants causing the ridiculous price increases. It is plain and simply government policy encouraging it and NZ citizens doing it.
Yvil...In case you really do not know, yes immigration is one of the two biggest factors, the other being interest rates. As it has been pointed out before with most of our immigrants now arriving here penniless there is a 5 to 6 year lag. With the rent crisis the damage is immediate. Look at the figures . Our immigration really ramped up about 6 years ago. It takes 5 or 6 years of delivering pizza, serving coffee and being paid by fellow countrymen to help them with moving here to save a deposit and get on the property ladder.
It may take 5-6 years for new immigrants to be able to afford a house but in the meantime they still live in a house, which needs to be owned by someone. When immigrants arrive into NZ, they put pressure on the housing stock immediately, not 5-6 years later. But you're a smart guy Karl so you already knew that right?
Yvil..completely agree they put pressure on rents immediately as they are in the rental market from day one. But it usually takes 5 or 6 years of selling NZ visas to friends from their villages and working 70 hours a week (often only paid for 40) in the liquor store before than can negatively impact on actual house prices by purchasing a house for themselves (and their parents, brothers, sisters and wives). But then you knew that, right?
Sorry Karl but you (like a few others) just don't get it. You think they only impact house prices when they buy, not when they rent, that's silly. When they rent, someone needs to provide a house to them, immediately, someone has to own this house, the number of houses needed to lodge the new immigrants goes up the day they arrive in NZ, NOT 5-6 yeas later when they rent. When they go from renting to owning the pool of houses needed does NOT go up, it goes up the day they arrive. I guess you didn't know that!
Yvil.. agree with all you point out and did know that. Of course when you add people to the rental market it will immediately have an effect on house prices. For a start as rents increase the returns are higher for investors so they are prepared to pay more for the investment. Yeah, all that is pretty obvious but the really devastating effect on prices is felt once migrants actually enter the market themselves especially when they are entering a market that has serious issues with demand hugely outstripping supply.
CWBW...maybe your mate Leonard Hong will pen another twisted 58 page report about how we would not have enough houses for all our own citizens even if migration was zero and therefore we do not need to be concerned about allowing hundreds of thousands of extra people to flock here, making an issue that is already difficult to solve downright impossible to fix.
What is the name of that consultancy company Leonard owns again? Hong Kong Phooey (and sons, brothers and parents) Net Negative Migration Ltd?
I suspect the real solution to solving the housing issue is increasing net migration.
By the way, I tend to believe these people than internet theories.
I am very cautious about those numbers.
We might see a different picture if we were to look at total arrivals and total departures in three categories, with these being citizens, non Kiwis with permanent residency, and, and other non Kiwis.
For much of the last year it has been very hard to get an airline ticket into the country but very easy to get an outward flight. That would seem to tell us something.
KeithW
Not everyone has found it asy to get an airline ticket out. We have a stranded Pacific islander left over from finishing school mid-Dec. She and her parents back home want her back. Not everyone wants to be in NZ. The problem has been it requiring two flights to get her home and he Australians unwilling to give transit visas without 14 days quarantine. She has been looking for flights for 3 months.
Lapun...NZ should arrange and pay for mercy flights to the islands once a month or so. They should also make a conscious effort to round up overstayers and put them on these flights as well and ban them from returning for say 7 years. We could pay for the mercy flights but nobody can return here without repaying the money for the flight. We should be kind and not charge interest as many are poor.
How many overstayers are actually rounded up and deported each year? I am guessing basically none except the ones that commit heinous crimes and even most of them get to stay because they give some sob story about all the kids they have scattered around NZ that will be hurt by their deportation. Why do we allow so many people to openly flout the law and do nothing about it?
Just purchased a ticket for 19th April costing under $1000; other days were possible but involved up tp 4 flights, 48 hours travel and cost from well over $2000 to $6000 - out of the price range for someone who would have found school fees tricky enough. However will need $211 for a short extension on her visitors visa
Not everyone has found it asy to get an airline ticket out. We have a stranded Pacific islander left over from finishing school mid-Dec. She and her parents back home want her back. Not everyone wants to be in NZ. The problem has been it requiring two flights to get her home and he Australians unwilling to give transit visas without 14 days quarantine. She has been looking for flights for 3 months.
These figures are for the year ended Jan 2021 so they still include the period just before lockdown when numbers of arrivals and departures were most unusual. The spike in the graph tells the story. Also the statistics website has a monthly breakdown I think. Will be interesting to see the figures for year ended April 2021.
"68,831 citizens of other countries who arrived long term in the year to January 2021 - down from 172,272 in the previous 12 months" What?! 241k non citizens arrived in the last 2 years (9 months of which the borders were partially shut). If Adern wonders who is to blame for the housing crisis I suggest she buy a mirror. I imagine that is not what most people were thinking of when labour campaigned on reducing immigration.
As COVID emergency reduce overall immigration last year otherwise this would have shoot to moon. In a similar way house price can be reversed only if something big will happen, which happen once in century.
Till than there is ZERO probability that house price will go down. Forget labour they are bunch of jokers who know how to get big fat paychecks for doing nothing.
Jacinda is not more than a con artist, who trick kiwis with her bluff and will never ready to take responsibility.
In a general sense around a third returning are not in fact NZ Citizens.
All that spin about “NZer’s” and our international obligations blah, blah – more lies, mistruths and obfuscation.
That probably means we increased the risk of a border leak by a third – along with the overall cost of MIQ.
They actually have a country of citizenship (not NZ) – that can and should look after them.
But no - that doesn’t fit Ardern’s narrative – so not to be discussed – please do move on.
Statistics ....
Over a year ago I went for a holiday. Still waiting for an air ticket with a matching MIQ combo ... Maybe in July ...? (Meanwhile paying taxes and rates ...)
When I finally can return to my home country and house there, I will be counted as one of those much maligned returning Kiwis responsible for the housing crisis. Yeah right, everything is either black or white, and always so simple to lay blame, right?
No, no one is going to blame anyone who went on a holiday and ended up stuck overseas for a year. It's the people who have whole lives set-up in other countries dictating terms to people who have been through repeated lockdowns and all the job-losses and income reductions that came with it how to run the state they had no interest in contributing to that gets people's backs up, and rightly so.
Fair points, GV27. It's just that statistics do not differentiate and count all Kiwi citizens coming in to stay the same way, making the numbers of returning expats look bigger than they really are by including the ordinarily in NZ resident Kiwis stuck overseas who are finally coming home.
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