What’s the fix for business categories?

This article was written by Nick in his capacity as a Director of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment.  Copyright remains with NZAMI.

There can be no denying that the two business based categories for Residency – investing and entrepreneurship – are not working.

Anyone working in that area knows that the Entrepreneur Residency category is broken. A previous Minister of Immigration was quite open about this and my advice to clients has always been that if they have any other option, go for that other option. However, Immigration New Zealand have still not closed that category meaning it falls on Immigration Advisers and Lawyers to pour cold water on clients who think they have a good business idea (and often they do) and the Entrepreneur route seems appropriate for them.

Indeed, on the face of it, it can look attractive, but the fact that in the 2023/2024 year just three applications were approved and five declined shows it is not so.

The cancellation of the previous Investor 1 and Investor 2 categories and replacement with the Active Investor category has equally been what could politely be called a disaster, assuming of course that New Zealand wishes to attract capital from offshore. In the 2022/2023 year 159 Investor 1 Category applications were approved (with 42 declined), and 89 Investor 2 Category applications were approved (with 74 declined). Put against that is that for the 2023/2024 year just 19 Active Investor applications were lodged, and only 14 of those were approved.

This decline represents a massive amount of money that is no longer coming to New Zealand. The theory behind the Active Investor category is laudable as we do want experienced business people taking an active hand in their investments for the betterment of the New Zealand economy, but the practical effect is stark.

That’s not to say the Investor 1 and Investor 2 categories were perfect by any means, with the above decline rates being higher than any other categories. It clearly needs tweaking, but an easing of the criteria will help New Zealand bring in high net worth migrants. It should also be kept in mind that we are competing against other countries for these individuals, and those countries are far more welcoming – Australia and Canada are prime examples of these.

It is time business categories were thoroughly reviewed and overhauled, for the sake of the economy if nothing else.