Five Million for Twenty-One Days, or Ten Million for a Hundred and Five - and the Extra Days Can Be Bought Back at a Million Each
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of United Kingdom on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
195 exceptions recorded across 74 countries · none match United Kingdom to New Zealand · Residency through investment
The Active Investor Plus visa category, instruction BN3 as effective 1 April 2025, has two tiers and they differ in what the money does rather than in who may apply. The Growth Category needs nominated funds or assets of at least NZD $5 million, transferred into acceptable Growth Category investments, held for a 36-month investment period, with a minimum of 21 days spent in New Zealand as a resident visa holder across those three years. The Balanced Category needs NZD $10 million, held for 60 months, with 105 days in New Zealand. Instruction BN10.15.1 then prices the difference between the two presence requirements explicitly: every additional NZD $1 million put into direct investments or managed funds that Invest NZ has deemed acceptable Growth Category investments reduces the presence requirement by 14 days, to a maximum reduction of 42 days, so $11 million buys 91 days, $12 million buys 77 and $13 million or more buys 63. The additional funds must be nominated before approval in principle and held for the full 60 months. What is granted is a resident visa, and it comes with conditions imposed under section 49(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 - retaining the investments, meeting the presence requirement, telling Immigration New Zealand about changes of contact details, and filing investment questionnaires at 24 and 36 months for the Growth Category. Those conditions have a consequence outside immigration law that the instructions do not mention: section 8(3) of the Citizenship Act 1977 says a person is not treated as entitled to be in New Zealand indefinitely while conditions imposed under the Immigration Act on their entitlement to reside indefinitely remain unmet or uncancelled, so the five-year citizenship clock does not run until the investment conditions are discharged. An applicant may switch between the two categories while the application is being assessed or within the first six months of approval in principle, once.
At a glance
- Growth Category investment
- NZD $5 million, held for 36 months
Instruction BN3(a)(iii) and BN8.25(a)(i). The application must be declined if less than $5 million is nominated.
- Balanced Category investment
- NZD $10 million, held for 60 months
Instruction BN3(a)(iii) and BN8.25(a)(ii).
- Days in New Zealand, Growth Category
- 21, across the 36-month investment period
Instruction BN9.1.5(b), a condition imposed under section 49(1) of the Immigration Act 2009. The days must be spent as the holder of a resident visa.
- Days in New Zealand, Balanced Category
- 105 at NZD $10 million, falling to 91, 77 and 63 at $11, $12 and $13 million
Instruction BN10.15.1. Each additional NZD $1 million in acceptable Growth Category direct investments or managed funds buys a 14-day reduction, capped at 42 days.
- When the extra money must be nominated
- Before the application is approved in principle
Instruction BN10.15.1(c). It cannot be added later to buy days back, and it must be retained for the full 60-month period.
- Switching between categories
- Once, while the application is under assessment or within six months of approval in principle
Instruction BN3(b). The instruction says the applicant must not already have changed category.
- Effect on the citizenship clock
- The five-year count does not run while the section 49(1) conditions are unmet
Section 8(3) of the Citizenship Act 1977, read with instruction BN9.1 which imposes the conditions. The investor's residence looks identical to anyone else's and does not count the same.
Requirements
- Nominated funds or assets of at least NZD $5 million for the Growth Category, or NZD $10 million for the Balanced Category
- Demonstrated ownership of the nominated funds or assets, and that they were legally earned or acquired
- Transfer of the funds into acceptable investments within the timeframes at BN8.15
- Health and character requirements under instructions A4 and A5, and the fit and proper person requirements at BM1
- 21 days in New Zealand across the 36-month Growth investment period, or 105 days across the 60-month Balanced period
In detail
Presence is a price, and the instruction says what it costs
Most investor routes in this corpus state a presence requirement and leave it at that. New Zealand's Balanced Category instead publishes an exchange rate: 14 days off the presence requirement for each extra million dollars, to a maximum of 42 days. That makes the trade explicit in a way nothing else here does - the difference between the two categories is not only $5 million against $10 million but 21 days against 105, and the gap can be narrowed by money but never closed. It also means the cheapest route by presence is the Growth Category, which asks for half the money and a seventh of the days.
The conditions follow you into the citizenship application
A resident visa granted under this category is subject to conditions imposed under section 49(1) of the Immigration Act 2009, and those conditions run for three or five years. Section 8(3) of the Citizenship Act 1977 then says that a person is not treated as entitled to be in New Zealand indefinitely while conditions imposed under the Immigration Act on that entitlement are unmet or uncancelled. Since section 8(2)(b) only counts days on which the applicant was so entitled, the 1,350-day count does not begin until the investment conditions are discharged. An investor who lands, invests and waits five years has not necessarily accrued a single qualifying day.
Country-level policy
New Zealand screens foreign purchases of land through the Overseas Investment Act 2005. Section 10(1) says a transaction requires consent if it will result in an overseas investment in sensitive land, and since 2018 residential land is sensitive land, so an ordinary house is inside the regime. Whether the regime catches a particular buyer turns on one definition. Section 7(2)(a) makes an individual an overseas person if they are neither a New Zealand citizen nor ordinarily resident in New Zealand, and section 6(2)(a) gives 'ordinarily resident in New Zealand' a special meaning for residential land transactions: the person must hold a residence class visa granted under the Immigration Act 2009, must have been residing in New Zealand for at least the immediately preceding 12 months, and must be tax resident in New Zealand. The third limb is not the ordinary tax test. Section 6(2A) defines it as being a New Zealand resident under section YD 1(3) of the Income Tax Act 2007 - the 183-day rule - with the 12-month period read as the immediately preceding twelve months and the backdating rules in section YD 1(4) to (6) disregarded. So a person who is tax resident only through having a permanent place of abode here, under section YD 1(2), does not satisfy it. Three tests, all three of which must be true at once, and a resident visa on its own is never enough. Two nationalities are carved out entirely. Regulation 75 of the Overseas Investment Regulations 2005 says a transaction does not require consent to the extent that it results in an overseas investment in residential but not otherwise sensitive land and every relevant investor is either an Australian investor or not an overseas person; regulation 81 says the same for Singaporean investors. Both were inserted on 22 October 2018, the Australian one to implement the Australian CER Investment Protocol and the Singaporean one to implement the Singapore CEP. The definitions are narrower than they look. An 'Australian individual' is an Australian citizen under Australian law, or an Australian permanent resident under Australian law who is also ordinarily resident in New Zealand; a 'Singaporean individual' is a national of Singapore under Singaporean law, or a Singaporean permanent resident who is ordinarily resident in New Zealand. The citizenship limb carries no New Zealand connection at all; the permanent residence limb carries the full one.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of United Kingdom
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«$5 million if they are investing under the Growth Category; or»Effective 01/04/2025. The instruction states the figures in NZD.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«$10 million if they are investing under the Balanced Category; and»About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«36 months from the date all acceptable investments are completed for applicants under the Growth Category; or»Effective 01/04/2025. The instruction's own history shows the previous rule: 'BN8.25 48-month investment period (19/09/2022)'.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«60 months from the date all acceptable investments are completed for applicants under the Balanced Category.»About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«the principal applicant spends a minimum period of time in New Zealand of 21 days as the holder of a resident visa during the 36-month investment period; and»About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«For each NZD$1 million invested in direct investments or managed funds that are determined as acceptable by Invest NZ beyond the NZD$10 million invested in Balanced Category investments, the principal applicant may be eligible for a reduction of 14 days (to a maximum reduction of 42 days).»Effective 17/08/2025. The table that follows sets the presence requirement at 105 days for $10 million, 91 for $11 million, 77 for $12 million and 63 for $13 million and above.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«conditions have been imposed under the Immigration Act 2009 on the person's entitlement to reside in New Zealand indefinitely; and»Read with paragraph (b), which requires the conditions to have been met in full or cancelled by the time of the citizenship application. Every Active Investor Plus resident visa carries section 49(1) conditions under instruction BN9.1.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Parliamentary Counsel Office publishes New Zealand's Acts and secondary legislation here, and the Legislation Act 2019 gives what it publishes a legal status most publishers in this corpus do not have. Section 78(1) lets the PCO publish official electronic versions; section 79(1)(b) says that an official version that is a consolidation 'is taken to correctly state, as at its stated date, the law enacted or made by the legislation consolidated and by the amendments', and section 79(3) adds that the presumptions apply 'unless the contrary is shown'. Each Act carries its own 'as at' date on the page: the Immigration Act 2009 read on 11 October 2026 is as at 10 July 2026. A `whole.html` address returns the entire instrument in one document, which is what makes an exhaustive negative claim possible here.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The 'as at' date is a cut-off and the page states it without calling it one, so every citation of a consolidated text needs `consolidatedAsOf`. Worse, some pages carry the line 'Some amendments have not yet been incorporated' - the Immigration (Visa, Entry Permission, and Related Matters) Regulations 2010 did on 11 October 2026 - and that is a consolidation gap stated by the publisher itself. Section 79A says the PCO's own publication notes, legislative history and machine-readable links do not form part of the official text, so the amendment notes under each section are not law. It cannot be cited for immigration instructions: those are not legislation and are not published here at all.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Instruction BN7.10, which defines acceptable investments, and BN7.1, which sets out the key features of the two investment categories, were not read. What counts as an acceptable Growth Category investment as against a Balanced one is therefore not stated here.
Instruction BN8.15, which sets the timeframes for transferring and investing the nominated funds, and BN8.10, which has two versions on the site - one effective 12/08/2026 and a newer one - were not read.
The Balanced Category section 49(1) conditions at BN9.1.10 were read only in their opening words. The 105-day figure here comes from the table in BN10.15.1 rather than from BN9.1.10 itself.
The Entrepreneur Residence Category at BH, the Business Investor Residence Category at BI and the Global Impact permanent resident visa at BG3 are the other three investment-flavoured residence routes and were not read.
Buying a house is a separate question governed by the Overseas Investment Act 2005, which is recorded as a country policy rather than here.
- issuesINZ Operational Manual, BN3 Active Investor Plus visa category requirements
Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- issuesINZ Operational Manual, BN8.25 The investment period
Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- issuesINZ Operational Manual, BN9.1 Resident visas subject to conditions under section 49(1) of the Immigration Act
Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- issuesINZ Operational Manual, BN10.15 Minimum period of time spent in New Zealand
Immigration New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
About this source
The Operational Manual is where New Zealand's immigration instructions are actually published, and publishing them here is a statutory duty rather than a courtesy: section 25(1) of the Immigration Act 2009 says 'The chief executive must publish immigration instructions', and the Manual's own first page says 'By publishing the Operational Manual, INZ meets its requirements under section 25 of the Immigration Act 2009 to publish Government instructions on granting visas.' Instructions are certified by the Minister under section 22; section 22(8) says they 'are statements of Government policy', and section 72(1) makes a residence decision one that 'must be made in terms of the residence instructions applicable at the time the application was made'. Each instruction topic carries its own 'Effective DD/MM/YYYY' date and, where it has been replaced, a list of the previous instructions under 'PREVIOUS IMMIGRATION INSTRUCTIONS'.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Policy, not law. The Manual says so itself: it 'is not ... a replacement for the legislation that governs INZ operations', the summaries of statute inside it 'are declaratory only', and where a summary conflicts with the legislation 'the interpretation of the legislation is decisive'. It also warns that 'some chapters of these sections do not constitute Government immigration instructions as described in section 22' - that disclaimer covers the Border Entry, Compliance, Refugees and Protection, Administration and Appendices sections, so a Y-, D-, C- or A-coded page may be an internal operational instruction rather than a certified instruction. It is not evidence of what the Immigration Act says, only of what the Minister has certified and the chief executive has published. The address matters. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ and /opsmanual/index.htm are a JavaScript shell and return 208 characters of 'Loading...' to any fetcher. The readable table of contents is https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/toc.htm (340,787 characters), which links every instruction topic as its own small page at /opsmanual/<number>.htm. Firecrawl returned HTTP 500 for those numbered pages on 11 October 2026; `pnpm sources:fetch --direct` read every one of them first time.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- consolidatesCitizenship Act 1977, version as at 6 June 2026
New Zealand Legislation, Parliamentary Counsel Office · consolidated to 2026-06-06
About this source
The Parliamentary Counsel Office publishes New Zealand's Acts and secondary legislation here, and the Legislation Act 2019 gives what it publishes a legal status most publishers in this corpus do not have. Section 78(1) lets the PCO publish official electronic versions; section 79(1)(b) says that an official version that is a consolidation 'is taken to correctly state, as at its stated date, the law enacted or made by the legislation consolidated and by the amendments', and section 79(3) adds that the presumptions apply 'unless the contrary is shown'. Each Act carries its own 'as at' date on the page: the Immigration Act 2009 read on 11 October 2026 is as at 10 July 2026. A `whole.html` address returns the entire instrument in one document, which is what makes an exhaustive negative claim possible here.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The 'as at' date is a cut-off and the page states it without calling it one, so every citation of a consolidated text needs `consolidatedAsOf`. Worse, some pages carry the line 'Some amendments have not yet been incorporated' - the Immigration (Visa, Entry Permission, and Related Matters) Regulations 2010 did on 11 October 2026 - and that is a consolidation gap stated by the publisher itself. Section 79A says the PCO's own publication notes, legislative history and machine-readable links do not form part of the official text, so the amendment notes under each section are not law. It cannot be cited for immigration instructions: those are not legislation and are not published here at all.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source