New Zealand relaxes digital nomad visa rules

Starting from 27 January 2025, New Zealand has relaxed its visa rules for digital nomads and other self-employed visitors, allowing them to do remote work in New Zealand while on a visitor visa. According to the Immigration Minister, Erica Stanford, this change is intended to allow more working visitors to New Zealand to extend their stays in the country, with the hope that this will help increase overall tourist spending and thus provide a boost to the domestic economy.

When travelling on a visitor visa or NZeTA, digital nomads in New Zealand are now permitted to work for employers based outside New Zealand for up to 90 days without needing additional permissions or being required to pay tax as a resident of New Zealand.

What work are digital nomads in New Zealand allowed to do?

New Zealand Immigration has provided specific definitions of the ‘remote work’ it considers acceptable for self-employed people and digital nomads to do while visiting New Zealand on a temporary basis.

Remote work is defined as ‘an activity you do for gain or reward for a company, employer or client that is not in New Zealand’. This includes work carried out for benefits other than money, such as food or accommodation.

Examples of remote working activities can include:

• coding and software testing
• personal assistant tasks
• writing reports
• answering emails and phone calls
• attending meetings or giving presentations online
• content creation or social media influencer activities
  • NB: New Zealand digital nomad rules for visitor visas do not permit promotion of an activity, event or product if you are receiving any gain or reward from a business or person in New Zealand

Activities that are not considered remote working under the New Zealand digital nomad rules include:

• any work carried out for an employer in New Zealand
• any work for a business or person in New Zealand for which you receive any goods or services as a reward (e.g. food or accommodation)
• any work which requires you to be in New Zealand (i.e. work which you could not do remotely from somewhere outside the country)

If you are tax resident somewhere else, you will not be required to pay tax in New Zealand for your remote work providing that you do not spend 92 days or more in the country in any 12-month period. This tax-free period may increase to 183 days if you are tax resident in a country which has a tax treaty with New Zealand.

What is a digital nomad?

A digital nomad is someone who is able to work remotely no matter where they are in the world. Some digital nomads work while actively travelling from country to country, while some are happy to stay in one location for an extended time but simply value the freedom to decide to move elsewhere at short notice. The term arose during the early 1990s when remote work started to become more viable due to the increasing availability of portable computers and the spread of the internet.

Common professions among digital nomads include translators, software developers, writers and content creators. Research has shown that workers with no geographic restriction on where they can work are as much as 4.4% more productive and, with digital nomads spending over 35% of their income in the location they are staying, many countries have felt incentivised to adapt their immigration rules in order to become more attractive destinations for these highly-mobile, location independent workers.