Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Trump’s administration.
New rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April 2025, lowering investment thresholds, removing English-language requirements and cutting the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks. Successful applicants can only purchase homes in New Zealand worth more than $5m.
Immigration New Zealand said the new scheme offering residency to wealthy foreigners has attracted 573 applications, representing 1,833 people. Before the changes, the visa attracted 116 applications over two-and-a-half years.
I wonder if this is something which really gets a country anything.Those people normally avoid paying taxes, don’t integrate themselves into society and for the most part are terrible people.
Yup and push up land prices and usually take advantage of local resources.
It will bring money to rich assholes running various luxury businesses, and might bring up real estate prices which benefits rich assholes who own a lot of land.
They at least pay taxes while buying. And rich people tend to buy a lot of expensive stuff. So better than nothing?
They can affort do pay someone to figure out how to avoid paying even those taxes.