Immigration New Zealand update

India delegation 

Alison McDonald, Head of Immigration, joined ENZ Chief Executive Amanda Malu as part of the Prime Minister’s official delegation to India. Celia Coombes, Director Visa at Immigration New Zealand, responsible for the student visa product, joined Amanda and Ben Burrowes in India afterwards where they supported the New Zealand delegation at the Asia Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) and met with the New Zealand Education Representatives in India (NZERI), a group of Indian education agents. 

“Immigration New Zealand found the trip very valuable and insightful,” says Celia. 

“Now we are working on how we can continue to support the growth of the education sector, particularly in India which is such an important market for New Zealand, and what needs to be done to support more applications being approved.” 

New local points of contact in India and China 

Immigration New Zealand has new Engagement Advisors appointed in New Delhi and Beijing. They will be a local point of contact and working to improve communication within both the education and tourism industry. 

Visa processing 

INZ is in a strong position for processing student visas, following initiatives put in place to make our processing more efficient. At the end of March 2025, international student visas were being decided in 10 days (two weeks) on average.  

On average Te Pūkenga (New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology) applications are being processed within 2.5 weeks, 2 weeks for University applications, 3 weeks for Private Training Establishment applications and 1.5 weeks for school applications.  

INZ have already decided more than 20,500 student visa applications so far this year, and approved around 18,000 student visa applications (from 1 Jan – 31 March 2025).  

To help with faster visa processing, it is key that all the information and documents needed to decide the application is provided. All the details can be found on our information sheet for students on the INZ website: Student visa information | Immigration New Zealand.