International Travel 14 August

International travel covers the number and characteristics of overseas visitors and New Zealand resident travellers (short-term movements) entering or leaving New Zealand.

Key facts

Annual arrivals
Monthly arrivals – overseas visitors
Monthly arrivals – New Zealand-resident travellers
Border crossings

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.67 million in the June 2026 year, an increase of 299,000 from the June 2025 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 144,000 to 1.59 million)
• China (up 67,000 to 315,000)
• Taiwan (up 15,000 to 65,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.09 million in the June 2026 year, an increase of 45,000 from the June 2025 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 57,000 to 1.30 million)
• United States (down 29,000 to 138,000).

The 3.09 million New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in the June 2026 year were a record for a June year, exceeding the previous record of 3.07 million in June 2019.

In the year ended June 2026, there were record arrivals of New Zealand-resident travellers for any year from the Cook Islands (116,000), Japan (95,000), the Philippines (64,000), Viet Nam (39,000), and Sri Lanka (16,000).

Monthly arrivals – overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 201,900 in June 2026, an increase of 15,100 from June 2025. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 13,200)
• China (up 3,100)
• United States (down 1,200).

There were record arrivals, for a June month, of overseas visitors from some countries including Australia (108,200) and Singapore (6,200).

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in June 2026 was 95 percent of the 213,500 in June 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 201,900 overseas visitor arrivals in June 2026:

• 54 percent were from Australia (compared with 48 percent in June 2019)
• 8 percent were from the United States (10 percent in June 2019)
• 7 percent were from China (9 percent in June 2019)
• 3 percent were from Singapore (2 percent in June 2019)
• 3 percent were from India (2 percent in June 2019).

Monthly arrivals – New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 237,200 in June 2026, a decrease of 12,900 from June 2025. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Cook Islands (up 1,000)
• Australia (down 6,700)
• United States (down 2,300)
• United Kingdom (down 1,800).

There were record arrivals, for a June month, of New Zealand-resident travellers from some destinations including the Cook Islands (11,600), Japan (7,300), Samoa (6,200), India (5,600), and the Philippines (5,300).

The total number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in June 2026 was 92 percent of the 257,300 in June 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 237,200 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in June 2026:

• 40 percent were from Australia (compared with 41 percent in June 2019)
• 9 percent were from Fiji (9 percent in June 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in June 2019)
• 5 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in June 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United States (7 percent in June 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United Kingdom (5 percent in June 2019)
• 4 percent were from Indonesia (3 percent in June 2019).

Border crossings

There were 909,100 border crossings in June 2026, made up of 449,300 arrivals and 459,800 departures. In June 2025 there were 932,300 border crossings.

June 2026 border crossings were 93 percent of the 982,200 in June 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital arrival card

A digital arrival card (New Zealand Traveller Declaration – NZTD) became available to travellers entering New Zealand from mid-July 2023, alongside the existing paper arrival card. Christchurch and Wellington airports were the first to use the NZTD, followed by Queenstown airport in late July 2023 and Auckland airport in late August 2023.

Data from July 2023 onwards therefore includes a growing proportion of digital responses. In June 2026, about 7 in 10 of all traveller arrivals completed the digital NZTD.

The implementation of the NZTD has no impact on the range of statistical information available to international travel and migration customers.

Early and provisional international travel data

Each week, Stats NZ releases early and provisional international travel statistics – International travel (provisional) – to facilitate analysis of New Zealand’s inbound and outbound tourism sectors.

This includes:

• weekly travel data for short-term overseas visitor and New Zealand-resident arrivals
• arrivals and departures data based solely on border crossings into and out of New Zealand
• stock estimates of visitors in New Zealand and New Zealand residents travelling overseas, based on arrivals and departures.

More data

Use Infoshare to access time-series data for international travel and migration:

Subject category: Tourism
Group: International travel and migration – ITM

Definitions and metadata

International travel – DataInfo+ gives general methodology used to produce international travel and migration statistics.

International travel concepts – DataInfo+ gives definitions of terms used in this release.

Subnational short-term NZ-resident arrivals – DataInfo+ gives methodology for determining the New Zealand-location information in short-term New Zealand-resident arrival records.

Infoshare is being replaced by Aotearoa Data Explorer

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Technical enquiries

Travel, migration, and housing team
[email protected]
04 931 4600

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: July 2026 will be released on 14 September 2026.