Migrants pay $200m a year for visas to enter NZ

New Zealand visitor visa applicants paid $59.4m last year. Photo / Doug Sherring

Record migration is resulting in big money being collected by Immigration New Zealand in visa application fees.

Foreign nationals are now paying more than $200 million a year for visas to come to New Zealand.

Annual net migration reached 72,400 in the year to July, up 3400 from the same period last year, Statistics New Zealand said.

In figures released to the New Zealand Herald, the amount Immigration New Zealand received in visa applications in the last four financial years had risen from $148m in 2014 to $175m in 2015.

It hit a record $201.5m last year and remained high at $200.6m in the year ended June 2017.

This year, the agency received the largest amount from visitor visa applicants who paid $59.4m last year - up from $35m three years ago.

Short-term visitor arrivals, which include tourists, people visiting family and friends and people travelling for work, reached 3.7 million, up 9 per cent from a year earlier and a new annual record.

A record 1.9 million people came to New Zealand on holiday, boosted by visitors from Australia, the US and the UK.

Over the same period, income from work visa fees also rose, from $35.6m to $52.4m.

There was a 15.3 per cent increase in work visas granted to 45,397 in the year to July.

In the last 12 months, the amount being paid for both residence and student visas dropped slightly.

A contributing factor was a 32 per cent drop in annual student visas granted to Indian nationals.

The number of student visas dropped 9.9 per cent to 24,132.

Residence visa fees were down from $60m to $54.7m and student visa fees dropped to $23.2m from $27.5m.

China continued to be the biggest source of migrants on residence visas, rising 12.2 per cent to 3413 in the year to end July.

An INZ spokesman said a breakdown of applications by nationality, or approved and declined applications, were not available in a reportable format.

In the year to July, three in four of the record 132,100 migrant arrivals were foreign nationals.

There were still 1100 more New Zealanders leaving the country than returning in the last year.

New Zealand has been experiencing record levels of net migration in recent years, with rising immigration shaping to be a key election issue.

It is being blamed for inflating property markets and straining the country's infrastructure.

Chinese migration continued to be the largest on a net basis, making up 9961 of the 72,400 arrivals.

This was followed by India at 7444 net, which had a net migration decline of 34 per cent from a year earlier.

Migration from the UK had the biggest increase, up 53 per cent to 6750, while South African migration also rose 50 per cent to 4862.

The number coming from Australia dropped to 469, from 1750 the year before.