New Zealand | Additional changes for the Active Investor Plus Visa

The New Zealand government announced additional changes to the Active Investor Plus Visa to simplify the investment process.

Key Points:

• As BAL reported, the government previously announced changes to the Active Investor Plus Visa beginning April 1, including two simplified investment categories, as well as broadening the scope of acceptable investments, among other updates.
• Officials have now announced additional changes that will take effect April 1, including:
  • Removing caps on investments.
  • Requiring investments to be made in full to be granted a resident visa.
  • “On-call investments” option introduced for funds that the applicant commits to placing in managed funds (bonds, term deposits, listed equities and banks accounts) until they can be “called on.”
  • Finally, in limited circumstances, growth category applicants will be able to reinvest returned capital into balanced category investments if it is less than NZ$1 million (about US$570,225).

Additional Information: In addition, authorities stated that newborn children of investors will also qualify for a Dependent Child Resident Visa through their parent’s Permanent Resident Visa. Overall, the government believes these changes will help attract high value investment and incentivize people to invest in New Zealand. Officials stated that the changes (simplifying settings and incentivizing active investment classes) are a direct result of feedback from industry stakeholders and are meant to provide the most effective options available to attract new investors.

This alert has been provided by the BAL Global Practice Group.

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