Americans don’t want to go home from New Zealand

Guess what? Folk from the US think that rules don’t apply to them.

American passport holders top the list of people who have overstayed their visa in New Zealand over the last three years, Radio New Zealand reported this week.

Overall, an estimated 19,153 people in New Zealand are overstayers, Immigration New Zealand figures show.

Over the past last three years, the visas of 6559 people expired without them leaving the country.

The general manager of immigration compliance and investigations Steve Watson said the numbers  confirmed the number of overstayers remains very small.

"Each year, INZ processes around one million visa applications and 1.6 million New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority requests and sees around 3.6 million non-New Zealand citizens arrive in New Zealand," he said.

"The vast majority of people who come to New Zealand to visit, work or study comply with their visa conditions and either leave before their visa expires or obtain a further visa to remain lawfully in New Zealand."

Of those who had overstayed since 2023, a total of 925 were from the US. The largest percentage of those overstaying compared to visas issued was Tonga, with 666. 

China, the UK and India complete the top five countries for overstayers.

INZ said a snapshot shows 0.13% of temporary visa arrivals in the last three years went on to overstay their visas.