Moving to New Zealand from Australia

We are Dawn and Isaac, a British couple who spent ten years living in New Zealand. We did not move from Australia. We moved from the UK, with a visa application, a police check and a five year decision behind us, so when Australian readers first asked how they’d do this, our honest answer was “differently, and far more easily than we did.” That is the actual story here.

This is one of the questions we get asked most, both from Australian readers directly and from Kiwis whose partners are Australian, so we researched the practical side properly. Here is what makes this move different from every other country guide on this site: under the trans-Tasman arrangement, Australian citizens and permanent residents need no visa to live and work in New Zealand. No points test, no job offer, no waiting on a decision. You get a resident visa free at the border. So instead of immigration hoops, we can spend most of this article on what actually trips people up: healthcare, your super, tax residency, shipping across the Tasman, your driving licence and your pets. If you’re still weighing up New Zealand against Australia, read our decision guide first. This one is for people who have already decided.

A quick note. We are not immigration advisers, lawyers, financial advisers or accountants, and nothing here is immigration, tax or financial advice. Rules and thresholds change, so confirm anything time-sensitive on immigration.govt.nz before you act on it, and talk to a registered tax agent on both sides of the Tasman before you move money or change your tax residency.

In this article

• The trans-Tasman arrangement: what Australians skip entirely
• What Australians still have to do (the checklist)
• The path to permanent residence, citizenship and voting
• Healthcare from day one
• KiwiSaver, your Australian super, and tax residency
• What the move actually costs, and shipping your life over
• Bringing your pets
• Driving in New Zealand on an Australian licence
• The honest bit: salaries, cost of living and why people still move
• Your questions answered

The trans-Tasman arrangement: what Australians skip entirely

New Zealand and Australia have run open movement between the two countries since 1973, formalised as the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. Most people know the New Zealand side: Kiwis landing in Australia get a Special Category Visa (subclass 444) automatically, letting them live and work there indefinitely. Fewer realise the reverse works too, under a different visa name.

If you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you can turn up in New Zealand and be granted an Australian Resident Visa at the border, free of charge, according to Immigration New Zealand. Citizens need nothing arranged in advance. Permanent residents need a New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA) sorted before they fly, though exempt from the levy other NZeTA holders pay. That visa lets you live, work in any job for any employer, and study in New Zealand indefinitely, with no immigration fee at all. Compare that to the Skilled Migrant Category or Accredited Employer Work Visa routes most other nationalities rely on, with their points tests, job offers, medical exams and fees running into the thousands, and you can see why this guide looks different.

There is a genuine catch worth understanding early: character requirements. Immigration New Zealand can decline entry, or refuse the resident visa, if you have a criminal conviction, have been deported or removed from another country, or are assessed as a risk to New Zealand’s security or public order, which explicitly includes registered sex offenders and people associated with gangs. If any of that might apply to you, apply for a visa before you travel rather than relying on the border process.

One more practical detail: your Australian Resident Visa expires every time you leave New Zealand, and technically re-grants on your next arrival. If you plan to travel a lot, you can apply for a variation of travel conditions that lets you leave and return for up to 24 months without affecting your ongoing residence status.

What Australians still have to do

The trans-Tasman arrangement removes the immigration paperwork, not the move itself. Here is what you skip, and what you still do yourself.

Task	Australians (citizens/permanent residents)	Most other nationalities
Apply for a visa before travelling	Skip it. Granted free at the border	Apply in advance, pay a fee, wait weeks or months
NZeTA	Citizens: skip it. Permanent residents: required before you fly	Usually required regardless of visa type
Job offer to be allowed to move	Not required at all	Often required (e.g. Accredited Employer Work Visa)
Character and health check	Still happens, at the border, on your arrival card	Still happens, earlier, during visa processing
Get an IRD number	Still your job, after you land	Same
Open a New Zealand bank account	Still your job	Same
Convert your driving licence	Direct conversion if held 2+ years, since Australia is an exempt country	Often needs theory and practical tests
Pet import	No quarantine, a post-arrival inspection only	Often a minimum 10-day quarantine stay
Public healthcare	Full eligibility once you intend to stay 2+ years	Usually needs a 2-year-plus work visa first
KiwiSaver	Auto-enrolled once in paid NZ employment, same as everyone	Same
Enrol to vote	After 12 months living in New Zealand	After 12 months living in New Zealand, once eligible to enrol at all

The shape of it: everything that is genuinely “settling in” work, the same list we worked through ourselves after arriving from the UK, still applies. Only the immigration layer disappears.

The path to permanent residence, citizenship and voting

An Australian Resident Visa is not the same as New Zealand’s Permanent Resident Visa. Once you have held the resident visa for at least two years and met its conditions, you can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa, which removes the “expires every time you leave” quirk and gives you unrestricted travel in and out of New Zealand.

Citizenship is a separate, longer step, and it is not automatic just because you are Australian. You generally need five years living in New Zealand as a resident, with a presence requirement of at least 1,350 days across those five years and at least 240 days in each individual year, according to the New Zealand Government’s citizenship guidance. Being out of the country more than four months in any 12-month stretch, or more than 15 months in total across the five years, can work against you. From late 2027, adult applicants will also sit a formal, multiple-choice citizenship test, needing 75% to pass. Both countries allow dual citizenship without renouncing the other, so becoming a New Zealand citizen does not put your Australian passport at risk.

Voting is more generous than citizenship or permanent residence. Under New Zealand’s electoral rules, anyone who has lived in New Zealand continuously for 12 months or more is eligible to enrol and vote in general and local elections, provided they are legally entitled to stay indefinitely, which an Australian on a resident visa is. You do not need permanent residence or citizenship to have a say.

Healthcare from day one

This is where the trans-Tasman relationship goes further than most readers expect. Two separate things are at play, and it is worth knowing which one applies to you.

The first is the New Zealand-Australia Reciprocal Health Agreement, covering Australians on a short visit to New Zealand, up to two years, for immediately necessary treatment: hospital care, pharmaceuticals and maternity services, but not GP visits out of hospital and not publicly funded ambulance transport. That is the safety net for a holiday or short work stint, not a substitute for travel insurance.

The second, and the one that matters if you are relocating, is full public healthcare eligibility. Per Health NZ Te Whatu Ora’s rules, an Australian citizen or permanent resident who has or intends to live in New Zealand for two years or longer gets the full range of publicly funded health and disability services, the same access as a citizen, from the point that intention is established. That beats most migrants, who typically need a qualifying work visa held for two years first. On top of the public system, everyone in New Zealand, regardless of visa status, is covered by ACC, the no-fault accident scheme, for accidental injury. ACC does not cover illness, so it is not a reason to skip health insurance, but it removes a lot of the financial risk from everyday accidents.

KiwiSaver, your Australian super, and tax residency

Money is the part of this move that genuinely needs professional advice rather than a blog post, but here is the shape of it so you know what questions to ask.

KiwiSaver itself works the same for Australians as for anyone employed in New Zealand: once you are in paid work here, you are automatically enrolled, your employer contributes a minimum, and the government adds its own top-up each year, subject to eligibility. Our pros and cons of the KiwiSaver scheme piece covers the compulsory employer contribution and the annual member tax credit in more depth.

Your Australian superannuation is where the trans-Tasman relationship offers something no other migrant route does. Under the Trans-Tasman Retirement Savings Portability Scheme, you can transfer your entire Australian super balance into a participating KiwiSaver scheme once genuinely, permanently emigrated, per the Australian Taxation Office. Rules worth knowing, from the ATO and a breakdown by Australian accountancy firm PKF: it must be your whole balance, not a partial transfer; only APRA-regulated super funds and participating KiwiSaver providers take part, so check with your fund first, since participation is voluntary on both sides; self-managed super funds are excluded; the transfer is tax-free; and there are no New Zealand contribution caps on what you bring in. The restriction that catches people out: the Australian-sourced portion cannot fund a first-home withdrawal in New Zealand, and stays locked until the Australian access age of 60, even sitting inside a KiwiSaver account otherwise governed by New Zealand’s age-65 rules. Speak to a financial adviser who understands both systems before you transfer anything, not after.

Tax residency changes in both directions when you leave Australia for good, squarely “talk to an accountant” territory. Ceasing Australian tax residency can trigger a deemed disposal of certain assets for capital gains purposes and changes your Medicare levy position, and the tests Australia uses (the “resides” test, the domicile test, days-in-Australia counting) are genuinely fiddly. On the New Zealand side, Inland Revenue treats most new migrants who have not been NZ tax resident in the previous ten years as “transitional residents” for 48 months, during which most foreign passive income such as interest, dividends and rent is exempt from New Zealand tax, though employment income doesn’t qualify. New Zealand also has no general capital gains tax. Get a cross-border accountant involved before you leave, not after your first New Zealand payslip lands.

What the move actually costs, and shipping your life over

We shipped our belongings from the UK, and it was slow and expensive: weeks at sea, a five-figure quote for a full container, a long wait once it arrived. The Tasman crossing is a different proposition entirely.

Indicative pricing from Australian removalists puts a shared or smaller container load at roughly NZD $3,000 to $6,000 (AUD $2,500 to $5,000), depending on volume, departure port and whether you want door-to-door or depot-to-depot delivery, with a 20ft container suiting most one to two bedroom households. Transit time is the real headline: a direct sailing to Auckland or Wellington typically takes just 5 to 7 days, with other ports such as Hamilton or Port Chalmers closer to 10 to 15 days once local transfers are factored in. That is a fraction of the six to ten week transit most people budget from the UK, Canada or the US, and it changes the calculation on whether to ship furniture at all versus simply replacing it here.

Beyond shipping, budget for flights, a car once you land since public transport is patchy outside the main centres, and several weeks of living costs while you find your feet. Our full budget breakdown for emigrating to New Zealand walks through the wider line items, most of which apply whichever country you are moving from.

(Exchange rate: 1 AUD = NZD 1.1951, XE.com mid-market rate, 17 July 2026. Rates move daily, so treat this as a snapshot rather than gospel.)

Bringing your pets

If you are a pet owner, this is one of the best parts of moving from Australia rather than almost anywhere else. MPI treats Australia as a low-risk country for cats and dogs, provided your pet has lived there at least six months (or since birth) immediately before travel and was examined by an Australian-registered vet within five days of export. Meet those conditions and your pet skips the quarantine stay pets from almost every other country face, MPI generally requires a minimum ten-day quarantine stint elsewhere, and instead goes through a post-arrival inspection at the airport. Entry has to be through Auckland or Christchurch either way. Our full guide to moving with your pets covers the paperwork and approved carriers, but the short version for Australians is: start early, and don’t dread it the way movers from further afield have to.

Driving in New Zealand on an Australian licence

Australia sits on New Zealand’s list of exempt countries for driving licence conversion, alongside the UK and Canada, which matters a lot for how much hassle this is. Hold a full Australian car licence for two years or more, and you can walk into an approved overseas conversion agent (AA or VTNZ) with your licence, ID and an eyesight check, and convert directly with no written or practical test, for an application fee of $52.10. Held it less than two years, and you also sit a practical driving test, bringing the total to around $112.

The other number to know is how long you can drive on your Australian licence before converting becomes compulsory. NZTA temporarily extended that window from 12 to 18 months from November 2024, to ease a backlog of practical test bookings, running for two years. That means it is due to tighten back towards 12 months around late 2026, though NZTA has not published a single reversion date at the time of writing, so don’t leave conversion to the last minute banking on 18 months being available. Check nzta.govt.nz for the current position, and note the extension covers car licences only; overseas motorcycle and truck licences stay on the standard 12-month window.

The honest bit: salaries, cost of living and why people still move

We would be doing you a disservice if we let the ease of the move imply the money works out the same, because it generally does not. New Zealand’s median full-time salary sits around NZD $63,000 to $65,000 a year, against Australia’s median of roughly AUD $74,672 (around NZD $89,250 converted), and the gap holds up and down most sectors once you account for the exchange rate, according to Stats NZ and Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. Add in that Australian employers must contribute 12% to superannuation against New Zealand’s 3% minimum KiwiSaver contribution, and the retirement savings gap compounds the wage gap over time.

So why do people still make this move? In our experience, it is almost never about the money. It is a partner’s family being here, wanting a smaller pace of life, or chasing the outdoors on New Zealand’s more compact scale. None of those are wrong reasons, but they are different reasons from “I will earn more,” worth being honest about with anyone you are moving with. If you have not already made that call, our New Zealand vs Australia decision guide lays out the fuller trade-offs rather than re-arguing them here. Once ready to think about where to land, our guide to the best places to live in New Zealand and our setting-up guide covering IRD numbers, bank accounts and phone plans are the next useful stops.

Your questions answered

Do Australian permanent residents need an NZeTA even though citizens don’t? Yes. Australian citizens travelling on an Australian passport need no NZeTA and pay no International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy. Australian permanent residents travelling on a different passport must hold a valid NZeTA before they fly, though they are exempt from the levy that other NZeTA holders pay.

I live in Australia on a temporary visa, not as a citizen or permanent resident. Does this still apply to me? No, and this catches people out. The Australian Resident Visa on arrival is only for Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents. If you are in Australia on a temporary visa, such as a skilled worker or student visa, you are not covered by the trans-Tasman arrangement at all, and need to apply for a standard New Zealand visa in your own right, based on your actual nationality and circumstances.

My partner or kids aren’t Australian citizens. Does the trans-Tasman arrangement cover them too? No, not automatically. Only Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents get the Australian Resident Visa at the border. A non-Australian partner or child needs their own New Zealand visa, typically as the partner or dependent child of a New Zealand resident once you hold your own resident visa. The category and requirements depend on your exact relationship and circumstances, so check immigration.govt.nz rather than assuming the whole household is covered just because you are.

Can I transfer my Australian superannuation into KiwiSaver, and are there any catches? Yes, under the Trans-Tasman Retirement Savings Portability Scheme, provided you have permanently emigrated, your super fund and chosen KiwiSaver provider both participate (participation is voluntary), and you transfer your whole balance rather than part of it. The biggest catch: the Australian-sourced portion cannot be used for a KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal, and it stays locked until age 60, even inside a New Zealand account.

Can I bring my car from Australia to New Zealand? Technically yes, and it is more straightforward than from a left-hand-drive country since Australian cars are already right-hand-drive. Thanks to the trans-Tasman trade relationship, there is no import duty, but you will still need entry certification and a compliance check, commonly costing several hundred to around NZD $1,500 depending on the vehicle. For an everyday car, buying locally once you land is often simpler and cheaper than shipping one.

Do I lose my Australian citizenship if I become a New Zealand citizen? No. Both countries permit dual citizenship and do not require you to renounce the other. You can hold an Australian passport and a New Zealand passport at the same time, though you must travel in and out of Australia on your Australian passport.

Will my KiwiSaver provider automatically accept a transfer from my Australian super fund? Not necessarily. Participation in the portability scheme is voluntary for both Australian super funds and New Zealand KiwiSaver providers, so check with your chosen KiwiSaver scheme before assuming the transfer is possible, and budget a few weeks for the transfer itself to process once it is confirmed.

Do I need a New Zealand driving licence before I can get car insurance here? Not usually. Most New Zealand insurers will cover you while you are legally driving on a valid overseas licence within the permitted window, and an Australian licence with a clean history is generally viewed favourably. That said, insurers vary, some ask about your licence conversion timeline, so it is worth mentioning your Australian driving history and no-claims record explicitly when you get quotes, since some providers will factor it in.

Ready to make the move?

The trans-Tasman arrangement removes the hardest part of most international moves, but “no visa needed” is not the same as “nothing to organise.” Superannuation, tax residency and the driving licence deadline are the three things we would sort out earliest, well before booking a shipping container. We are working on a new edition of our full paid moving guide, with the deeper, line-by-line detail a single article cannot cover, and we will let readers know when it lands. In the meantime, for the wider practical checklist from paperwork to packing, see our [compl