New international students in New Zealand

A student is counted as ‘new’ the year in which their first student visa was approved.

There are issues with using visa data as a proxy for enrolments:
- Visas only capture approximately 60% of the students who study here in a year as not all nationalities require a visa to study here (this particularly affects visa waiver countries here to learn English if their study is less than three months).
- Dependents need to be stripped from the student visa data as they do not access education here (but are linked to the primary visa holder)
- Foreign nationals on Working Holiday Visas can, and do, access education while over here.

At URL provided, select 'Temporary visa holders' from the box at the right-hand side of the page.

This annual report is the 17th in a series that examines trends in temporary and permanent migration to and from New Zealand. The report updates trends to 2016/17 and compares recent immigration patterns with patterns identified in previous years.