Country of residence: the country where the person last lived or will next live for 12 months or more.
Visitor arrivals: overseas residents arriving in New Zealand for a stay of less than 12 months.
Data calculation/treatment
These statistics relate to the number of passenger movements to New Zealand, rather than to the number of people - that is, the multiple movements of individual people during a given reference period are each counted separately.
From March 2020 to July 2022, the New Zealand government implemented measures to protect New Zealanders from the COVID-19 virus, effectively limiting travel to and from New Zealand
A person may change their intentions after their arrival, which may mean the recorded passenger type becomes incorrect. Stats NZ does not revise published statistics for such changes, but advises that the published figures remain a good indicator of trends in permanent and long-term migration.
Data is derived from a sample of records and hence may contain sample error. Caution should be used when using data with low cell values.
Note that Chinese province has a high rate of non-response. See the 'China: province not stated' category.
Exclusions
'Transit' passengers do not complete border clearance - regardless of whether they travel by air or by sea - so are not included in these statistics. About three-quarters of cruise ship passengers visiting New Zealand are 'transit' passengers.
At URL provided, select 'Tourism > International Travel and Migration > Visitor arrivals from China by province and purpose (Annual-Dec)'. All variables were selected to create this dataset.
From the dataset International Travel: Visitor arrivals from China by province and purpose (Annual-Dec) December 2025, this data was extracted:
Rows: 4-34
Columns: 2-133
Provided: 4,092 data points
Dataset originally released on:
February 13, 2026
About this dataset
International travel covers the number and characteristics of overseas visitors and New Zealand resident travellers (short-term movements) entering New Zealand.