AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region gives customers more choice to run workloads and securely store their content in New Zealand while serving end users with even lower latency
Amazon plans to invest more than NZ$7.5 billion and support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs annually in New Zealand, adding approximately NZ$10.8 billion to New Zealand’s GDP
Active AWS customers in New Zealand include AMP New Zealand, Kiwibank, Ministry of Transport, New Zealand Post, One New Zealand, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Wellington City Council, Xero, and more
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region. The new AWS Region will give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as financial services, retail, education, government, and nonprofit organizations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in New Zealand. As part of its long-term commitment, Amazon is planning to invest more than NZ$7.5 billion in New Zealand to support the construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of its data centers in the country. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.
"The new AWS Region in New Zealand will help serve the growing demand for cloud services across the country and empower organizations of all sizes to accelerate their digital transformation," said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. "With this launch, businesses can now leverage advanced AWS technologies, from core cloud capabilities to artificial intelligence and machine learning, all while meeting local data residency requirements. By investing in New Zealand's digital infrastructure, we're proud to support the country's economic growth, foster innovation, and help position it as a technology hub in the Asia Pacific region."
“The launch of the AWS Region in New Zealand is an exciting moment. This investment in digital infrastructure and Amazon’s commitment to digital skills can accelerate New Zealand technology businesses and help New Zealanders to move into highly skilled, secure, and well-paid technology jobs—which exist right across the economy, from tech companies to various sectors including agriculture, finance, retail, professional services, government, and many more,” said Graeme Muller, CEO at NZTech.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region consists of three Availability Zones at launch, giving AWS 120 Availability Zones across 38 AWS Regions globally.
With today’s announcement, AWS has plans for 10 more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
The AWS Region in New Zealand is sovereign-by-design, just as the AWS cloud has been since day one.
AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of services, including analytics, compute, content delivery, database, generative AI, machine learning, networking, storage, and other cloud technologies.
To support the growth in cloud adoption across Asia Pacific, Amazon continues to invest in upskilling students, local developers and technical professionals, nontechnical professionals, and the next generation of IT leaders in New Zealand through offerings like AWS Academy, AWS Educate, and AWS Skill Builder. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the New Zealand government, Amazon has committed to train 100,000 people in New Zealand in cloud skills and has already provided training to more than 50,000 individuals. As part of its commitment to contribute to the development of digital skills, AWS will hire and develop additional local personnel to operate and support the new AWS Region in New Zealand.
Organizations in New Zealand that choose AWS to run their workloads include AMP New Zealand, AsureQuality, Contact Energy, Education Perfect, Foodstuffs South Island, Halter, Kiwibank, MATTR, Mercury NZ, Les Mills, Ministry of Transport, Mitre 10 New Zealand, New Zealand Post, One New Zealand, Sharesies, Steel & Tube Holdings, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, TradeMe, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Vector, Wellington City Council, Xero, and more.
AWS Partners in New Zealand include Accenture, Arcanum, CustomD, CyberCX, Datacom, Deloitte, The Instillery, Lancom, MongoDB, Westcon-Comstor, and more. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.
Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will be underpinned by renewable energy from day one, supported by a long-term project with Mercury NZ for the Turitea South wind farm. This project supports the development of new renewable energy capacity in New Zealand and advances Amazon’s sustainability goals. The partnership with Mercury NZ, an AWS customer, demonstrates how digitalization and decarbonization can advance together to support a sustainable future for New Zealand.
Amazon investment in New Zealand
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region is the latest Amazon investment in New Zealand to provide customers with advanced and secure cloud technologies.
In 2016, AWS enhanced New Zealand’s connectivity to the global AWS network by establishing diverse, high-capacity subsea cable connections, improving network reliability and performance for customers.
In 2020, AWS launched two Amazon CloudFront edge locations in Auckland. Amazon CloudFront is a highly secure and programmable content delivery network that accelerates the delivery of data, videos, applications, and APIs to users worldwide with low latency and high transfer speeds.
In 2023, AWS established an AWS Direct Connect location in Auckland, allowing customers to establish private connectivity between AWS and their data center, office, or colocation environment.
In 2023, AWS expanded its infrastructure footprint in New Zealand with the launch of an AWS Local Zones location in Auckland. AWS Local Zones are a type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select services closer to large populations, industry, and IT centers, enabling customers to deliver applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end users.
Amazon estimates the ongoing operation of the new AWS Region will add approximately NZ$10.8 billion to New Zealand’s gross domestic product (GDP) and support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs, including facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others, at external businesses annually.
Secure, reliable, and energy-efficient cloud infrastructure
AWS Regions consist of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. Availability Zones are located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security, and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.
AWS is constantly working on ways to increase the energy efficiency of its data centers—optimizing data center design, investing in purpose-built chips, and innovating with new cooling technologies. A report by Accenture, commissioned by AWS, estimates AWS infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more efficient than on-premises, and when workloads are optimized on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 99%. For more information about AWS sustainability efforts, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will enable customers with data residency preferences or requirements to store their content securely in New Zealand, enable customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Asia Pacific. Customers from startups to enterprises to government organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider to drive innovation, reduce costs, and accelerate transformation.
About Amazon Web Services
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 120 Availability Zones within 38 geographic regions, with announced plans for 10 more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
Amazon.com, Inc. Media Hotline Amazon-pr@amazon.com www.amazon.com/pr
Source: Amazon.com, Inc.
Arizona is central to US security interests. It is a rising economic powerhouse that is strategically positioned between two of the world’s largest economies California (fifth), and Mexico (twelfth), providing easy access to consumers (86 million+ within a one-day trucking radius), labour (skilled and unskilled), and capital. Arizona benefited disproportionately from Biden-era industrial policy initiatives (especially the CHIPs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act). Arizona’s international trade flows increased 12% in 2024 to over NZ$56.33 billion, compared to average export growth of just 2% in other US states.
Key industries include defence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare. Following TSMC’s March 2025 announcement of a further $100 billion investment, Arizona has attracted $NZ$359 billion+ investment into the semiconductor industry - the highest anywhere in the US.
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The world’s ability to forecast extreme weather events will be extended and enhanced with a $12m NZ Government grant to Te Whai Ao — Dodd-Walls Centre researchers in photonic and quantum technologies.
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endeavour funding announced today by Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Dr Shane Reti, comes just in time as NASA’s EOS-Aura satellite runs out of fuel in 2026. The grant means a quarter of a century of uninterrupted space-based climate monitoring will be continued, and cutting-edge space-ready photonic technologies will be advanced.
Team lead, Dodd-Walls Centre Principal Investigator, Professor Harald Schwefel, says the move will preserve a key environmental data series that forecasters and climate scientists are very concerned about losing.
“We estimate the public and private global costs of its loss could be greater than $1B per annum and tens of millions of dollars for New Zealand,” he says. “It is difficult to even imagine the true global costs of loss of this data. For New Zealand alone, the value of our forecast system is of the order of a billion dollars per annum and the accuracy of the forecasts from short-term weather to long-term climate is critical”, he says.
The NASA satellite detects the faint microwave/THz signal of climate gases from the earth’s atmosphere, including above Antarctica during polar winters. This is when other satellites can’t operate due to the lack of light. While in general, the Ozone Hole has been recovering, some of the largest recorded holes have formed in the last decade. Scientists are only just beginning to understand how poorly information about climate gases is being captured in climate models and how their interactions affect local weather
Despite the risk to global infrastructure and human life without the EOS-Aura satellite, there are no follow-up missions with this capability planned by other countries, due to the prohibitive costs.
Kiwi Ingenuity
Professor Schwefel says the research programme provides an amazing “tech-in-a box” alternative to the giant NASA satellite.
“Integrating NZ’s capabilities in quantum technology, photonics and atmospheric science with innovations in the NZ aerospace industry, our device will cost less, be more compact, more energy efficient, and detect the wide range of atmospheric gases that the previous satellite did,” Dr Schwefel says.
The team, led by experts in photonics and atmospheric science at the University of Otago, is building critical capability for space-based climate monitoring with next generation photonics. Together withindustry partners such as Paihau–Robinson Research Institute and Earth Science New Zealand as well as international counterparts from the United States, Finland, Australia and Spain, the group is using a technique called quantum-inspired non-linear frequency conversion.
A previous MBIE Smart Ideas grant enabled them to convert relevant microwave/THz radiation frequencies into the optical domain. This meant they could launch very compact, energy-efficient radiometers (radiation measurement devices) on low-cost CubeSats.
Now they will be able to develop the device to improve its sensitivity and to measure a wider range of gases. They will explore the use of Rydberg atoms - enormous, human-made atoms which are highly sensitive to external electric and magnetic fields. They plan to prove the device using high altitude balloons launched with the help of Kea Aerospace. Then they will develop a space-ready payload to fit into a CubeSat for ongoing measurement.
Economic Value
Professor Schwefel says as well as using the information on atmospheric gases to improve forecasts of extreme weather events, the grant will have far-reaching economic benefits.
“This will create opportunities for new commercial enterprises and new precision engineering outputs. It will also grow New Zealand’s precision instruments and aerospace industries. The photonic technology alone provides a platform for other high-value applications from quantum networks to breath analysis and spectroscopy,” he says.
Te Whai Ao – Dodd-Walls Director, Professor Frédérique Vanholsbeeck backs that view.
“A large proportion of our spin-out companies got their start with a Smart Ideas grant. Both the Smart Ideas and the MBIE Endeavour Funds have provided a pathway to commercial success in high-value areas which the private sector wouldn’t risk. This project is a real example of how years of dedicated research can culminate in significant business opportunities,” she says.
Background
The project team is led out of the University of Otago, with key individuals placed at the Earth Science New Zealand (formerly NIWA/MetService), Paihau-Robinson Research Institute, and the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury, and Waikato. Key international partnerships include NASA/JPL, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, ANCDF Canberra, UC3MMadrid, and Colorado School of Mines, USA. Key industry partners are Kea Aerospace, Whitika-LuxFidelity and Shamrock Industries. Community engagement will be led by Tūhura Otago Museum and Aerospace NZ.
Source: https://www.doddwalls.ac.nz/
Denver, the capital of Colorado, has become one of the primary hubs for New Zealand businesses in the United States, employing around 400-500 people, reflecting deepening commercial and investment ties between our two countries. Colorado State is an economic heavyweight, ranked 6th in the US for economic performance. With key industries including aerospace and technology, and with strong people to people links, Colorado holds significant relevance for New Zealand’s priorities.
The signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between New Zealand and the State of Colorado in April 2025 underscores a shared commitment to advancing collaboration in science, innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship, and signals a mutual intent to further deepen these. The MoC represents New Zealand’s second state-level arrangement with a US state, following the signing of the New Zealand-California MoC on climate cooperation in 2022.
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Colorado: The hub for New Zealand business in the Western United States
Coalition parties have agreed that overseas-based investors with a New Zealand investor residence visa will be allowed to buy a house here, to encourage more investment to grow the economy, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.
“The ban on foreigners buying residential housing will remain. However, the Government wants to bring additional investment, skills, ideas and connections to New Zealand, and the Active Investor Plus residency visa allows that.
“It offers residency to a migrant who invests a minimum of $5 million to help grow the economy, passes a good character test, and has acceptable health.
“But, because Active Investor Plus residency visa-holders do not have to be in New Zealand for six months of a year, the foreign buyer ban means some do not meet the threshold for buying a house under the Overseas Investment Act.
“The Government has therefore decided that people with an Active Investor Plus residency visa will be allowed to buy or build one home.
“The minimum value of the house that can be bought or built will be set at $5 million – which equates to less than 1 per cent of New Zealand houses.
“This change navigates a path between those who do not want foreign ownership opened up, and the desire to attract high net worth investors by deepening their connection to our country to help grow the economy.
“There have been more than 300 applications for the Active Investor Plus residency visa since it was re-launched on April 1.
“If all these applications are approved and proceed, it means a potential total minimum investment of $1.8 billion in the New Zealand economy.
“Globally, New Zealand has a deserved reputation as a great place to live and we want to grow our economy. By opening our door just a little to allow significant investors to own a home, we will help attract more of those who want to contribute to the community and country.”
Note:
Individuals who received residence visas under the previous Investor 1 & 2 visas will also be eligible.
The Active Investor Plus categories are:
Source: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/
Shott Beverages Ltd a New Zealand company producing real fruit and coffee syrups. They are passionate about product quality, known for using only the finest ingredients and picking fruits at the peak of their season. SHOTT’s concentrates are cold brewed to lock in authentic flavors and are naturally non-GMO. Their commitment to quality and innovation just earned them a prestigious FABI Favorites award at the 2025 National Restaurant Association Show. This recognition underscores their growing influence on the Food & Beverage (F&B) industry both today and in the years ahead.
With standout products in hand, SHOTT Beverages started their export journey about ten years ago in South Korea and several other smaller markets before entering the U.S. Now, three years into their U.S. expansion and fresh off their celebrated FABI award win, we sat down with their CEO,David Shearer, to hear his reflections, lessons and key wins from growing in this competitive market.
This is a must-read for Kiwi F&B companies eyeing the U.S. market:
The power of the pivot:When Shearer reflected on the early days of SHOTT Beverages entering the U.S., he noted that their strategy has done quite the pivot, all for the better. There is no single path to success. Each business outcome or win can be reached multiple ways. Pivoting isn’t just necessary at times; it’s essential. Don’t just embrace the pivot, own it. It can be the key to even greater success. More than three years into the U.S. market, SHOTT Beverages continues to learn and adapt, refining their strategy and approach as they uncover new insights.
Local teams as strategic assets:With more than 340 million people, the U.S. offers scale like few other markets. From coast to coast, there are a variety of cultural nuances and market dynamics at play. Therefore, SHOTT Beverages developed a deliberate strategy to hire local teams. They hired people who understood the communities they were serving, could find loyal customers and knew the nuances of the local market. This approach has not only been successful for SHOTT Beverages in the U.S. but is a winning strategy they’ve stuck to across all their export markets.
Turning booths into business:According to Shearer, SHOTT Beverages got their start in the U.S. by “putting their flag in the soil” at a local tradeshow three years ago. Since then, they’ve attended 17 tradeshows varying in size. Whether it was a small or large tradeshow, they leveraged these events as a form of marketing and sales to generate brand awareness and leads. As a B2B brand, tradeshows became their way of making connections, finding customers and making a name for themselves. This method helped them sharpen their tradeshow strategy, one where they can now focus on a few key tradeshows each year that yield the best return on investment. What began as quantity over quality, has evolved. Another lesson in the art of pivoting.
Logistics, logistics, logistics:Nailing logistics has been the biggest learning for SHOTT Beverages. The U.S. is vast, not just in its population, notes Shearer, but in its geography too. It’s like Australia with its distinct dynamics across its East and West Coasts. Unlike other markets where one distributor is sufficient, the U.S. requires two, resulting in longer delivery times and higher prices. They strategically combatted this by moving their distribution warehouse to Houston, Texas, allowing them to shave weeks off their supply chain movement. They also prioritized a more sustainable, long-term strategy to manage costs, maximize profitability and to ensure they had the right supply chain.
For Shearer, the U.S. market represented the “holy grail” and NZTE played a pivotal role in making that vision a reality. From the start of their export journey in South Korea to today as they continue to expand their business across the U.S., NZTE has supported SHOTT Beverages with their Go-To-Market strategy, co-funding projects, business advice and more. This support enabled them to invest heavily upfront, attack the market aggressively, and achieve strong growth in the U.S.
FollowSHOTT BEVERAGES LIMITED to watch their export story unfold and to celebrate their continued, rising success in this sector and market.
New Zealand in North America
A Kiwi company that started life in a Taranaki farm shed less than a decade ago is now riding a global heatwave, with exports of its world-first wine cooler technology surging across the Northern Hemisphere.
Huski, the homegrown brand behind an ice-free Champagne cooler, has climbed to number one in its category on Amazon in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. The business is on track to double its eight-figure annual revenue this year, with sales spiking as extreme temperatures grip major export markets.
This summer, Europe and the US have seen record-shattering highs – Spain reached 46°C, Portugal hit 46.6°C, France logged its hottest June day since records began in 1947, and the UK and US endured prolonged heatwaves with cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Houston sweltering above 40°C for consecutive days.
Almost a million Huski beer and wine coolers have now been exported to more than 50 countries, including Germany, Japan and the UAE. The company also recently secured its largest-ever commercial order – 76,000 units to the UK.
What began with a PVC pipe prototype is now a patent-pending product range stocked in over 500 retail stores across New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the US, and has been featured by global outlets including Rolling Stone, Vogue, GQand Oprah’s Favorite Things.
Co-founder Simon Huesser says the inspiration came from a simple observation: Champagne has been enjoyed since the 1600s, yet little had changed in how it’s kept cold.
“Sparkling wines like Champagne and Prosecco are particularly sensitive to temperature and experts recommend serving them between 6°C and 10°C,” he says.
“Our Champagne cooler maintains that ideal range for up to six hours without ice, and features the patent-pending BubbleLock Bottle Stopper, which slows the loss of bubbles. We believe it’s a world-first feature.”
Huesser says their journey began by recognising a gap in the market for a universal solution.
“US beer cans are 355ml, Australia’s are 375ml and New Zealand’s are mostly 330ml. There was no one-size-fits-all, so we literally collected bottles and cans from recycling bins to get the sizing right.”
After building a following with its beer cooler, customer demand pushed the team to develop solutions for wine and sparkling. “Designing for sparkling wine came with new challenges – bigger bottles, varied shapes, and the need for something that matched the sense of occasion,” he says.
The result was a vacuum-insulated stainless steel cooler with a built-in, removable stopper.
“It’s not complicated, but it’s thoughtful,” says Huesser. “And because the stopper lives in the base, it’s always on hand – not lost in a drawer.”
The design won international acclaim, securing a 2025 Red Dot Design Award. “It puts us in the company of Apple, Dyson and Ferrari,” says Huesser.
“Being recognised by more than 40 international experts has been a career highlight.”
But with growth has come challenges – especially around intellectual property.
“As a design-led business, we’ve had to be proactive about IP protection from day one. We now run monthly sweeps to identify copycats and have successfully taken down hundreds of infringing listings,” Huesser says.
In one case, that vigilance led to opportunity. “We intercepted a shipment of 15,000 design-infringing coolers headed to Australia. After a conversation with the importer, it turned into a much larger legitimate order.”
Huski’s go-to-market strategy leans heavily on direct-to-consumer sales. “We typically enter new markets through Amazon, then expand through e-commerce, retail partners and loyalty programmes,” says Huesser. That model has seen sales double in the UK and Australia in the past year.
From a farm shed prototype to more than 1.5 million products sold worldwide, Huski’s growth has been rapid.
“More than three-quarters of our business now comes from overseas,” Huesser says. “And that growth shows no signs of slowing.”
Source: https://exportertoday.co.nz/
NZ Post General Manager of Export and International Solutions, Jared Handcock, says “we know how important it is for businesses to stay connected with their US customers, and we’ve worked quickly to bring on this new option, following the temporary suspension to parcel sending into the US announced last week."
“While this sending option is available for new and existing businesses with an NZ Post account, NZ Post is committed to continuing the work needed to restore all sending options."
NZ Post is also developing solutions for sending personal gifts to the US, which is one of the exceptions under the new tariff structure. Gifts valued at $100 USD or less, sent from one individual to another, will be allowed to enter the US without any taxes or duties applied.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sending gifts and other items through our retail stores possible again soon. We will update customers as soon as we have this available. We expect this to be in the next week or so,” says Handcock.
Customers can stay up to date with the latest delivery updates at nzpost.co.nz/international-delivery-updates.
More about the new service to the US for business customers
This solution is available to all on-account NZ Post business customers, including new sign-ups. While this new service provides a pathway for businesses or commercial operators, NZ Post acknowledges that personal senders, such as individuals sending parcels to friends or family, are still waiting for a solution. Currently, they can send letters and documents to the US, but parcel sending remains unavailable.
This follows NZ Post’s temporary suspension of selected parcel services to the US last week, triggered by new US tariffs and removal of the duty-free (de minimis) threshold. These changes require multiple updates to how items are declared, processed, and taxed. To ensure compliance, sending was suspended while the required changes are made across our processes and systems. From 29 August 2025 (US Eastern Standard Time), items sent from New Zealand to the US will be subject to duties and taxes, regardless of value, with the exemption of gifts.
Businesses interested in opening an account with NZ Post can find more information at nzpost.co.nz
The Government has announced the closure of the Entrepreneur Work Visa and introduced a new Business Investor Visa to attract experienced investors who will help grow New Zealand’s economy by actively running businesses.
About the Business Investor Visa
The Business Investor Work Visa will open for applications in November 2025 and offer 2 investment options:
NZD $1 million investment in an existing business, for a 3-year work-to-residence pathway
NZD $2 million investment in an existing business, for a 12-month fast-track to residence pathway
Applicants can purchase a business outright on either visa pathway or acquire at least 25% of the business, provided they meet the minimum $1 million or $2 million investment thresholds.
Applicants may also include their partner and dependent children in their application.
Both options lead to eligibility to apply for the Business Investor Resident Visa.
A Business Investor Visa may be granted for up to 4 years.
The cost of the Business Investor Work Visa will be NZD $12,380. This includes the visa application fee and immigration levy.
The Business Investor Work Visa complements the Active Investor Plus Visa, which was refreshed in April 2025, and is part of a broader update to business immigration settings to attract investment, talent, and international connections.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the Business Investor work visa, applicants must:
meet the minimum investment threshold
show they have at least NZD $500,000 to support themselves (and their family if they are including them in their application) while establishing their business
be aged 55 or younger when they apply
meet English language requirements (IELTS 5.0 or equivalent)
meet health and character requirements
meet business experience requirements
invest in a business that meets the financial threshold and employs at least 5 full-time equivalent staff.
Business investment requirements
The following business types are not acceptable business investments under this visa:
businesses involved in:
drop-shipping
gambling
the manufacturing of tobacco or other nicotine-based products, including vaping
adult entertainment
convenience stores (for example, corner dairies)
businesses that offer immigration advisory services, or that were purchased from a Licensed Immigration Adviser (LIA), or where an LIA is materially involved
discount or value stores (for example, NZD $2 shops)
fast food outlets
franchised businesses
home-based businesses (businesses only operating from a residential address).
Entrepreneur Category closure
The Entrepreneur Category is now closed to new applications for the Entrepreneur Work Visa.
If you have applied for an Entrepreneur Work Visa
If you have recently submitted an application for an Entrepreneur Work Visa, we will process it following the rules that were in place when you applied.
If you withdraw your application, you will not be eligible for a refund of any fees or levies already paid, regardless of the reason for your withdrawal.
If you currently hold an Entrepreneur Work Visa
Entrepreneur Work Visa holders will still be able to apply for residence, as the Entrepreneur Resident Visa will remain open.
If you need more time to meet Entrepreneur residence requirements, you can still apply for an Entrepreneur Work Visa renewal to maintain your pathway to residence.
Entrepreneur Work Visa
Entrepreneur Resident Visa
If you want to apply for a Business Investor Work Visa, you will need to submit a new application when the visa opens and pay the fees and levies.
More information
We will be sharing more information about the Business Investor Visa in October. This will include information to help compare it with the Active Investor Plus Visa for those considering both options.
You can read more details on the Business Investor Visa announcement on the Beehive website:
New Business Investor Visa to support growth — Beehive.govt.nz
The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2025–26, Compliance Simplification, and Remedial Measures) Bill introduces reforms long championed by AmCham and the international business community.
FIF – Revenue Account Method
A practical elective for new and returning residents that taxes dividends plus part of realised gains (with loss relief). This simplifies compliance for globally mobile executives and investors—especially those with pre‑residency, unlisted holdings.
The proposals will provide welcome relief to eligible taxpayers, but could have gone further to capture a broader scope of situations. We are hopeful there will be a chance for further changes as the Bill progresses, to ensure the proposals meet the needs of a wider range of taxpayers.
Visitor & remote work settings
Targeted exemptions linked to Visa timeframes mean short‑term business visitors and remote workers can operate from NZ without triggering full income tax or PAYE obligations for themselves or their offshore employers. Optional GST registration and integrity measures keep the system robust.
These changes reduce friction for cross‑border talent and capital—supporting NZ’s competitiveness as a hub for international business and mesh well with the US tax systems for individuals and venture capital.
Paul Dunne, Chair AmCham Tax Committee & Partner, EY.
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