NEW ZEALAND IMMIGRATION NEWS

New transit visa requirements from 28 March 2008 for New Zealand

Tuesday, 1 April 2008

Transit visas will be required for all travel via New Zealand except for people from countries exempted under immigration policy, as from Friday, 28 March 2008.

All travellers, regardless of what country they were travelling from or going to, would have to get the visas unless they were from exempted countries, announced New Zealand’s Immigration Minister, Clayton Cosgrove.

Transit visas apply to travellers who will be in New Zealand for less than 24 hours, and who will not leave the transit area of an airport. Until now, these visas were only required for people travelling to and from the Pacific.

The change has been made as previous transit visa regulations expired. Mr Cosgrove said that the new rules reflected increased security requirements and changing travel patterns.

The Immigration Minister said: "In the present global security environment and with new air routes continually opening up, the Government considered it prudent to introduce this new policy which will strengthen our risk management and future-proof our border control relating to people transiting through New Zealand."

Under the new policy, all travellers will need a transit visa, unless:

• they’re travelling on a passport from a country on Immigration New Zealand's list of visa-free countries; or
• they’re an Australian citizen; or
• their destination after New Zealand was Australia, and they’re holding a current visa allowing them to travel to Australia; or
• they have a current visa allowing them to travel to New Zealand; or
• they are citizens of: Colombia, Bahamas, Bermuda and Peru from April 4, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu or Vanuatu.