Buying a House in New Zealand on an Investor Visa: The NZD 5m Rule

The rule, and why most sources have it wrong

New Zealand has barred overseas persons from buying residential land since the Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018. That ban remains. What changed on 6 March 2026 is a narrow pathway through it for investor-visa holders, with guidance published by Land Information New Zealand on 26 March 2026.

The reason this matters commercially is that the large investment-migration firms have not caught up. At the time of writing, one of the best-known still states that visa holders must be "usually resident in New Zealand" and describes a 183-day test, the position before March 2026. Another states that you can buy but gives no threshold and no mention of the date at all. A third attributes the NZD 5m figure to "2025 changes" and omits the consent mechanism entirely.

If you are relying on a firm's published page to understand this rule, check its date.

Who qualifies

The pathway is open to holders of an Active Investor Plus visa, the legacy Investor 1 and Investor 2 visas, and permanent residents whose permanent residence was granted on the basis of one of those visas. No other visa category qualifies, and nor does an ordinary resident visa obtained through another route.

Each holder may hold a beneficial interest in only one property bought in reliance on their visa. If you bought one earlier under this pathway, it must be sold before you buy another. Where both partners hold qualifying visas, each may rely on their own, which in practice means a couple can hold two.

What counts toward the NZD 5,000,000

Two routes to the threshold. Either the purchase price of the land and its fixtures exceeds NZD 5m, or the land plus the cost of a new build exceeds NZD 5m. Both figures include GST.

What does not count is where buyers get caught:

• Chattels are excluded. Furniture, curtains, freestanding appliances, rugs and garden equipment cannot be used to lift a NZD 4.9m house over the line.
• Side arrangements with the vendor are excluded. Artworks, a vehicle or a cashback cannot be bundled in to reach the threshold.
• Renovation costs do not count. This is the one that surprises people. If the purchase price is at or under NZD 5m, you cannot reach the threshold by planning a NZD 2m refurbishment. In that case a new dwelling must be built.

The government's own framing is that the NZD 5m floor covers "less than 1 per cent of New Zealand houses". This is a narrow door, deliberately.

Note that the NZD 5m home sits on top of the qualifying investment, not inside it. If you are budgeting the whole exercise, read our breakdown of what the programme really costs and whether the capital comes back before you commit to a property.

Consent comes first, and auctions are the trap

Consent must be obtained before the purchase, or the agreement must be made conditional on it. The Overseas Investment Office generally decides within five working days, but Land Information New Zealand advises structuring the sale agreement to allow roughly twenty working days.

The detail that changes behaviour: consent cannot be granted before an auction. If the property you want is going under the hammer, you cannot simply bid. The vendor must agree in advance to accept a conditional bid, which many will not. For a buyer at this price point in Auckland or Queenstown, where auction is a common method of sale, this needs planning weeks ahead rather than on the day.

Fees are modest against the purchase: NZD 2,040 for an existing dwelling above NZD 5m, or NZD 3,500 in all other cases including a build.

The land you cannot buy at any price

This is the section the marketing pages omit, and it is frequently the land this buyer actually wants. The property must be categorised residential or lifestyle and must not otherwise be sensitive. Consent is not available for:

• Land that includes any seabed or foreshore, or land adjoining it that is larger than 0.2 hectares.
• Non-urban land larger than 5 hectares. A rural block or a small farm is out.
• On listed islands including Waiheke, Great Barrier and Stewart Island / Rakiura, land larger than 0.4 hectares; on other islands, consent is not available at all.

A tenancy-in-common arrangement can push a lot over the rural limit through its share of common property, which is worth checking rather than assuming. If your mental picture is a lakefront section or a coastal block with land around it, that picture may not be available under this pathway.

What you may do with the home

Under the Overseas Investment Act the property may be lived in, used as a holiday home, or used to run a business from, subject to ordinary local planning rules. That is a genuinely permissive position and better than most buyers expect.

One honest gap: Land Information New Zealand does not address letting the property out. Renting is not listed among the permitted uses, and we are not going to tell you it is allowed on the basis that it was not explicitly forbidden. If rental income matters to your plan, get it confirmed in writing before you buy.

If you build, the new dwelling must be completed within three years of consent, extendable where good progress is shown, with reporting on the build cost. If the build fails or the completed value falls short of NZD 5m, you may be required to sell the land.

If a New Zealand home is part of a longer plan, note that establishing a permanent place of abode can start the tax clock earlier than a day count would. We cover that timing in our guide to the four-year exemption and what follows it.

Companies and trusts

Both are permitted, with limits. For a company, the visa holder and their partner must hold more than 25 per cent of ownership and control, and other overseas persons must not cumulatively hold more than 25 per cent. For a trust, no overseas person other than the visa holder and immediate family may benefit, and only qualifying or exempt individuals may amend the deed or control who the trustees are.

The distinction that matters most

Buying a home is a benefit of holding the visa. It is never a route to obtaining one. Land Information New Zealand puts it plainly: consent to buy or build a residential property for personal use "will not be considered an acceptable investment for the purposes of an investor visa application".

Property does qualify as an investment in one place only: the Balanced category accepts New Zealand property developments, meaning new residential developments and new or existing commercial or industrial developments requiring substantial improvement. From December 2026, Build to Rent joins the Growth category through approved managed funds, though the mechanics have not yet been published. Neither of those is a house you live in. We set out how the categories differ in our guide to Growth versus Balanced.

Sources

Consent pathway, thresholds, exclusions and fees: Land Information New Zealand. Visa requirements and acceptable investments: Immigration New Zealand. Read 18 September 2026. Compare New Zealand with other routes on our residency by investment hub and in the Mirabello Investment Migration Index.