Increase in visa fees must be matched by better performance from Immigration New Zealand
Last Friday’s announcement by Immigration Minister Erica Stanford of a substantial increase in visa fees as well as being a deterrent to international students and visitors will add extra cost to businesses. Increases will take effect from 1 October 2024, and while the largest increases apply to residence class visas with some increases as much as 400%, the fees for student and visitor visas will almost double.
Like many operators across the aviation industry, our flight training organisations (FTOs) have endured a challenging time following the pandemic, not helped by slow visa processing times for international student pilot applications. Adding extra cost to student visa applications will compound those issues.
If Erica Stanford is increasing visa fees as much as she is, then she must put in place strict performance measures for Immigration New Zealand (INZ) so that visas are processed in a timely manner. While there have been improvements since AIANZ raised this issue earlier in the year, for international students looking to train in this country, visa processing times have been slow compared to countries New Zealand competes with for international student pilots. Our world class trainers can’t be let down by the immigration system.
It’s not just FTOs in our industry that are affected by the visa fee increases. The cost for visitor visas also jumps for citizens of those countries that are not visa-free to New Zealand. With the international visitor levy (IVL) having also increased, the Government is making a naïve assumption that somehow people will choose to come here when they have other choices. New Zealand is not the drawcard it once was, and the visa increases won’t help.
INZ, like the CAA, largely works on a cost recovery model but it could be argued increases on the scale proposed by Erica Stanford are an over-correction. This is why we must be on guard for the upcoming Funding Review of CAA.
AIANZ is writing to Erica Stanford to express concerns about increased visa fees. Details on the new visa fees are here.
Simon Wallace
Chief Executive, AIANZ