Active Investor Plus Visa $10m+ Balanced Category
New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus Visa offers a residence pathway for overseas investors prepared to commit substantial capital to New Zealand.
The Balanced Category is designed for investors seeking greater flexibility in how their capital is invested. Unlike the Growth Category, which concentrates on higher-risk direct investments and managed funds, the Balanced Category permits a much broader mixture of investments, including listed equities, bonds and qualifying property developments.
How much must be invested?
An applicant under the Balanced Category must invest at least NZ$10 million in acceptable New Zealand investments.
The investment must generally be maintained for a minimum period of five years.
This compares with the Growth Category, which requires a minimum investment of NZ$5 million for three years.
What investments qualify?
One of the principal attractions of the Balanced Category is the wider range of investments that can qualify.
Acceptable investments can include:
- Direct investments in New Zealand businesses
- Approved managed funds
- New Zealand listed equities
- Bonds
- Philanthropy
- Qualifying property developments
This provides investors with considerably greater scope to construct a diversified investment portfolio rather than committing the entire investment to private businesses or growth-focused funds.
The investments must nevertheless satisfy Immigration New Zealand’s requirements for acceptable investments. An investment being located in New Zealand does not, by itself, mean that it will qualify for immigration purposes.
Property investment
A notable feature of the Balanced Category is the ability to invest in certain property developments.
Qualifying investments can include new residential developments, commercial or industrial developments, and certain existing commercial and industrial developments.
The rules are not intended to provide a residence pathway simply through purchasing a home or ordinary residential investment property for personal use.
Any proposed property investment should therefore be carefully assessed against the applicable immigration instructions before funds are committed.
Residence from the outset
The Active Investor Plus Visa is a resident visa, rather than a temporary visa that merely provides the possibility of obtaining residence at a later date.
Once granted, it allows the holder to live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely, subject to the conditions of the visa.
An applicant may also include their partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger, provided they satisfy the applicable immigration requirements.
Five-year investment period
Balanced Category investors must maintain at least NZ$10 million in acceptable New Zealand investments for 60 months.
Evidence that the nominated funds have remained invested must be provided to Immigration New Zealand at specified stages.
Under the current requirements, evidence must be provided at 24 months and again at 60 months. The evidence generally needs to be supplied within three months of the relevant investment anniversary.
The type of evidence required will depend upon the investment. It may include portfolio and transaction reports for listed equities and bonds, fund manager confirmation for managed funds, company records for direct investments, and evidence relating to the progress and funding of qualifying property developments.
How much time must an investor spend in New Zealand?
The Balanced Category has a more substantial physical-presence requirement than the Growth Category.
An investor must ordinarily spend at least 105 days in New Zealand during the five-year investment period as the holder of a resident visa.
However, the required period can be reduced where the investor commits additional capital to acceptable Growth Category investments.
For each additional NZ$1 million invested in qualifying direct investments or managed funds, the required time in New Zealand can be reduced by 14 days, up to a maximum reduction of 42 days.
This means an investor who places an additional NZ$3 million into qualifying Growth investments may potentially reduce the physical-presence requirement from 105 days to 63 days over the five-year period.
No English-language requirement
There is no English-language requirement for the Active Investor Plus Visa.
This makes the category accessible to qualifying investors regardless of their English-language ability, provided they satisfy the investment and other immigration requirements.
Source of investment funds
Applicants must establish that their nominated investment funds have been lawfully earned or acquired.
For substantial investment portfolios, this can require considerable supporting documentation.
The source of funds might include business income or the sale of a business, accumulated earnings, investment returns, property sales, inheritance or gifts.
Immigration New Zealand may examine both ownership of the nominated assets and how the applicant originally acquired them.
For this reason, source-of-funds preparation can be one of the most important aspects of an Active Investor Plus application, particularly where an applicant’s wealth has accumulated through numerous transactions or businesses over many years.
Transferring the investment funds
Following approval in principle, an applicant generally has six months to transfer and invest the nominated funds in New Zealand.
The funds must be transferred through an acceptable banking or financial channel and must correspond with the funds or assets nominated in the application.
In some circumstances, Immigration New Zealand can allow a further six months where the applicant has taken reasonable steps to transfer and invest the funds but requires additional time.
Permanent residence
After completing the five-year investment period and satisfying the conditions attached to the visa, a Balanced Category investor can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa.
Permanent residence removes the travel conditions associated with an ordinary resident visa and allows the holder to leave and return to New Zealand indefinitely.
Balanced or Growth?
The two Active Investor Plus categories are aimed at investors with different investment preferences.
The Growth Category requires a lower minimum investment of NZ$5 million and has a shorter three-year investment period, but it concentrates investment into higher-risk and generally less liquid investments such as direct investments and managed funds.
The Balanced Category requires twice as much capital — at least NZ$10 million — and the investment must be maintained for five years. In return, investors have considerably greater flexibility over the composition of their portfolio, including the ability to use listed equities, bonds and qualifying property developments.
For investors who prefer diversification and exposure to a broader range of asset classes, the Balanced Category provides considerably greater investment flexibility.
A flexible route to New Zealand residence
The Active Investor Plus Balanced Category provides an alternative for high-net-worth investors who want New Zealand residence without concentrating their investment entirely in private businesses and growth funds.
Its NZ$10 million investment threshold is substantial, and the five-year investment period requires a long-term commitment. However, the broad range of acceptable investments provides considerable flexibility in determining how that capital is deployed.
For investors who can satisfy the investment, source-of-funds, health, character and other requirements, the Balanced Category provides a direct route to New Zealand residence and, after the investment conditions have been completed, the opportunity to obtain permanent residence.