New Zealand’s ACT Party released an immigration policy on Tuesday 1 September 2026 that would abolish the Permanent Resident Visa, the status that currently gives residents an unconditional, indefinite right to leave the country and come back. In its place, Resident Visa holders would get a five-year travel facility, and would have to spend at least 730 days in New Zealand during any rolling five-year period to keep it. ACT is one of the three parties in the governing coalition, but this is an election policy, not government policy: it would take effect only if ACT is in a position to implement it after the general election on 7 November 2026. Nothing about anyone’s visa changes today.
How New Zealand residence works now
Residence comes in two stages. A Resident Visa lets you live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely, but it carries travel conditions, which on most resident visas run for two years from your first arrival. If you are outside the country after that travel expiry date has passed, the visa lapses. You can apply to extend the travel conditions, usually by one or two years. A Permanent Resident Visa removes the conditions entirely: you can come and go for the rest of your life without reapplying. You become eligible after holding a Resident Visa for two continuous years, meeting its conditions, and showing a commitment to New Zealand in one of five ways Immigration New Zealand accepts. For most skilled migrants that second step is the point at which residence stops feeling provisional.
What ACT is proposing
ACT would remove the Permanent Resident Visa category and fold its function into a modified Resident Visa. That visa would carry a five-year travel facility, up from the two-year initial travel condition attached to resident visas now. To retain the facility, the holder would need 730 days of physical presence in New Zealand within any rolling five-year window. The 730 days would not have to be continuous. What disappears is the indefinite, unconditional right to leave and re-enter. Exemptions would cover people working overseas for New Zealand employers, family members accompanying them, military personnel serving abroad, and people with a New Zealand citizen spouse, plus other compelling humanitarian reasons. ACT’s immigration spokesperson, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, argued that "the strangest immigration policy we have is that permanent residents don’t have to be permanently resident," and said the model would bring New Zealand closer to Australia, Canada and Singapore, where keeping permanent residence depends on an ongoing connection. She also framed it as widening the gap between residence and citizenship, which today carry near-identical everyday rights.
Now versus the proposal
- Now: Resident Visa with travel conditions that run two years from first arrival, extendable
- Now: Permanent Resident Visa available after two continuous years on a Resident Visa, with no conditions and indefinite travel rights
- Proposed: no Permanent Resident Visa category at all
- Proposed: Resident Visa with a five-year travel facility
- Proposed: 730 days of presence in New Zealand per rolling five-year period to keep that facility, not required to be continuous
- Proposed exemptions: overseas work for a New Zealand employer, accompanying family, military service abroad, citizen spouse, compelling humanitarian reasons
Who would be exposed
The arithmetic only bites on residents who spend long stretches abroad. Someone who takes a three-year posting in Singapore and returns to New Zealand for holidays would not reach 730 days in five years unless the employer-based exemption covered them. A resident caring for an ageing parent overseas, or splitting the year between New Zealand and a home country, faces the same problem. Someone living and working in New Zealand continuously would never notice the rule. The group the proposal leaves genuinely uncertain is people who already hold a Permanent Resident Visa: ACT’s release does not say whether their status would be preserved, converted, or brought under the new presence test. That is the single most consequential detail, and it is unanswered.
What to do about it now
Carry on as before. If you are eligible for a Permanent Resident Visa under the current settings, apply on the normal timetable rather than waiting to see what happens on 7 November. If you are planning a long period outside New Zealand over the next few years, keep a record of your entry and exit dates, because any presence-based test would be applied to exactly that history and Immigration New Zealand’s own travel records are the evidence. Our New Zealand country guide (/country-guides/new-zealand) sets out the current residence pathways and the conditions attached to each.
When it takes effect
It does not. This is a party policy announced on 1 September 2026, conditional on the outcome of the general election on 7 November 2026 and on legislation after it. New Zealand’s current Resident Visa and Permanent Resident Visa rules are unchanged.
What is still unanswered
ACT is one party in a three-party coalition, and neither National nor New Zealand First has said whether it would support the change. There is no bill, no draft immigration instructions and no commencement date. Coverage on 1 September carried no response from the Immigration Minister or from Labour. The release is also silent on how existing Permanent Resident Visa holders would be treated. Check Immigration New Zealand for the rules that actually apply to your visa.
Key Takeaway
Nothing changes today: this is an ACT election policy. If it were implemented, keeping the right to re-enter New Zealand as a resident would require 730 days in the country every five years, and the Permanent Resident Visa would cease to exist.