On the face of it, New Zealand’s migration numbers look healthy. The country recorded a net migration gain of 24,200 in the year to March 2026, up from 14,000 the year before. More people arrived than left, the population grew, and the headline sounds like a vote of confidence in the place.
Look underneath that single number, though, and a very different story is running. New Zealand is gaining people overall only because it is bringing in migrants from elsewhere. Its own citizens are leaving in close to record numbers, most of them for Australia, and the ones going are disproportionately young. The Stats NZ figures tell both stories at once. You just have to read past the top line.
The headline hides the churn
The net gain of 24,200 is the difference between 135,500 arrivals and 111,300 departures across the March 2026 year. That is a lot of movement in both directions for a country of five million. A single net figure flattens it into something calm. The reality is a turnstile.
The crucial split is between citizens and non-citizens. The entire net gain, and more, comes from non-New Zealand citizens, who delivered a net gain of 60,800 over the year. New Zealand citizens went the other way, and heavily.
New Zealanders are leaving in near-record numbers
In the March 2026 year, 62,800 New Zealand citizens left to live abroad, against just 26,300 who came home. That is a net loss of about 36,500 citizens in a single year. Total departures across everyone peaked at around 121,200 in the year to May 2025, near the highest on record, and citizen departures have stayed close to those levels since.
So the population is growing and shrinking at the same time, depending on whose passport you count. More bodies, fewer of them holding a New Zealand passport than a year ago. That is the part the net figure cannot show you.
Most are going to Australia
The destination is no mystery. About 63 percent of the New Zealand citizens who left in the March 2026 year went to Australia, close to 40,000 people in twelve months. The trans-Tasman door swings one way far more than the other, helped by the fact that New Zealanders can live and work in Australia with almost no paperwork.
The pull is mostly money. Australian wages are higher, the mining and construction sectors pay well for trades, and the cost of housing in many Australian cities compares favourably with Auckland. When the New Zealand economy is soft, as it has been through the recent downturn, that gap widens and the flow speeds up.
The ones leaving are young
The most telling cut is by age. Of the 62,800 citizens who left in the March 2026 year, 24,900 were aged 18 to 30. That is 40 percent of all citizen departures concentrated in a twelve-year band at the very start of working life.
This is the part that matters most for the long run. These are people the country has already paid to educate, at the point where they would start paying tax, forming households and having children. Losing them is not the same as losing an equal number of retirees. A country can replace the headcount through migration. Replacing a cohort of trained twenty-somethings is harder.
Who is replacing them
The 60,800 net gain in non-citizens is what keeps the overall number positive. These are workers, students and families arriving on visas, filling jobs and classrooms and rental rooms. The population still grew, and the labour market still got new hands.
But a population that grows by swapping departing citizens for arriving migrants is a different thing from one that grows because its own people stay. It changes the age profile, the skills mix and the shape of communities. None of that is a crisis, and migration has long been part of how New Zealand grows. It is simply not the same story the headline number tells, and it is worth being honest about which one is happening.
We reported the latest quarterly figures when net migration jumped in the March quarter. The economic backdrop, including the soft recovery that widens the wage gap with Australia, runs through our look at why interest rates and the energy shock are squeezing households.
Quick answers
Are more people leaving New Zealand than arriving?
No, not overall. New Zealand had a net migration gain of 24,200 in the March 2026 year. But among New Zealand citizens alone there was a net loss of about 36,500, offset by a net gain of 60,800 non-citizens.
How many New Zealanders are moving to Australia?
About 63 percent of the 62,800 citizens who left in the March 2026 year went to Australia, close to 40,000 people. Trans-Tasman freedom of movement makes the shift easy for New Zealanders.
Why are Kiwis leaving for Australia?
Mostly higher wages and job opportunities, especially in trades and mining, plus housing costs that often compare well with Auckland. A soft New Zealand economy widens the gap and speeds up the flow.
As at June 2026. Source, Stats NZ international migration estimates for the year ended March 2026. Figures are provisional and rounded.
Have you moved across the Tasman, or thought about it? Tell us what tipped the decision in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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