New Zealand gained 20,500 more people than it lost through migration in the year to August 2026, more than double the gain of 9,200 a year earlier, but the country is still losing its own citizens at close to twice the long-run rate and that is what keeps the total well short of normal.
The provisional estimates come from the Stats NZ international migration release for August 2026, published on 14 October. Migrant arrivals for the August year were 134,600, up 6 percent on the August 2025 year. Migrant departures were 114,100, down 3 percent. The gap between the two is the net gain of 20,500, which Stats NZ gives with a margin of plus or minus 1,500.
To see why that number is both better and still weak, it helps to compare each side of the ledger with its own history. Across the August years from 2002 to 2025, New Zealand averaged 122,900 migrant arrivals, 91,800 migrant departures and a net gain of 31,100, according to the same release. Arrivals this year ran 11,700 above that long-run average. Departures ran 22,300 above it. The net gain of 20,500 is therefore about two-thirds of the historical norm, and the shortfall sits entirely on the departures side of the equation.
The citizenship split makes that plainer still. Non-New Zealand citizens recorded a net gain of 58,800 in the August 2026 year, made up of 108,000 arrivals and 49,300 departures. That is up from a net gain of 49,000 a year earlier and sits 8,500 above the long-run August-year average of 50,300. In other words, migration from abroad is running ahead of its historical pace.
New Zealand citizens recorded a net loss of 38,200 over the same year, from 64,800 long-term departures against 26,600 arrivals home. That is a small improvement on the net loss of 39,900 in the August 2025 year, driven by a 6 percent rise in the number of citizens returning, while citizen departures were unchanged. But the long-run average net loss of citizens across the August years from 2002 to 2025 was 19,300 a year. The current outflow is close to double that. Between 2014 and 2019 the average loss was just 5,400 a year.
Put the two halves together and the arithmetic is simple. Non-citizens are delivering roughly 8,500 more than normal, citizens are subtracting roughly 18,900 more than normal, and the difference of about 10,400 is the gap between this year’s 20,500 and the long-run 31,100. Every missing person in that gap is a New Zealander who left, or one who did not come back.
The departures are still dominated by one destination. Stats NZ’s figures on migration with Australia run to the March 2026 year because they rely on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which arrives on a longer lag. In that year New Zealand recorded a net loss of 27,900 people to Australia, made up of 19,900 arrivals from Australia and 47,900 departures to it. That compares with a net loss of 31,100 in the March 2025 year, so the drain across the Tasman has eased but not stopped. Some 64 percent of New Zealand citizens who left the country long term in the March 2026 year went to Australia, and 35 percent of those Australia-bound citizens were born outside New Zealand.
For context, the net loss to Australia averaged about 30,000 a year from 2004 to 2013, then fell to about 3,000 a year from 2014 to 2019. The current rate is back at the level of the earlier, heavier decade.
The arrivals side has a different shape from the pre-pandemic years. Among migrant arrivals in the August 2026 year, the largest group was New Zealand citizens coming home at 26,600, followed by citizens of China at 19,000, India at 17,200, the Philippines at 10,900, Australia at 4,900, Sri Lanka at 4,400, the United States at 4,300 and the United Kingdom at 4,200. On a net basis, citizens of India, China, the Philippines and Sri Lanka drove the gains, with interest.co.nz calculating net gains of 11,732 from India, 11,604 from China, 8,205 from the Philippines and 3,832 from Sri Lanka. The United Kingdom, for decades the largest single source of migrants, went backwards. More British citizens left New Zealand in the year, 4,700, than arrived, 4,200.
Stats NZ notes that country of citizenship is the passport a person used at the border, not necessarily where they lived before or where they are going next. A New Zealand citizen born in Auckland and a New Zealand citizen who naturalised five years ago both count the same way.
The monthly figures suggest the gradual improvement continued into August itself. Arrivals in August 2026 were 10,200, up 4 percent on August 2025, and departures were 8,000, down 3 percent, for a monthly net gain of 2,200 against 1,600 a year earlier. Stats NZ revises each month’s estimate for 16 months before it is finalised, and the revisions over the past year have generally been downward for net migration, so the headline number is best read as a trend rather than a precise count.
Why does a few tens of thousands of people matter in an economy of 5.36 million? Because migration is now carrying half of all population growth. Stats NZ’s national population estimates at 30 June 2026, published in August, put the year’s growth at 36,400, or 0.7 percent. Natural increase, births minus deaths, contributed 18,700, the lowest since the early 1940s. Net migration contributed the other 17,600. With births falling and deaths rising as the population ages, a theme we explored in When New Zealand turns old, the migration gate is increasingly the only lever that moves the total.
Bank economists read the August figures as confirmation of a slow recovery rather than a turn. ASB senior economist Mark Smith told the New Zealand Herald that “We retain our view that the net immigration impulse will recover more gradually, with a more meaningful improvement into 2027 as the economic recovery matures.” He added that “A slower recovery towards long-term net immigration averages will have both demand and supply side implications.” On the outflow of New Zealanders, Smith said “A further slowing in the Australian labour market can also weigh on the number of Kiwi heading across the ditch.”
Those demand and supply implications pull in different directions. More arrivals mean more tenants, more shoppers and more cars on the road, which supports rents and retail spending. They also mean more workers competing for jobs in a labour market where one in four teenagers looking for work cannot find any, and where firms told the NZIER survey this month that their own sales were still going backwards. ASB’s view, reported by the Herald, is that a slower migration recovery aligns with a more moderate outlook for housing activity and house prices, which matters for a market where values have been sliding through the spring.
The peak this cycle is now well behind us. Annual net migration reached 133,700 in the year to October 2023 as borders reopened and employers rushed to fill vacancies, with arrivals of 232,900 in that year. Departures then kept climbing to their own record of 120,500 in the March 2025 year as the economy stalled and Australia hired. The year to August 2026 is the first in this cycle where both sides have moved the right way at once, with arrivals rising and departures falling, and the question for the next 12 months is whether the citizen outflow finally breaks lower from its plateau just under 65,000 a year.
Stats NZ will publish the September 2026 migration estimates on 12 November. The June quarter figures on migration with Australia are due in mid-December. You can see how arrivals, departures and the resulting population change have moved month by month since 2001 in our interactive New Zealand migration tool, and our report on the June year figures covers the residence pathway changes that took effect in late August.
Have you come home this year, or are you weighing up a move across the Tasman? Tell us what is driving your 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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