New Zealand citizens can live in Australia indefinitely under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement — no visa application at all — and 42 of the 46 destinations GeoRank tracks offer a 1-year+ route, verified July 2026. Europe opens through income visas from €920/mo (Portugal D7); the NZ passport also clears tourist entry to every tracked destination without a visa.
Australia is the one destination in GeoRank's dataset where a New Zealand passport buys an unlimited stay with no visa application. The Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, administered by Australia's Department of Home Affairs, lets NZ citizens live, work, and study in Australia indefinitely on arrival — a special-category visa is issued automatically at the border, not applied for in advance. It's a genuinely reciprocal arrangement: Australian citizens get the same deal moving to New Zealand, which is why it shows up as the top route on the mirror page for where Australian citizens can live too. Beyond Australia, nothing else in the tracked set offers unrestricted freedom of movement to an NZ passport — every other destination runs on a standard visa or residency route.
Outside Australia's freedom-of-movement deal, 42 of the other 46 destinations GeoRank tracks give a New Zealand passport a route to stay a year or longer, and all 46 clear at least six months by some combination of visa-free entry and a long-stay program. That count only includes routes an ordinary applicant can pursue on their own — passive income, remote work, savings, or self-employment — not the points-tested, invitation-only, or investment-quota programs that exist in some countries but aren't something a remote worker or retiree can simply apply for. Run your own passport (or a second one, if you hold dual citizenship) through the full visa checker to see the same 46-country matrix filtered by route type and minimum stay.
The NZ passport clears Schengen and the wider EU for 90 days visa-free, and long-stay access runs almost entirely on proof-of-income visas rather than points systems. Portugal's D7 visa is the cheapest entry point at €920/mo in passive income, with a path to permanent residency and citizenship in 10 years. Every route below carries its published financial requirement — none of these are free, and several (Germany, Croatia, Czechia) don't publish a fixed income floor at all, relying instead on a case-by-case sufficiency assessment.
| Country | Route | Requirement | PR / citizenship |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portugal | D7 Visa | €920/mo income | PR path, citizenship 10y |
| Cyprus | Permanent Residency Category F | €797/mo income | PR path, citizenship 7y |
| France | VLS-TS Visiteur (Long-Stay Visitor) | €1,500/mo income | PR path, citizenship 5y |
| Netherlands | Self-Employed Residence Permit (Zelfstandige) | €1,766.77/mo income | PR path, citizenship 5y |
| Italy | Elective Residence Visa | €2,667/mo income | PR path, citizenship 10y |
| Greece | Digital Nomad Visa | €3,500/mo income | PR path, citizenship 7y |
| Ireland | Stamp 0 | €4,167/mo income | — |
| Estonia | Digital Nomad Visa | €4,500/mo income | — |
| Spain | Non-Lucrative Residence Visa | €28,800 savings | PR path, citizenship 10y |
| Germany | Freiberufler | No financial threshold published | PR path, citizenship 5y |
| Croatia | TR for Financially Self-Sufficient Persons | No financial threshold published | PR path, citizenship 8y |
| Czechia | Long-Term Business Visa (Živno) | No financial threshold published | PR path |
| Hungary | Guest Investor Program (Golden Visa) | €250,000 savings | PR path, citizenship 8y |
| Malta | MPRP | €500,000 savings | PR path, citizenship 5y |
Not every destination opens up. In GeoRank's dataset, Canada and the United States are tourist-only for a New Zealand passport — 180 days of visa-free entry in each, with no ordinary long-stay route on top of it. That doesn't mean nobody moves there; it means the standard paths run through an employer sponsor, a family relationship, a points-tested skilled-migration program, or an investment threshold — none of which are "apply on your own income" routes, so none of them count toward the headline 42-of-46 figure. Full route-by-route detail, including which programs are excluded and why, is in the methodology.
Before any long-stay decision, there's the scouting trip — and here the NZ passport is close to friction-free. None of the 46 tracked destinations require a tourist visa for a New Zealand citizen, and all 46 allow at least six months of combined visa-free or visa-on-arrival access before a long-stay route is even needed. That makes a multi-country reconnaissance trip realistic: pin a shortlist on the map, then run each candidate through climate comparison and cost of living comparison before committing to an income-visa application. NZ winters line up with the European summer travel season, which is worth factoring into when a scouting trip actually happens.
Every figure on this page comes from GeoRank's visa dataset: 129 long-stay routes across 47 destinations, hand-checked against official government or embassy pages for 81 of those routes, with established legal-guide sources used where an official page is unusable. Tourist-entry terms come from the open passport-index dataset. Two very different long-stay models sit at either end of the spectrum GeoRank tracks: Thailand's Destination Thailand Visa asks for ฿500,000 in savings, while Georgia grants NZ passport holders 360 tourism days with zero paperwork — worth a look if a no-application base is the priority.
The same 46-country matrix looks different on every passport — dual citizens and partners planning a move together should check both. See the full breakdown for the New Zealand passport in the checker, or browse a related nationality below.
Short answers below; the full route-by-route breakdown — including which programs are excluded and why — is on the methodology page.
Pin any of the 46 destinations, load your passport, and layer in sunshine, cost of living, tax, and safety before you commit to a visa application.
Verified Jul 2026 · not legal or immigration advice. Visa requirements change — income thresholds move with minimum wages and programs open or close. Always confirm current requirements with the official authority named above before making plans. Last reviewed: 2026-07-13.
Sources: visa-data.json (129 routes, hand-verified against official government pages, verified Jul 2026) · Australian Government Department of Home Affairs (Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement) · Portugal AIMA / consular visa portal (D7 Visa) · passport-index dataset (tourist-entry matrix). Methodology and accuracy bounds at methodology.