For Entrepreneurs

If you are wanting to start a business in New Zealand, you will need to have an Entrepreneur Work Visa.

To be successful under this visa category, you need to check off three things:

• a good business idea or model that is likely to be seen as high-growth or innovative or export oriented by Immigration NZ; and
• minimum NZ$100,000 (about US$80,000) investment into the business (excluding working capital); and
• you need to be a real, genuine entrepreneur.

According to Immigration New Zealand, successful applications to date included exporting (e.g. food, wine, reformulated animal feeds), manufacturing (e.g. hydrofoil) and high-tech (e.g. biotech, internet startups, software as a service) businesses.

Although this is not an exhaustive list, the expectations are high and not suited for the traditional 'corner dairy' type businesses. This category is not for the faint hearted - to succeed under this category, you need to know what you are doing.