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:
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.
Let's take a look at the pros and cons of the Entrepreneur Visa category.