What changes when you move from Australia to New Zealand?

Can you just go?

If you are an Australian citizen, yes. Immigration New Zealand: "you can usually live, work and study in New Zealand without applying for a visa". You are given a resident visa when you arrive.

A permanent resident of Australia who is not a citizen needs to "have a current Australian Permanent Resident Visa or Australian Resident Return Visa", and an electronic travel authority before flying. Anyone else, including an Australian resident on a temporary visa, needs a New Zealand visa of their own.

1Before you leave AustraliaLeaving can count as selling your shares and funds, for taxHELP debt: tell the ATO within 7 days of leaving

2The day you landAustralian citizens get a resident visa on arrivalYou can buy a home, and join KiwiSaverWorking for Families, without the usual 12-month wait

3After two yearsMain benefits, after 2 years living there

4After about four yearsThe four-year break on foreign income ends

Before you leave Australia

Australia's tax rules do more on the way out than New Zealand's do on the way in, so this is the section to read early.

Leaving can count as selling. When you stop being an Australian resident for tax, the ATO says "you are taken to have disposed of CGT assets for their market value at the time you stopped being a resident, except for any taxable Australian property. This is called 'deemed disposal'." In plain terms: shares, managed funds and other assets outside Australian real estate are treated as sold on the day you leave, and any gain goes on that year's tax return.

You can choose not to. "An individual can choose to disregard all capital gains and losses when they stop being an Australian resident for tax purposes." The assets then stay inside the Australian tax net until you sell them or come back. There is no form: "the way you prepare your tax return is generally sufficient evidence of your choice."

Your home loses its exemption if you sell it after you go. "Foreign residents can't claim the main residence exemption for property sold after 30 June 2020, unless they satisfy the requirements of the life events test." What counts is when you sign: "the disposal time is when you enter into the contract." The life events test is narrow: foreign resident for 6 years or less, and in that time a terminal illness, the death of a spouse or a child under 18, or a sale under a formal agreement after a relationship ends. For most people, selling before leaving and selling after are two very different tax outcomes.

A HELP debt comes with you. If you are going for 183 days or more in 12 months, you must "update your contact details and submit an Overseas travel notification within 7 days of leaving Australia", then report your worldwide income by 31 October each year. You repay on the same thresholds as if you had stayed, and the debt keeps being indexed.

Medicare lapses, on a timetable. A permanent resident's enrolment ends after a year away: "If you live overseas for more than 12 months, you'll no longer be enrolled in Medicare."

Your super can follow you. Once you have moved to New Zealand for good, the trans-Tasman scheme lets you move it into KiwiSaver, the whole balance, if both funds take part, and New Zealand does not tax the transfer. Leaving it in Australia is also fine, and New Zealand mostly does not tax it.

Your first year in New Zealand

The four-year window on income from abroad. This is the part of the move that is easier than people expect. A new arrival who was "not a tax resident at any time in the 10 years before" becomes a transitional resident, and "Transitional tax residents can be temporarily exempt from paying tax on most types of overseas income" for about 4 years. That "includes overseas interest, dividends, foreign investment fund income, rent." It does not cover wages: "Income you earn overseas from employment or providing personal services is not exempt." And it ends early if you or your partner apply for Working for Families, so the two are a choice.

You become resident for tax once you have "been in New Zealand for more than 183 days in any 12-month period", or sooner if New Zealand becomes where you usually live.

KiwiSaver is open to you. Inland Revenue lists "an Australian citizen" among the people an employer must treat as eligible, so a new job automatically enrols you. If you do not want it, you opt out "on or after day 14, and on or before day 56", and again with every new job.

Working for Families, without the usual wait. The usual rule is 12 months in a row living in New Zealand. A family can also qualify through a child who is resident and present in New Zealand, and on that rule Inland Revenue says "Australian citizens and residents qualify immediately if they are also a New Zealand tax resident and normally live in New Zealand."

Public health care, if you are staying. You are eligible as "an Australian citizen staying for 2 or more years", or as "a permanent resident of Australia who lives, or intends to live" in New Zealand for 2 or more years.

Your licence. Australia is one of New Zealand's exempt countries, so converting needs no theory test, and a practical test only if you have held your licence for under 2 years. You can drive on your Australian licence for 18 months from arrival, falling to 12 months from 1 November 2026.

Benefits wait two years

For the main benefits, such as Jobseeker Support, "a person must have lived continuously in New Zealand for 2 or more years at any one time since becoming a New Zealand citizen or residence class visa holder." Australian citizens and permanent residents are treated as residence class visa holders for this, so the same 2 years applies from when you start living in New Zealand.

Buying a home

New Zealand mostly bans overseas buyers from residential land, but not Australians. Land Information New Zealand: you can buy without consent if you "are an Australian or Singaporean citizen, and buy a house or land that has a property category of 'residential' or 'lifestyle'". An Australian permanent resident can too, once ordinarily resident, which includes having lived in New Zealand for the past 12 months and been present for more than 183 days of them.

Selling is where the tax comes in. The bright-line test taxes a gain on residential property sold within 2 years of buying it, unless the main home exclusion applies.

Staying for good

New Zealand Superannuation needs between 10 and 20 years of living in New Zealand since you turned 20, depending on when you were born, and 5 of them since 50. Your Australian working years can help make that up, and an Age Pension you already get can come with you.

What gets easier, and what gets harder

Easier

• Living and working there: an Australian citizen needs no visa application.
• Buying a home: Australian citizens are exempt from New Zealand's ban on overseas buyers.
• Saving: you can join KiwiSaver, and your super can follow you, untaxed in New Zealand.
• Family payments: Working for Families without the usual 12-month wait.
• Tax: about four years in which most income from abroad is not taxed.

Harder

• Leaving Australia can count as selling your shares and funds, for tax.
• Sell your Australian home once you've left, and the main residence exemption is usually gone.
• A HELP debt is still repaid, on your worldwide income.
• Main benefits wait until you have lived in New Zealand for 2 years.
• A permanent resident's Medicare enrolment ends after 12 months away.

What this guide does not tell you

It does not tell you whether to defer the capital gains on leaving Australia, which depends on what you hold and what you expect it to do, and is a question for a tax adviser in each country. It does not cover what happens to an Australian rental property you keep, or to family trusts and companies.

It covers Australian citizens and permanent residents. If you are neither, the visa question comes first, and Immigration New Zealand is the place to start.