New Zealand Wants Rich Foreigners to Come Live There. Americans Are Beating a Path.
A new Golden Visa is luring wealthy Americans to New Zealand with minimal stay requirements and a fast track to permanent residency—just as uncertainty grows back home.
3 min
New Zealand has created a new, easier path to residency for wealthy people, and it’s attracting attention from Americans looking for an alternative to living in the U.S.
According to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—the government’s international business development agency—70% of incoming inquiries into a revised program leading to permanent residency in the country are from the U.S.
A spokesperson with the agency said it remains to be seen whether those inquiries turn into the same level of visa applications. Still, the inquiries are evidence that Americans are interested.
“There’s a huge increase in demand from the U.S.,” said Dominic Jones, managing director of Greener Pastures New Zealand, which helps those applying for the country’s so-called Golden Visa to find investment opportunities.
Many U.S. citizens are seeking residency in New Zealand—as well as other countries —as a “plan B” during President Donald Trump’s administration, according to immigration attorney David Lesperance. Many of these are applicants who worry Trump could exact retribution on them or their families for perceived slights, in addition to those who have family members that could face discrimination because of their sexual orientation. Some are concerned about the future of the U.S. economy.
For those with the money, reallocating $2.88 million in assets from the U.S. to New Zealand for three years—as the new requirements allow—isn’t a heavy lift, Lesperance said. “Depending on foreign exchange and returns on investment over this time, the cost could easily be zero or positive,” he wrote in an April 2 blog post.
Investment visa
The island country is also only requiring applicants to be physically present for 21 days over three years, depending on which category of investment visa they pursue.
“These applicants are people who are in a financial position to look at this as an asset reallocation and one or two vacations in the next three years in exchange for a permanent insurance policy in a first-world country,” Lesperance told Barron’s.
U.S. citizens have long been interested in living in New Zealand. About 38% of applicants to a previous program with stricter requirements that was in effect from September 2022 through April 1 this year were from the U.S., according to the trade and enterprise agency.
That program required a four-year investment of between NZ$5 million and NZ$15 million ($2.88 million and $8.4 million) in the country, with the amount varying depending on the type of investment. It also required being in the country at least 117 days over four years and passing an English language test—which was more an annoyance than an impediment for U.S. citizens.
Wealthy investors consider New Zealand as a residency option because of the country’s lifestyle, climate, and dramatic, beautiful landscapes, according to Jones. It’s also a stable, English-speaking democracy with a free economy, and it’s safe, he said.
“We’re on the other side of the world,” Jones said. “We don’t tend to get involved in global conflicts. The drive to safety isn’t why all people all choose Golden Visas, but it’s why people choose the New Zealand option.”
The revised New Zealand Active Active Investor Plus Visa program that went into effect on April 1 eases up on the previous requirements through the introduction of two categories for obtaining permanent residency.
Growth category
Under a “growth” category, applicants need to invest $2.88 million for three years directly into privately owned New Zealand-based companies that have been approved by the trade and enterprise agency, or in New Zealand managed funds that are invested in the local economy, Jones said.
Applicants are only required to be in New Zealand for 21 days during the three-year investment period, and they don’t have to pass an English test.
A second “balanced” category requires a minimum $5.6 million over five years, but allows it to be invested more passively in listed stocks, government bonds, and New Zealand-based corporate bonds, Jones said. It also requires applicants to be present in the country for at least 105 days over five years.
Once the requirements are met during the three- or five-year period, applicants achieve permanent residency in New Zealand, even if they no longer spend time in the country, according to Lesperance.
The growth category was structured to be quicker and more attractive, to encourage applicants to make meaningful, active investments in the country with the potential to spur economic growth and create jobs.
“What our government is trying to do is attract capital, but also put it into forms of enterprise where the impact on the economy is material,” Jones said.
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From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
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