Must NZ Residents Actually Live There? ACT's Proposal and Your PR Plans from South Africa

News · 2026-09-01 · 3 min read

Most people chasing New Zealand residence keep an eye on fees, points and occupation lists. A proposal from the ACT Party aims somewhere else entirely: at what the word "permanent" in permanent residence should mean. If you already hold New Zealand residence, or you are working towards it from South Africa, it is worth a few minutes of your time.

Right Now, PR Holders Do Not Have to Be There

Dr Parmjeet Parmar, ACT's immigration spokesperson, points to what she calls a structural oddity. Permanent residents in New Zealand do not have to live in New Zealand. Once the status is granted, it gives indefinite, unconditional rights to enter and leave, no matter how long the person has been physically away.

If ACT enters government, the party wants that to change considerably.

The Redesign, Point by Point

The separate Permanent Resident Visa category would be scrapped. The standard Resident Visa would be reshaped instead:

The current two-year initial travel condition would make way for a five-year travel facility.
In any rolling five-year window, holders would have to spend at least 730 days, or two cumulative years, physically present in New Zealand.
Those days would not need to fall in a row, so coming and going stays possible. What disappears is the open-ended right to leave and come back without ever living in the country again.

Put simply, residence would have to be kept up over time, not earned once and then left on the shelf.

Five Groups Carved Out of the Rule

ACT accepts that plenty of migrants spend time overseas for good reasons. The proposal exempts people who are:

working abroad for an employer based in New Zealand
travelling with a family member in that position
serving overseas in the military
married to, or the partner of, a New Zealand citizen
dealing with compelling humanitarian circumstances

Those carve-outs say a lot. The target looks like residence held purely on paper with no real ongoing link to New Zealand, rather than ordinary travel.

Parmar on Balance and Belonging

Parmar says the aim is to bring "balance" back to the system, so that residence reflects a genuine, lasting connection to the country and is not just a backup status someone can carry from anywhere in the world. She also presents the change as drawing a clearer line between residence and citizenship, which can blur in practice once a person holds unconditional PR.

Planning Your Move with This in Mind

None of this is law, so there is no need to panic. But if a rule like this were passed, choices about where you base yourself, how long you spend outside New Zealand and when you apply for citizenship would carry more weight than they do now. If you are weighing up a move to work in New Zealand from South Africa, especially with a partner and children, map out your time in and out of the country early. Anyone holding residence while living mostly overseas should keep this proposal in view as the election gets closer.

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