prime minister announces return to 10-year passports
The government is doubling the lifespan of passports in response to updated security assessments and public pressure led by the NZ Ten-Year Passports campaign
select committee update
We have received notification that the Government Select Committee have supported the intention of our petition and recommend that the Government review passport validity. We are one step closer to 10-year passports. Thank you for your support, we couldn't have done it without you. Read full report.
How did new zealand end up with 5 year passports?
For many years New Zealand had a well-respected ten-year passport, but in 2005, without public consultation, our adult passport validity was halved to 5 years, and the application fee doubled.
Most of New Zealand’s trading partners, including Australia, the United States of America, China, the United Kingdom, and most European Union and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations throughout the world, issue their citizens with 10-year passports.
ease of travel needed
Many New Zealanders, live abroad for family reasons, while others are on work contracts, or some volunteer at NGOs for long periods in developing nations that do not have the luxury of a postal or courier service, others reside in Europe. Wherever we were located abroad, the Government had ensured that every 5 years we had to incur the additional expense and loss of time in order to transfer our visas or permits into a new NZ Passport. It’s is not surprising that that many born and bred New Zealanders that held dual citizenship, had ceased renewing their New Zealand passports in favour of passports from their other country of citizenship, because of the needlessly short validity period imposed by the New Zealand Government.
security
The Department of Internal Affairs argued that we had 5-year passports because of security, but using the logic that our passports should be valid for 5 years on the grounds of security, is a flawed argument – if it were the case, passports should only be valid for several months and redesigned each year, this, of course, is neither practical nor economically viable. The integrity of the document, in terms of security, lies with border control personnel that process travellers arriving at national borders, and ultimately remains with the reputation and perceived integrity of the issuing authority.
© 2013 - 2026 New Zealand Ten Year Passports Organisation. All passport images sourced from Wikipedia. All other images are © New Zealand Ten Year Passports Campaign unless otherwise stated. All news broadcasts are © YouTube unless otherwise stated. All images on this page are generated by Kyle Lockwood assisted by Gemini on 15 MAR 2026
