12 December 2025
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
R B
fyi-request-32777-
[email address]
Tēnā koe R B
OIA request 24/25 0503 Request for Citizenship Ceremonies Information
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 7 November 2025.
You requested –
1. Dates and location (no address needed, just suburb or district e.g. "Takapuna" is enough)
for all public Citizenship ceremonies scheduled - either tentative plans or approved events
to occur between November 2025 and August 2026 in the Auckland Region.
2. Number of people currently invited for each ceremony, total capacity and available slots
as on the date you extract the information.
3. How many applicants are awaiting to be allocated to a ceremony based on the day of
their Citizenship approval date between the dates of October 25th and November 7th
(inclusive)?
4. Plans for any efficiencies introduced or designed to proactively avoid backlog of
applicants awaiting a ceremony due to known upcoming events (elections, public holiday
season, etc).
5. Plans or designs to improve communications or visibility around upcoming Citizenship
ceremonies instead of providing a wide range of 1 to 6 months.
6. Steps to solicit client feedback on the experience of Applying for Citizenship
7. Options available for the public to provide feedback on their Citizenship processing
experience including raising concerns, complaints, suggestions and compliments.
On 5 December 2025 a response was provided to all of your questions except for question
three, where you were advised that pursuant to section 15(1)(b) of the Act, the Department
would provide the requested information to you by no later than 12 December 2025.
In response to the final part of your request, I can provide you with the following information.
Question three
Please see attached alongside this letter Appendix A, which shows a table of data for applicants
from the Auckland region approved for citizenship from 25 October 2025 to 7 November 2025
allocated or awaiting a ceremony.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, the Department has
decided to proactively release a copy of this response on the DIA website. All requestor data,
including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be made available here:
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-
Requests-2.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi
Julia Taylor
Director Branch Performance
Regulatory and Identity Services
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