8 June 2026
Brooke H
[FYI request #33932 email]
DOIA-REQ-0028610
Tēnā koe Brooke,
Thank you for your email of 3 March 2026 to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
(MBIE) requesting the following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
This request relates to individuals whose country of citizenship is the Philippines and who were
granted a Working Holiday Visa under the Philippines scheme.
No personal identifying information is requested….
…If any requested breakdown is not available in the exact form specified, please provide the
closest available aggregated dataset held by Immigration New Zealand systems and briefly
outline any limitations.
The specific questions raised in your request are included in our response below, along with responses
to your questions.
On 31 March 2026, we notified you of an extension of the timeframe to respond to your request under
section 15(1)(a) of the Act.
On 29 May 2026, we wrote to inform you we had decided to grant your request, but it would take us
some time to process, and that we would send you the requested data by 8 June 2026.
Our response Question 1. Working Holiday Visa Applications and Decisions (Per Opening Date)
For each of the following Working Holiday Visa (Philippines scheme) opening events:
5 February 2014, 5 February 2015, 5 February 2016, 8 February 2017, 8 February 2018, 7
February 2019, 11 February 2020, 31 March 2022, 1 November 2022, 16 March 2023, 12 March
2024, 12 March 2025
Please provide:
a) The total number of applications submitted in that opening round.
b) Of those applications, the number:
Granted, Declined, Withdrawn
The number of Philippines Working Holiday Visa applications submitted, along with applications
approved, declined, or withdrawn from 2014 to 2025 is set out in Table 1 of the appendix attached at
the end of this response.
link to page 2
Question 1B. Special Direction – 13 March 2022
Please provide:
a) The number of Working Holiday Visas granted under the Special Direction batch on 13 March
2022 for applicants whose country of citizenship is the Philippines.
The number of Philippines Working Holiday Visas that were granted related to the 2022 Special
Directio
n1 was 95.
Question 1C. Annual Grant Totals
For each calendar year from 2014 to 2025, please provide the total number of Working Holiday Visas
granted under the Philippines scheme.
Please refer to the response to question 1 above. The number of Philippines Working Holiday Visa
applications granted is set out in Table 1 of the appendix.
Question 2. Transition from Working Holiday Visa to Residence (Cohort-Based)
For each cohort of individuals granted a Working Holiday Visa under the Philippines scheme in each
calendar year from 2014 to 2025 (as identified in Section 1), please provide the following:
A. Preferred Breakdown – By WHV Grant Cohort Year
For each year’s WHV grantee cohort, the number of individuals who were subsequently granted a
Resident Visa, including breakdown by residence category:
Skilled Migrant Category (SMC), Skilled Migrant Category (2023), Other Skilled Residence,
Straight to Residence (STR), Long Term Skill Shortage List (LTSSL) Residence, Talent (Accredited
Employer) Residence, Other Residence from Work, Tier 2 Green List Residence, 2021 Resident
Visa, Partnership Residence, Any other residence category (please specify category name)
For each residence category above, please indicate:
Number granted as principal applicant
Number granted as secondary applicant
B. If Cohort-Year Breakdown Is Not Readily Available
If breakdown by WHV grant cohort year is not readily available, please provide:
The total number of Philippines Working Holiday Visa grantees (2014–2025 combined) who were
subsequently granted residence; and
Breakdown by residence category and applicant status (principal vs secondary), if available.
The information requested on the number of Philippines Working Holiday Visa holders who went on to
obtain a resident visa, broken down by principal versus secondary applicant and by residence categories,
is provided in Table 2 of the attached appendix.
1
Special Direction – Grant Work Visas to a Class of Offshore Persons Whose Working Holiday Scheme Visas Have
Expired, to Manage Effects and Deal With Consequences of Measures Taken to Contain or Mitigate the Outbreak
of COVID-19 or its Effects - 2022-go1276 | New Zealand Gazette
Question 3. Quota Administration and Allocation Mechanism
For the Working Holiday Visa (Philippines scheme):
a) Please confirm whether the annual quota (e.g., 100 places) represents:
A cap on the number of applications that may be successfully submitted at lodgement;
A cap on the number of visas that may ultimately be granted; or
A cap on the number of approved applicants once all decisions are finalised.
b) Please explain how the quota is operationalised in practice, including:
Whether more than the stated quota of applications may be accepted at lodgement;
Whether additional applications may be accepted after the initial opening date if places become
available due to declines or withdrawals; and
Whether Immigration New Zealand grants additional visas beyond the stated quota in order to
account for declines or withdrawals.
c) Please explain why previously published financial year data for the Philippines scheme may show grant
totals exceeding the stated annual quota.
d) Please confirm whether any Working Holiday Visas under the Philippines scheme were granted as
Exceptions to Instructions (ETI), and if so, whether such grants are counted within or outside the annual
quota.
The annual quota is the number of visas that may be granted each year under the Philippines Working
Holiday Visa scheme (the Philippines WHV). Ordinarily, once 100 applications have been received, the
cap on applications has been reached and the Philippines WHV is closed to new applications.
In some instances, the number of visas granted has exceeded the published cap by a small number. This
can occur due to limitations within the online application and payment processing system. Applications
for the Philippines WHV are submitted through Immigration New Zealand’s Online Services platform,
and occasionally, if multiple payment attempts are made the system may mistakenly determine there is
a place available when there is not.
As a result, additional applications may be accepted for processing beyond the intended cap.
Applications accepted in this way are processed in the same manner as all other applications. In many
cases, this is partially offset during processing, as some applications are declined for not meeting
immigration instructions. The Philippines WHV scheme is not usually reopened to further applications if
there are withdrawals or declined applications that make spaces available.
Immigration New Zealand monitors uptake of capped schemes and seeks to close applications once caps
are reached. However, due to the limitations described above, it may not always be apparent that the
cap has been exceeded at the time applications are accepted. These limitations are not specific to a
single working holiday visa scheme and may affect capped schemes more generally.
Work is underway to improve system controls. All Working Holiday Visa schemes are planned to
transition to the Enhanced Immigration Online System, which is expected to provide improved system
functionality and a better customer experience. This transition is currently expected to be delivered by
the end of 2027 under the Our Future Services Programme.
Between 2014 and 2025, three applications were recorded as being approved as an exception to
instructions, these are included in Table 1. Of these decisions, only one application decision occurred
during a year in which applications were granted above the cap; however, the decision to grant an
exception to instructions was not related to the cap.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of the Ministry’s response to
your request, in accordance with section 28(3) of the Act. Information about how to make a complaint
is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your request or this response, please contact
[email address]. Nāku noa, nā
Chris Adamson
Acting Director Visa
Immigration New Zealand
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Appendix 1: Response tables, data as at 21 April 2026.
Table 1: The number of Philippines Working Holiday Visa applications lodged, along with applications approved, declined, or withdrawn for each calendar year from 2014
to 2025. Applications approved as an Exception to Instructions (ETI) are also included, as a subset of applications listed in the approved column.
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2022
2023
2024
2025
Submitted
119
104
108
100
102
100
105
205
100
99
104
Approved
100
100
100
90
99
94
95
203
100
95
104
Declined
8
2
4
7
3
5
3
2
0
3
0
Withdrawn
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
Approved as ETI
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
Note 1: Only the specific requested application outcomes have been included in the above table; the number of submitted applications being higher than the number of
decided applications listed here reflects that there are other application outcomes, such as administrative cancellations, replacement with subsequent applications, or
other administrative outcomes.
Note 2: the numbers shown for 2022 reflects that the cap was doubled as a one-off increase in that year.
Table 2: The number of individuals who were approved a Philippines Working Holiday Visa and subsequently granted a resident visa broken down by year, residence
category and principal applicant versus secondary applicant.
Residence category
Applicant Type
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2022
2023
2024
2025
2021 Resident Visa
Principal Applicant
11
14
24
22
30
39
2
0
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
4
2
4
3
8
7
0
3
0
0
0
Care Workforce Sector
Principal Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
9
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
1
0
0
Green List
Principal Applicant
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
Partnership Category
Principal Applicant
5
4
7
6
9
13
7
9
3
4
0
Residence from Work
Principal Applicant
1
0
2
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Residence from Work (Accredited Employer)
Principal Applicant
1
2
1
2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Skilled Migrant - Resident
Principal Applicant
37
36
25
22
8
7
10
11
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
5
9
5
3
4
1
3
2
0
0
0
Skilled Partnership Deferral
Principal Applicant
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
SMC Skilled Residence
Principal Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
5
0
0
0
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
Straight to Residence
Principal Applicant
0
0
2
0
0
1
7
13
7
7
4
Secondary Applicant
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
7
1
0
0
Note 1: The above sets out where Philippines Working Holiday Visa holders have later gone on to obtain a residence class visa. The grant of the residence class visa did not
necessarily occur immediately following the Philippines Working Holiday Visa, as applicants may have held other visas in between.
Note 2: Individuals may be granted multiple resident visas, and as a result may be counted multiple times in the above dataset. The following visa categories have been
excluded from the above dataset as such applications require a residence class visa to already be held, any results are expected to be duplicates of the data provided
above, therefore we have interpreted them out of scope of your request:
• Variation of conditions of a resident visa application
• Transfer/replacement of a resident visa application
• Removal of conditions of a resident visa
