Your children who are born in New Zealand are automatically New Zealand citizens. Your children’s citizenship is registered at the same time you register your baby’s birth (external site link). Your children born outside New Zealand can register as citizens by descent.

To apply for citizenship, you must have been a resident for at least 5 years, and only travelled out of New Zealand for a short amount of time each year. You must therefore have been present in New Zealand with a Resident visa for a total of at least 1,350 days and for at least 240 days in each of those 5 years.

If you were born and adopted in New Zealand you are likely to be a New Zealand citizen. If you were born or adopted outside New Zealand, you might be a citizen — if not, you may be able to apply to become one.

Statistics

The number of Muslims in New Zealand according to the 2018 census is 57,276, up 24% from 46,149 in the 2013 census.

Māori

Christianity is the largest religion in New Zealand, with 15.4% of the population identifying with Protestant denominations, 10.1% identifying as Catholic and 11.9% identifying with some other form of Christianity.

Countries/Districts