NZ First Wants a Ten-Year Wait for Citizenship. But What Would It Take to Become Law?

On 11 September, New Zealand First released one of the more consequential immigration proposals of the 2026 election campaign.

Among a much wider package of changes, the party said it would increase the qualifying period for New Zealand citizenship from five years to a minimum of ten years, while extending the usual qualifying period for a Permanent Resident Visa from two years to five.

For migrants already living in New Zealand, the announcement raises immediate questions.

Would the ten-year requirement apply to people who already hold residence? What about permanent residents who are already approaching five years? Would time already accumulated under the existing rules still count?

For now, there is a simple answer:

We don't know.

And there is another point that matters just as much.

Nothing has changed yet.

The proposal is an election policy. It is not current law, and whether it ever becomes law will depend heavily on what happens after New Zealand votes on Saturday 7 November 2026.

NZ First does not have to “win” the election

New Zealand's MMP electoral system makes the politics more complicated than simply asking which party comes first.

Governments generally need the confidence of a majority in Parliament. That means smaller parties can exercise considerable influence when neither National nor Labour and their natural partners have enough seats to govern alone.

NZ First therefore does not need to become New Zealand's largest party to advance this proposal.

It needs political leverage.

If, after the election, National and ACT need NZ First's MPs to form a government, immigration could become part of the coalition negotiations.

And NZ First has made its intentions unusually clear.

In its immigration package, the party said it was imperative that an NZ First minister hold the Immigration portfolio in the next coalition government.

That turns the citizenship proposal from a simple campaign announcement into something worth watching during post-election negotiations.

What NZ First is proposing

Under today's rules, most people seeking citizenship by grant need to have been living in New Zealand with qualifying resident status for at least the previous five years.

They generally need to have spent at least 1,350 days in New Zealand across those five years, including at least 240 days in each 12-month period.

For permanent residence, a person can generally apply for a Permanent Resident Visa after holding a Resident Visa for at least two years, provided the other requirements are met.

NZ First wants to change those broad timelines to:

Permanent residence: two years → five years

Citizenship: five years → minimum ten years

But those two changes are not legally identical.

The current five-year presence requirement for citizenship is written into the Citizenship Act 1977.

That means an NZ First minister could not simply announce after the election that the citizenship period was now ten years.

A government would have to change the law and secure enough parliamentary support to do it.

That is where the positions of the other parties begin to matter.

National: a potential coalition partner, but not the same immigration philosophy

National and NZ First are currently coalition partners, but their approaches to immigration have repeatedly diverged.

National has continued supporting pathways intended to attract and retain skilled migrants, while NZ First has argued for significantly tighter controls.

National has not, however, publicly committed either way on the specific NZ First proposal to increase the citizenship period to ten years.

That distinction matters.

National could support it during coalition negotiations.

It could reject it.

Or the parties could negotiate something different.

Until then, the ten-year proposal remains NZ First policy - not government policy.

ACT wants tougher residence rules too - but with an important difference

ACT is also campaigning on significant changes to New Zealand's residence system.

Its proposal would remove the existing Permanent Resident Visa category for future migrants and replace it with continuing travel and physical-presence requirements.

But ACT included one sentence that is particularly relevant to people worried about the NZ First announcement:

“This policy is not retrospective – existing Permanent Resident Visa holders will not be affected.”

NZ First has not included equivalent language alongside its proposed increase in citizenship and permanent-residence qualifying periods.

That does not necessarily mean NZ First intends to apply its rules retrospectively.

It means the question is currently unanswered.

ACT has also supported stronger citizenship requirements in other areas, so it should not automatically be considered an opponent of tougher citizenship rules.

But neither has it publicly endorsed NZ First's ten-year proposal.

Labour is proposing four years for permanent residence - not five

Labour released its own immigration policy on the same day as NZ First.

It proposes extending the period before migrants can generally qualify for permanent residence from two years to four, accompanied by an orientation and civic education programme.

Labour's wider position emphasises giving migrants who choose to make New Zealand home an opportunity to establish their lives and careers here.

But precision matters here too.

Labour has not, as of publication, issued a clear public statement specifically accepting or rejecting NZ First's proposed ten-year citizenship period.

Its broader policy direction, however, is clearly different.

The Greens are further away again

The Green Party's 2026 immigration platform emphasises what it describes as welcoming, safe and fair pathways to make Aotearoa home.

It argues for stronger protections for migrant workers and fair opportunities for people to settle permanently in New Zealand.

That places the Greens philosophically well away from much of NZ First's approach.

But there has not yet been a prominent direct Green response to the exact five-to-ten-year citizenship proposal.

That silence is worth recognising rather than filling in ourselves.

The bigger story is what citizenship would come to mean

The ten-year proposal becomes more significant when viewed alongside the rest of NZ First's campaign.

The party is also campaigning to make stronger distinctions between permanent residents and citizens, including around voting, welfare and New Zealand Superannuation.

Seen alone, changing the citizenship qualifying period might look like an administrative adjustment.

Seen as part of that wider package, it represents something larger:

a proposed shift in where New Zealand draws the line between being allowed to live here permanently and being treated as a full member of the political community.

That is a legitimate political debate.

Countries make different choices about how long people should live in a country before citizenship, what responsibilities should accompany it and which rights should be reserved exclusively for citizens.

But doubling the period also has real consequences for people who have already structured their lives around the rules New Zealand currently has.

A nurse who arrived several years ago.

An engineer with children at a local school.

A chef who has built a business.

A migrant whose family now considers New Zealand home.

For those people, the unresolved question is not ideological.

It is practical:

Do the rules change halfway through the journey?

The missing detail: who would be grandfathered in?

NZ First's announcement does not currently explain what would happen to people who already hold Resident Visas or Permanent Resident Visas.

There is no published commencement date for the ten-year citizenship proposal.

There is no stated cut-off date.

And there is no clear transitional rule saying whether people already progressing towards citizenship would remain under the existing five-year system.

That absence does not prove that existing migrants would lose their current pathway.

It simply means one of the most consequential details of the policy remains unanswered.

What happens next?

For now, anyone living in New Zealand under the existing system remains subject to the existing rules.

The next decisive date is 7 November.

But election night will not necessarily tell us whether this policy is happening.

First come the results.

Then, depending on those results, potentially weeks of government-formation negotiations.

If NZ First’s support is required to form a governing majority, the question becomes what policies it places on the negotiating table - and what its potential partners are prepared to accept.

If a ten-year citizenship requirement appears in a coalition agreement, the proposal would move from campaign politics towards probable government policy.

Even then, the details would matter.

The Citizenship Act would need to be changed.

The eventual legal text would reveal when the new rules were intended to begin.

And, critically for migrants already living here, it should reveal whether people who entered the system under the existing five-year rules would be protected.

Until then, the most accurate description is also the simplest:

New Zealand First wants to double the citizenship qualifying period.

It has not happened.

NZ First does not need to win the election for it to happen.

But after 7 November, it may need enough seats to give the party enough leverage to make the proposal part of coalition negotiations.

And under MMP, that could make the difference between an election promise and New Zealand law.