Step 1: We check and accept your application
When we receive your application, we will check it to see if it is complete.
If your application is incomplete, we will let you know what is missing. We will not start working on the application until it is accepted.
If a lodgement fee is required for your consent application, it is payable prior to or on lodging your application.
If your application is complete, we will provisionally accept it and send you an invoice for the relevant fee. When the fee is paid, your application will be fully accepted, and assessment will begin.
In our acceptance letter we will tell you who will assess the application, and how long it will take.
Percentage of applications rejected at step 1 each month
Note that the current month's statistics are the month to date.
View as a table
| Month | Percentage rejected |
|---|---|
| October 2023 | 0% |
| November 2023 | 7% |
| December 2023 | 5% |
| January 2024 | 0% |
| February 2024 | 0% |
| March 2024 | 0% |
| April 2024 | 0% |
| May 2024 | 0% |
| June 2024 | 7% |
| July 2024 | 0% |
| August 2024 | 0% |
| September 2024 | 0% |
| October 2024 | 0% |
Step 2: We assess your application and recommend a decision
During assessment we will consider all relevant aspects of both:
- the investor – see Investor test
- the investment, including (where relevant) the potential benefits to New Zealand.
We will start to form a view on whether your application meets the requirements of the Act and whether to recommend the application be approved or declined. We may ask questions, ask you for further information, or determine that our assessment will take more time that we originally expected. If this happens, we will notify you as soon as possible.
We will advise you as soon as we can if we intend to recommend that your application be declined.
Statutory declarations
When lodging your application, you need to provide statutory declarations.
All applications must include a declaration verifying that the information contained in the application is true and correct.
For the Investor test you must also include declarations that the individuals with control of the relevant overseas person are of good character or are not unsuitable to own or control a sensitive New Zealand asset.
Upload the completed statutory declarations along with the other required documentation.
Prepare a statutory declaration
Conditions
All approved consents are subject to standard conditions. These provide our expectations of all overseas people who are granted consent to acquire sensitive New Zealand land or significant business assets.
Some consents are also granted with special conditions that apply only to you. These were the most important considerations that were material to the decision to grant consent.
Conditions are enforceable. If you do not meet them, you may be required to dispose of the land and/or be subject to fines or other penalties.
Standard conditions
By law, every consent granted is subject to these conditions:
- The information provided by each applicant to LINZ or the Ministers in connection with the application was correct at the time it was provided.
- Each consent holder must comply with the representations and plans they made or submitted in support of the application and were notified by LINZ as having been taken into account when consent was granted, unless compliance should reasonably be excused.
We also impose standard conditions on every consent granted which include conditions relating to acquiring the investment and remaining not unsuitable to invest in New Zealand.
Overseas Investment Act 2005, s25B
Special conditions
If we plan to impose special conditions, we may give you an opportunity to comment on the draft consent, and the conditions that will apply to it, before the final decision is made. Note that the decision-maker decides what conditions should be imposed and these may be different to the draft conditions sent to you for comment.
See examples of our conditions.
Step 3: The decision-maker grants or declines your application
The relevant ministers have delegated all consent, variation and exemption decisions to LINZ. However, ministers retain the ability to call in any application for a ministerial decision.
National interest assessments and decisions on notifications under the National Security and Public Regime that have been called in for further assessment are made by the Minister of Finance.
We will notify you of the decision and provide you with a notice of decision. We will also provide a draft decision summary of the information we propose to publish on our website for your comment.
We will send you an invoice, depending on your application type, for your monitoring compliance fee. This fee is payable before consent is granted.
If consent is granted, we will also list the conditions imposed on that consent.
Step 4: We publish the decision on our website
Once we have your comments on the draft decision summary, we will decide on the final content of the decision summary and publicly release it on our website. This happens at the end of the month following the month in which the application was decided. For example, if an application is decided on 15 March, the decision would be published on 30 April.