NZeTA Scam Sites and Resellers: What an NZeTA Actually Costs
An NZeTA costs NZ$17 in Immigration New Zealand's official app or NZ$23 on its website, plus the NZ$100 International Visitor Levy — NZ$117 to NZ$123 in total, about US$70 to US$74. Commercial sites charged US$88 to US$199 for the same thing on 20 August 2026. Only nzeta.immigration.govt.nz and the official INZ apps are genuine.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Official cost | NZ$17 (INZ app) or NZ$23 (INZ website) |
| Levy on top | NZ$100 International Visitor Levy |
| Official total | NZ$117–123 per person ≈ US$70–74 |
| Genuine request channels | nzeta.immigration.govt.nz and the official INZ iOS/Android apps — nothing else |
| INZ's own test | Official INZ web addresses end in .immigration.govt.nz |
| Reseller prices observed 20 Aug 2026 | US$88 to US$199 for the traveller authority |
| Can anyone process it faster? | No. Not INZ, not any third party, at any price |
| Processing | Allow 72 hours, identical through every route |
| INZ's own anti-scam page | Returns a 404 error as at 20 August 2026 |
Start here: the four tests
Everything on this page reduces to four checks. If you do nothing else, do these.
- Look at the domain ending. INZ's own guidance is that official INZ web addresses end in
.immigration.govt.nz. Not.govt.nzalone, not.nz, not.org, not.com. A New Zealand government service does not live on a.com. - Look at the price. The government charge is NZ$117 or NZ$123 per person. If a site wants more, the difference is that company's margin.
- Distrust the word "official". No third party can be an official NZeTA channel. There are exactly two: INZ's site and INZ's app. Several commercial sites title themselves "Official NZeTA Application Service" anyway.
- Distrust any offer of speed. Nobody sells faster INZ processing, because INZ does not sell it. A "priority" tier buys that company's own handling time, not a shorter queue at INZ.
What the official channels are
| Channel | Address | Price |
|---|---|---|
| INZ mobile app | Published by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), listed as NZeTA | NZ$17 + NZ$100 levy |
| INZ website | nzeta.immigration.govt.nz |
NZ$23 + NZ$100 levy |
That is the complete list. There is no authorised agent, no approved partner, no accredited processor and no regional office. INZ's published position is that "some third-party sites exist for the New Zealand NZeTA, however not all sites are legitimate", and that travellers should use the official government website or mobile app.
What the copycats charge
Prices observed by direct inspection on 20 August 2026. Commercial pricing changes without notice, so treat this as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. What does not change is the government price underneath it: NZ$117–123.
| Site | Advertised price for a traveller authority | Multiple of the official price | Disclaimer stating it is not the government? |
|---|---|---|---|
| nzeta.org | US$145 / US$175 / US$199 (three speed tiers) | ~2.0×–2.8× | None found. Lists three fee "components" without giving the amounts |
| new-zealandeta.org | US$125 / US$135 / US$145, plus a US$35 cancellation charge | ~1.7×–2.0× | None found |
| VisaHQ | US$99 / US$135 / US$165 | up to ~2.2× | Discloses its service fee. Its page states the government levy amount as NZ$35 — the rate replaced in October 2024 |
| iVisa | From US$87.99 | ~1.2× | Reasonably transparent about being a paid service |
| Byevisa | Claims a "US$47 government fee" plus US$25/US$45/US$65 service | ~5×–8× for levy-exempt travellers | Overstates the government charge itself by roughly three times |
| nzeta.nz | Not published | — | Yes — states clearly that it is "an independent travel assistance provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with the Government of New Zealand or Immigration New Zealand" |
| nzeta.app | Not published | — | None found. Titles itself "Official NZeTA Application Service" |
| traveleta.nz | Not published | — | None found. Titles itself "Official NZeTA Application Service" |
| newzealandvisa.uk | Not published; three speed tiers offered | — | None found |
A note on the honest ones. Paying a concierge to fill in a form is a legitimate transaction if you know that is what you are buying. nzeta.nz publishes an unambiguous disclaimer. iVisa is reasonably transparent about being a paid service. The problem is not that these businesses exist — it is that a traveller in a hurry cannot tell them apart from the government, and several of them are designed so that the traveller cannot.
The one that goes further: immigrationgovnz.com
This site is in a different category from the resellers, and it is worth describing precisely, because being precise is the point.
As inspected on 20 August 2026, the page at immigrationgovnz.com displayed:
- A header logo reading "Immigration New Zealand" / "New Zealand Immigration"
- A footer carrying "Crown copyright © 2026"
- The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment logo
- The New Zealand Government shield
- INZ's real published contact numbers, 0508 558 855 and +64 9 914 4100
- A Visit / Study / Work / Live navigation structure mirroring INZ's own, with an "Apply now" call to action
- No disclaimer of any kind identifying it as a private site
It is not Immigration New Zealand. INZ's website is immigration.govt.nz.
We are describing what the pages display, and drawing no conclusion about anyone's intent or legal position. The reason to name it is practical: on 20 August 2026 that site ranked #10 on Bing for "new zealand visitor visa", and an automated content-fetching tool used during our own research read the page and concluded, incorrectly, that it was the legitimate Immigration New Zealand website. If a machine built to read web pages carefully cannot tell, a traveller with a flight to catch has no chance.
Why search engines and AI assistants keep getting this wrong
Four of the top eight results for "nzeta apply online" on 20 August 2026 were commercial resellers rather than INZ. During this research, a live AI search synthesis stated that "there are two primary official NZeTA application portals: www.nzeta.nz … and www.traveleta.nz". Neither is an official portal.
Three things drive that failure, and knowing them tells you when to be sceptical:
- INZ's own anti-scam page returns a 404 error. The URL still ranks; the content is gone. Nobody is serving the warning.
- INZ's fee figures are loaded by JavaScript and its own
robots.txtblocks the widgets that hold them. A crawler reading INZ's NZeTA page frequently cannot see any price at all — so the only prices in the index are the resellers'. - Reseller sites are built for search. They are fast, heavily structured, keyword-targeted and updated often. INZ's are not.
The result is a search environment where the accurate answer is the hardest one to find. That is also why the levy figure of NZ$35 keeps resurfacing in AI answers: it is repeated across thousands of stale pages, and volume beats accuracy in a system with no source of truth. More on that pattern is on why AI answers about NZ visas are often wrong.
The tells, in order of reliability
The domain. Strongest test there is. .immigration.govt.nz at the end of the address, or it is not INZ. Domains that contain the words "govt" or "nz" somewhere in the middle — immigrationgovnz.com, newzealandvisa.uk — are not government domains. The government part has to be at the end.
The claim of official status. No third party can be official. A site describing itself as an "Official NZeTA Application Service" is telling you something about itself, and it is not what it intends.
The price. NZ$117 or NZ$123, per person, total. In US dollars, roughly US$70–74. A US$99 or US$149 quote is not a government fee.
The offer of speed. Priority tiers, express handling, rush processing, "as fast as 15 minutes", "guaranteed approval". INZ sells none of these and no approval can be guaranteed by anyone. See can you fast-track a New Zealand visa.
Refusal of a fee breakdown. The government charge splits cleanly: NZ$17 or NZ$23 plus NZ$100. A site that lists "components" without amounts, or bundles everything into one figure, is concealing its margin.
Missing operator identity. Genuine businesses name themselves. Several of these sites publish no company name, no registered address and no jurisdiction.
A cancellation fee. INZ does not charge one. A US$35 charge for cancelling a request is a private commercial term.
Government imagery. Crown copyright statements, the New Zealand Government shield, the MBIE logo and INZ's real phone numbers on a non-.govt.nz domain.
A worked example of the gap
Take a family of four from Germany, travelling for a three-week holiday.
| Route | NZeTA fees | Levy | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official INZ app, one request covering all four | 4 × NZ$17 = NZ$68 | 4 × NZ$100 = NZ$400 | NZ$468 |
| Official INZ website | 4 × NZ$23 = NZ$92 | NZ$400 | NZ$492 |
| A reseller at US$145 per person | 4 × US$145 ≈ NZ$960 | Usually included in that figure | ≈ NZ$960 |
| A reseller at US$199 per person | 4 × US$199 ≈ NZ$1,320 | Usually included | ≈ NZ$1,320 |
Currency conversions are approximate and move daily. The point is the shape, not the cent: the same four authorities, produced by the same INZ system, at somewhere between two and three times the price. Nothing in the more expensive routes arrives sooner or lasts longer.
What a genuine INZ page looks like
Rather than memorising a list of bad domains — which changes — it is faster to know what the real thing is.
| Signal | Genuine INZ |
|---|---|
| Web address | Ends in .immigration.govt.nz |
| The NZeTA request site | nzeta.immigration.govt.nz |
| The main site | immigration.govt.nz |
| App publisher | The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) |
| Price shown for a traveller NZeTA | NZ$17 or NZ$23, plus NZ$100 |
| Speed options | None offered |
| Approval promises | None made |
| Currency | New Zealand dollars |
If a page fails on the address, treat everything else on it as decoration. Logos, shields, copyright lines and phone numbers can all be copied; a .govt.nz domain cannot.
There is one wrinkle worth naming. Not every .govt.nz address belongs to INZ — other New Zealand agencies use the domain for their own services, and the New Zealand Traveller Declaration is run separately from the NZeTA. The test is the full ending, .immigration.govt.nz, for anything to do with visas and travel authorities.
What it costs to get this wrong
The direct loss is usually modest in absolute terms — the difference between NZ$117 and US$150 is real money but not ruinous. Documented cases include a traveller who paid US$269 and a Canadian national charged US$174 for a product costing around CAD$30 at the time. Markups of ten to fifteen times have been reported.
The larger exposures are the ones people do not price in:
- Your passport data, photograph and payment details go to a business you cannot identify, in a jurisdiction you do not know.
- The request may never be submitted. You are trusting an intermediary to complete a form you could have completed yourself.
- Support disappears. If the request is refused or held, the reseller has nothing to escalate. It has no visibility into INZ's system, and INZ has no relationship with it.
- The levy is charged twice if you end up making a second, correct request. It is never refunded.
What to do if you have already paid
This page describes options; it does not advise which to take.
- Confirm whether an NZeTA actually exists. Check at
nzeta.immigration.govt.nzor in the official INZ app. Many people who paid a reseller do have a valid NZeTA — they simply paid several times over for it. - Contact your card issuer if no authority was ever granted. A card chargeback is a matter between you and your bank.
- Report it. New Zealand's consumer and cybercrime reporting channels accept reports from overseas. The steps are on paid an immigration scammer — what to do.
- Do not pay a second party to fix the first. Recovery services that approach victims of a fraud are a well-documented second wave.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the official NZeTA website?
nzeta.immigration.govt.nz, and the official INZ mobile app. INZ's own guidance is that genuine INZ web addresses end in .immigration.govt.nz. Nothing else is an official channel.
Is nzeta.org legit?
nzeta.org is a commercial site, not a government one. On 20 August 2026 it advertised the traveller authority at US$145 to US$199 across three speed tiers, against a government price of NZ$117–123, and we found no disclaimer stating that it is not affiliated with Immigration New Zealand. It cannot grant an NZeTA; only INZ can.
Is new zealand eta service org legit?
Sites of that pattern — a name containing "New Zealand", "eta" or "service" on a .org or .com domain — are private operators. The test is the domain ending, not the name. .immigration.govt.nz or it is not INZ.
How much should an NZeTA cost?
NZ$17 through the official app or NZ$23 through the INZ website, plus the NZ$100 levy: NZ$117 or NZ$123 per person, as at August 2026. See NZeTA cost: app vs website for the group arithmetic.
Can a third-party site process my NZeTA faster?
No. Every request reaches the same INZ queue and INZ's published guidance is to allow 72 hours regardless of how the request was submitted. Speed tiers sold by resellers describe their own turnaround.
Why does Google or ChatGPT show me these sites?
Because reseller sites are heavily optimised for search, INZ's own fee data is hidden behind JavaScript that crawlers cannot read, and INZ's anti-scam page returns a 404. AI answer engines have repeated the resulting mistake, including by describing nzeta.nz and traveleta.nz as "official". They are not.
I paid US$150 for my NZeTA. Do I still have a valid one?
Possibly. Check at nzeta.immigration.govt.nz or in the official app using your passport details. If an authority was granted, it is valid — you paid a private company several times the government price to submit a form.
Does Immigration New Zealand have a scam warning page?
It has had one. As at 20 August 2026 the URL returns a 404 error while still appearing in search results. That gap is one reason this page exists.
Commercial pricing and site descriptions on this page were observed on 20 August 2026 and are re-checked on a schedule. We describe what these pages display and make no allegation about any operator's conduct or legal position. This is general information, not immigration advice.
