France is a New Zealand visa waiver country, so no visitor visa is needed — but an NZeTA must be approved before you board. It takes minutes online, lasts two years, and covers visits of up to 90 days.
90 days
Maximum stay per visit
2 years
NZeTA validity
Multiple
Entries permitted
Under 72 hrs
Typical decision time
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
France has a longer connection to the South Pacific than most European countries, and that shapes how French travellers reach New Zealand. New Caledonia and French Polynesia are both a short hop away, and the Nouméa and Papeete routes into Auckland make New Zealand a natural extension of a trip to the French territories rather than a standalone long-haul destination.
French visitors also skew towards longer, more active trips — tramping, cycling, climbing and the Great Walks — and towards the working holiday route, which is heavily used by young French travellers. Both of those patterns interact with the entry rules in ways worth understanding before booking.
France sits on New Zealand's visa waiver list, so there is no visitor visa and no appointment at the Embassy in Paris. What is required, since October 2019, is the NZeTA: an online authorisation held electronically against your passport number and checked by the airline before departure from Paris, Nouméa or wherever your journey begins.
At a glance
Eligibility
You do not need a visa, but you do need an NZeTA. French citizens can enter New Zealand for tourism, visiting family and friends, business meetings, conferences or transit for up to 90 days on the visa waiver. The NZeTA is the pre-screening step that replaced the visitor visa for waiver nationalities.
The waiver covers visiting only. French citizens aged 18 to 30 are eligible for New Zealand's Working Holiday Scheme, which grants twelve months with the right to work and is one of the most heavily used schemes by French nationals. It is an entirely separate visa, applied for before departure, and cannot be arranged on the strength of an NZeTA once you have arrived.
Nationality decides eligibility, not residence. A resident of France travelling on an Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian or Senegalese passport is not covered by the French waiver and needs a New Zealand Visitor Visa. Residents of New Caledonia and French Polynesia who hold French passports are French citizens and use the NZeTA in the normal way — the territories themselves confer no separate status with Immigration New Zealand.
Stay & validity
French passport holders may stay up to 90 days per visit. The NZeTA lasts two years from approval and allows unlimited entries in that time, so the 90-day cap applies to each stay rather than to a yearly total.
That two-year window is genuinely useful for French travellers who combine New Zealand with New Caledonia or French Polynesia, since a single NZeTA covers repeated hops into Auckland across the whole period. The pattern of short repeated visits is fine — what matters is that each individual stay stays inside 90 days.
The authorisation is bound to one passport number. French passports run for ten years for adults and five for minors, so a renewal within the NZeTA's two-year life is entirely possible, particularly for families travelling with children. There is no way to transfer an NZeTA to a new passport, so check expiry dates for the whole party before requesting.
New Zealand requires three months of passport validity beyond your departure from the country. French routings almost always transit Dubai, Doha, Singapore, Hong Kong or Los Angeles, and several of those require six months of their own, so plan against the strictest rule on your itinerary rather than New Zealand's.
Pricing
Live fees for French passport holders, shown all-in — the government charge, the tourism levy where it applies, and our service fee, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as France
Requirements
Everything French passport holders need before starting a request. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
Passport bio-data page — a clear colour scan or photo showing your photograph, full name, date of birth, passport number and expiry date
Recent passport-style photograph — full face visible against a plain light background, taken within the last six months, no headwear other than for religious reasons
A valid email address, which is where the approval is sent and which you should keep accessible while travelling
A credit or debit card to pay the NZeTA request fee and the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy together
Your onward or return ticket details — border officers can ask to see evidence that you intend to leave
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with our team checking every field before anything reaches Immigration New Zealand.
Enter your passport details exactly as printed, answer the health and character questions, and upload your photo. Most people finish in under ten minutes.
Our team checks your photo dimensions, passport number, name spelling and declarations before anything is submitted to Immigration New Zealand.
Your request goes to Immigration New Zealand together with the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy, and we track it until a decision is issued.
There is no sticker or label — the authorisation is held electronically against your passport number. We explain exactly what to show at check-in.
Most French requests are approved automatically, often within minutes. Immigration New Zealand asks travellers to allow up to 72 hours because a minority go to an officer for manual assessment, generally because a photograph fails the automated check or a conviction has been declared.
Request it at least a week before departure. French itineraries almost always involve a connection in the Gulf or Asia, so a problem discovered at Charles de Gaulle cannot be fixed before the first leg leaves. If you are routing via Nouméa or Papeete, the same applies at those airports — Aircalin and Air Tahiti Nui check the NZeTA at check-in exactly as the long-haul carriers do.
Getting there
There is no nonstop flight between mainland France and New Zealand, but France has a Pacific option no other European country has: Nouméa and Papeete both connect directly to Auckland, which makes a French territory stopover a genuinely practical way to break the journey rather than a detour.
Best time to go
New Zealand's summer runs December to February, the reverse of France's. It is the peak season and the best weather, but it collides with the New Zealand school holidays, so Queenstown, the Bay of Islands and the Great Walks are heavily booked and priced at their highest.
The French summer holidays in July and August fall in the New Zealand winter. That is excellent for skiing in Queenstown, Wanaka and on Ruapehu, and the country is quiet, but the days are short and much of the South Island high country is closed to walkers. French travellers who assume the summer break is the obvious time to go are often surprised by how different the trip is.
For tramping and cycling — the reasons a great many French visitors come — February to April is the strongest window, with settled weather and thinner crowds. October and November are the other good option. New Zealand is 10 to 12 hours ahead of France depending on daylight saving, and only two to three hours ahead of Nouméa, which is one reason the New Caledonia routing is so much gentler on the body than a direct run from Paris.
Avoid these
Declines are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on requests from France — we check for every one of them before submitting.
France is one of the largest users of New Zealand's Working Holiday Scheme, and the common error is treating it as something to organise after arrival. The working holiday visa must be granted before you travel, has its own funds and health requirements, and cannot be created from an NZeTA. Working on a visitor entry risks removal and a re-entry ban.
French passports often carry two or three given names, sometimes hyphenated. The NZeTA must match the passport exactly, and dropping a second forename or the hyphen in Jean-Pierre creates a mismatch that airline systems flag at check-in. Copy the name field character for character.
Living in Nouméa or Papeete does not give you a different status with Immigration New Zealand — you travel as a French citizen on a French passport and need the same NZeTA as someone flying from Paris. The short flight and the familiarity of the Pacific route lead a lot of residents to assume otherwise.
Pacific cruises that call at New Zealand ports require every passenger to hold an NZeTA, regardless of nationality and regardless of whether they intend to go ashore. French passengers joining a ship in Nouméa or Sydney routinely miss this and are refused embarkation.
An NZeTA sits against one passport number for two years and does not survive a renewal. Families are especially exposed here, since French passports for minors run for only five years, so a child's document is far more likely to be replaced mid-validity than an adult's.
Passport number mistyped
By far the most common problem. The authorisation is attached to the number you enter, so a single wrong character produces an NZeTA that does not exist as far as the airline is concerned.
An undeclared conviction
Immigration New Zealand asks about convictions, deportations and previous refusals. Undisclosed history found later is treated far more seriously than the original offence.
A photograph that fails the check
Shadows across the face, glasses, a busy background or a cropped chin all cause the automated check to reject an image, which turns an instant approval into a manual review.
Conditions
These conditions are set by Immigration New Zealand and do not vary by nationality. Two of them — the passport-linking rule and the cruise rule — catch out a lot of otherwise well-planned trips.
Your authorisation is held electronically against the passport number you entered. There is no label in your passport and nothing to print for immigration. If you renew or replace that passport, the NZeTA does not transfer — you must request a new one.
Every person travelling needs their own NZeTA, including newborns and children. A child cannot be added to a parent's request, and each one needs their own valid passport.
An approved NZeTA lasts two years from the date it is issued and can be used for any number of trips in that period, provided your passport remains valid. It cannot be extended — when it expires you simply request a new one.
The International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy funds conservation and tourism infrastructure and is charged alongside the NZeTA request. It currently stands at NZD 100 and is payable once per NZeTA, not once per trip.
An NZeTA lets you board. The decision to admit you is made by a border officer at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Queenstown, who can ask about your funds, your accommodation and your intended departure.
Since October 2019 every cruise passenger arriving in New Zealand by sea needs an NZeTA or a visa, regardless of nationality — including passengers whose nationality would otherwise be exempt.
Consular services
The Embassy in Paris has no role in an NZeTA request — it is an online process with no appointment and no document submission. It handles what the NZeTA does not: work visas, student visas, residence applications and consular assistance for New Zealanders in France. Working Holiday Visa applications are made online through Immigration New Zealand rather than at the Embassy.
FAQs
The questions French passport holders ask most often about travelling to New Zealand.
No visitor visa is needed — France is on the visa waiver list. You do need an NZeTA, requested online before departure and verified by the airline at check-in. It covers tourism, family visits, business meetings and transit for stays of up to 90 days.
Up to 90 days per visit. The NZeTA is valid for two years with unlimited entries, but each individual stay is limited to 90 days. Only British citizens get a longer allowance. Staying beyond 90 days requires a Visitor Visa applied for from within New Zealand before your existing permission expires.
The total is the government request fee plus the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy, currently NZD 100, charged together. The pricing panel on this page loads the live all-in figure for French passport holders including our service fee, with nothing further payable at the border.
No. French citizens aged 18 to 30 can apply for the Working Holiday Scheme, which grants twelve months with the right to work, but it is a separate visa that must be approved before you travel. The NZeTA confers no right to work at all.
Yes. Residents of New Caledonia and French Polynesia travelling on French passports are French citizens for immigration purposes and need exactly the same NZeTA as someone departing Paris. Aircalin and Air Tahiti Nui check it at the gate, and the short flight time makes no difference to the requirement.
Enter every given name exactly as it is printed on the passport photo page, including hyphens. French passports frequently carry compound forenames, and omitting the second one is a common cause of a mismatch between the NZeTA record and the document the airline scans at check-in.
France is on the full visa waiver list, so the same NZeTA covers transit and entry alike. You do not need anything extra, and you are free to leave the airport during a long layover — unlike travellers from transit-waiver countries, who must stay airside.
Yes, every traveller does, including babies. Each child needs their own valid French passport and their own request. French passports for minors are valid for five years, so check the expiry date before requesting — a renewal voids the NZeTA attached to the old number.
Your nationality is already set to France. Complete the form in under ten minutes, and our team will check every detail before it reaches Immigration New Zealand.
Other nationalities
Stay limits, entry conditions and levy rules differ by passport. Here are the guides for other nationalities.
