Citizenship by grant processing has met target timeframes for the past six months consecutively, following a period of six years where timeliness targets were not met, Minister of Internal Affairs, Brooke van Velden, has confirmed.
“The Department of Internal Affairs aims to get 90% of applications processed within 75 days of being received. April 2022 was a low point, with just 0.6% of applications meeting that target. Four years later, 94.6% of applications met that goal, the highest result since July 2019,” says Ms van Velden.
“This is the longest period of consistent on time processing we’ve seen in many years. A focus on efficiency and taking practical steps to improve processing have gotten us to this point.
“As processing time is improving, we saw a 12% increase in the number of citizenship applications received in 2025 compared to 2019. The 2025 year also saw the Department process the most applications it has done in recorded history.”
The Minister thanked citizenship office staff for their continued hard work.
“And a huge congratulations to all those who have received their citizenship by grant,” she said.
You can apply for citizenship either online or via the post. For the checklist of everything you need please refer to: Apply for NZ citizenship | New Zealand Government.
