Offshore
Surge In US Nationals Applying For New Zealand Citizenship - Media

News reports, based on immigration data, say there has been a rise in the number of Americans trying to become New Zealanders since the election of Donald Trump last November.
There has been a surge of US nationals looking to become citizens
thousands of miles away in New Zealand following the election
last November of Donald Trump, a move highlighting cross-border
migration among individuals including the wealthy.
According to a report by the Associated Press, citing immigration
data it has seen, the number of Americans who applied for a grant
of New Zealand citizenship rose to 170 in the 12 weeks following
the election of Trump from 100 in the same period a year
earlier.
In New Zealand, a grant of citizenship is the pathway for people
without a family connection. Among those Americans with a New
Zealand parent, citizenship applications after the election rose
to 203 from 183 a year earlier, the report said.
The news service said that in response to a freedom of
information request, New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs
said that in the two days after the US election in November, the
number of Americans who visited its website to find out about
citizenship rose to 4,146 from 305 on the same two weekdays a
month earlier.
A parallel trend has been that of US citizens giving up their
nationality to get away from the clutches of the US worldwide
system of taxation as enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.
This process has arguably accelerated since 2010, when the
Foreign Account Taxation Compliance Act, or FATCA, was signed
into law by President Barack Obama. Separately, recent years have
seen the evolution of a market in so-called “golden visas”, with
jurisdictions – including the US – offering residence and
citizenship to wealthy foreigners who pledge certain amounts of
money to these places. Examples include those of the UK, Malta,
Spain, Portugal, Dominica and the US.