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Healthcare in New Zealand: no CAK route, but ACC

New Zealand is not on the treaty country list, so you arrange your healthcare yourself. Whether you are entitled to the public system hangs on your visa — and besides that there is ACC, which covers every accident, visitors' included, in exchange for the right to sue.

4 min read

Written and checked by Auke on , against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.

When you move to New Zealand, your healthcare does not follow you as smoothly as within Europe. With a move within Europe, healthcare is administrative:

  • You deregister.
  • You get an S1, the European form that gives you healthcare in your new country of residence.
  • The CAK arranges the rest.

To New Zealand that doesn't work, and the difference is bigger than a form.

There is no treaty route

New Zealand is not on the treaty country list, the list of countries the Netherlands has healthcare arrangements with. That list contains the EU and EEA countries, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and a handful of countries beyond (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Morocco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey). New Zealand is not among them.

Consequence: no S1 form, no treaty contribution to the CAK, and no entitlement to healthcare allowance. Your Dutch basic insurance ends on emigration. That is not a choice but the consequence of deregistering. And nothing automatically takes its place.

What you do get in return hangs on your visa

New Zealand has a publicly funded healthcare system, and whether you fall under it is determined by your residence status:

  • Resident visa (resident or permanent resident). You are entitled to publicly funded healthcare.
  • Work visa that entitles you to stay for two years or longer. Then too you are entitled. It is about two consecutive years, counted from your first day in New Zealand. An Accredited Employer Work Visa of three or five years meets that.
  • Shorter temporary visas (visitor, study, shorter work visa). No entitlement.

That last one hits one group directly: whoever comes in on a working holiday visa sits outside the public system for twelve months. Immigration New Zealand accordingly requires full medical insurance for the entire duration of your stay for that visa. Factor in that cost. For a year it is no small amount.

What the system covers if you do fall under it: subsidised GP care, a subsidy on prescription medicines, free treatment in public hospitals and support with a disability. Your care provider may ask for your proof, usually your e-visa letter, and does.

Rather have everything for New Zealand on one list?

Then we'll send you the departure checklist for New Zealand, with every step in order, and five mails about the pitfalls and the real costs. You can switch it off at any time.

We use your address, and your departure date if you fill it in, only for the checklist, the guide and the mails after it. You can unsubscribe under every mail.

Enrol with a GP, and do it straight away

This is not a formality but a matter of rates. In New Zealand you enrol with a GP practice, and enrolled patients pay a subsidised rate per consultation. Whoever is not enrolled pays the full rate, even if they are otherwise entitled.

Practices in the big cities regularly have their books closed or a waiting list. So start on it in your first weeks, not at the moment you are ill.

ACC: the system you won't find anywhere else

Alongside the healthcare system, New Zealand has a second system that is completely separate from your visa and from your insurance: the Accident Compensation Corporation.

ACC covers everyone who has an accident in New Zealand: residents, employees, and visitors too. It is a no-fault scheme: it doesn't matter what you were doing or who was to blame. You get treatment and, if you work here, part of your income compensated.

The price for that is unusual, and it changes how you look at insurance: in New Zealand you cannot claim damages for injury. The right to sue over personal injury has been traded for this cover. That applies to you as the victim and to you as the party who caused it.

Practical consequence: liability insurance for personal injury doesn't have the same meaning here as in the Netherlands. So review your policy again rather than bringing it along unthinkingly. And don't confuse ACC with health insurance, because it isn't.

The line you need to know

The distinction that determines everything is simple but hard:

Runs through Depends on your visa?
Accident (fall, collision, sports injury) ACC No, everyone is covered
Illness (flu, cancer, chronic condition) Public healthcare system Yes

A broken leg after a fall is ACC. Those same bones breaking through osteoporosis is illness. In practice that distinction is not always obvious, and it is precisely what supplementary private insurance in New Zealand focuses on: shorter waiting times for non-acute illness care, and specialist treatment outside the public system.

So consider such a supplementary policy on the illness side, not on the accident side. That has already been taken care of.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to New Zealand or go straight to step 3.1 in the open plan.

Want to know more about this?

Then we'll send you the departure checklist for New Zealand, with every step in order, and five mails about the pitfalls and the real costs. You can switch it off at any time.

We use your address, and your departure date if you fill it in, only for the checklist, the guide and the mails after it. You can unsubscribe under every mail.

What this rests on

The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, not this article.

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