Why New Zealand Is the Only Safe Haven Left
Oct 9, 2026 · 19 min · 16 segments
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Oct 9, 2026 · 19 min · 16 segments
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
So the first thing worth recognising is that New Zealand is a strange place for the richest people on earth to be queuing up for.
It's a small isolated agricultural country with roughly the population of Sydney and it's hours of flying from anywhere bigger.
Also it has basically none of the infrastructure that wealthy people usually seek out.
And in a lot of the cities that have become particularly popular it really isn't much of anything.
Which is, for a very specific kind of person, exactly the appeal.
If you make your income whether you leave the house or not, and you can afford to charter a flight when you actually need to be somewhere, that isolation is kinda nice.
In return you get clean air, empty landscapes, low crime, a stable government, and a very large ocean between you and everybody else's problems, which is actually something apparently a lot of billionaires are taking quite seriously.
Ever since Bloomberg reported on Silicon Valley figures buying up South Island bolt holes back in 2018, New Zealand has had a reputation as the place wealthy Americans plan to wait out the end of the world.
Something that the country has been happy to accommodate.
Peter Thiel was infamously granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011 after spending a grand total of 12 days in the country.
That fact only became public in 2017 and caused a fair bit of a scandal when it did.
But once a few high profile billionaires own houses in the country the whole thing kind of compounds on itself.
New Zealand becomes known as a destination for the ultra wealthy which only makes it more attractive to the next billionaire looking for a place to settle.
And getting into the country legally is actually a lot easier than getting into the country physically.
New Zealand runs what is commonly called a golden visa or officially the active investor plus visa and in April 2025 the government made it significantly more accessible.
The new ones offer two options, a growth category that only needs $5 million invested into local businesses and funds for three years, and a balanced category that wants $10 million in safer assets for
So the first thing worth recognising is that New Zealand is a strange place for the richest people on earth to be queuing up for.
It's a small isolated agricultural country with roughly the population of Sydney and it's hours of flying from anywhere bigger.
Also it has basically none of the infrastructure that wealthy people usually seek out.
And in a lot of the cities that have become particularly popular it really isn't much of anything.
Which is, for a very specific kind of person, exactly the appeal.
If you make your income whether you leave the house or not, and you can afford to charter a flight when you actually need to be somewhere, that isolation is kinda nice.
In return you get clean air, empty landscapes, low crime, a stable government, and a very large ocean between you and everybody else's problems, which is actually something apparently a lot of billionaires are taking quite seriously.
Ever since Bloomberg reported on Silicon Valley figures buying up South Island bolt holes back in 2018, New Zealand has had a reputation as the place wealthy Americans plan to wait out the end of the world.
Something that the country has been happy to accommodate.
Peter Thiel was infamously granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011 after spending a grand total of 12 days in the country.
That fact only became public in 2017 and caused a fair bit of a scandal when it did.
But once a few high profile billionaires own houses in the country the whole thing kind of compounds on itself.
New Zealand becomes known as a destination for the ultra wealthy which only makes it more attractive to the next billionaire looking for a place to settle.
And getting into the country legally is actually a lot easier than getting into the country physically.
New Zealand runs what is commonly called a golden visa or officially the active investor plus visa and in April 2025 the government made it significantly more accessible.
The new ones offer two options, a growth category that only needs $5 million invested into local businesses and funds for three years, and a balanced category that wants $10 million in safer assets for
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