Moving to Sri Lanka from New Zealand
New Zealand passport holders can get a visa on arrival for a visit to Sri Lanka, but living there takes a residence permit. The self-funded residency routes we track start at an income of about $1,500 a month or an investment of about $100k, and our residency index rates Sri Lanka 60/100 for New Zealand citizens (possible, with conditions). We estimate €1,844 a month for a couple living centrally in Kandy and €1,982 in Colombo. Sri Lanka is in our low to medium tax tier. Check the official requirements before you apply.
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- Short stays
- Visa on arrival
- New Zealand passport
- Residency
- 60/100
- Possible, with conditions, our index
- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Est. cost for two
- From €1,844/mo
- Kandy, our estimate
Living there long term
Our residency index: 60/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Sri Lanka is for New Zealand citizens, based on the routes Sri Lanka publishes. Sri Lanka offers renewable long-term residence through a retirement visa for over-55s (fixed deposit plus monthly pension income), a professional/independent-means stream and an investor visa, with capital thresholds that are modest by global standards.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track:
- Income: about $1,500 a month (My Dream Home retirement visa (age 55+): USD 1,500/mo remittance from pension plus a USD 15,000 fixed deposit; cheaper monthly figure than the RGS professional stream's USD 2,000/mo; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $100k (Individual Investor Visa Category, USD 100,000 deposit in a VPFCA for a 5-year visa (vs USD 200,000 for 10 years); first issued 1 Oct 2025; as of June 2026)
Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.
For short visits, New Zealand passport holders can get a visa on arrival for a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).
Where in Sri Lanka to start
Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold New Zealand passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.
Cost of living for two
Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €1,844 a month in Kandy to €1,982 in Colombo. For comparison, we estimate €3,812 a month in Auckland. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.
Source: our cost model: a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026). An estimate, not a survey of current prices.
Taxes
Sri Lanka is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); New Zealand is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in New Zealand after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Lists with cities in Sri Lanka
Moving to Sri Lanka from elsewhere
How we built this page
Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:
- Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
- Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
- City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding New Zealand passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
- Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
- Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.