Hiring undocumented workers is now an enforcement target not a paperwork risk

There are an estimated 19,153 people currently overstaying their visas in New Zealand, and Immigration New Zealand has worked out where a lot of them are: at work. Speaking to Mike Hosking on 16 September 2026, INZ Compliance and Investigations General Manager Steve Watson put it bluntly: “Employment is a major drawcard for people who overstay.”

That single line reframes the entire overstayer story. This is not just an immigration problem to be solved at the airport. It is an employer compliance problem, and INZ has said targeting unlawful employers is now a strong focus of its work. For businesses in the sectors that have leaned on migrant labour, the calculus has changed.

The enforcement machine has been quietly scaled up

The numbers most coverage has missed sit in INZ’s own investigations and compliance data. Deportation orders rose from 225 in 2023/24 to 635 in 2025/26, nearly tripling in two years. Deportation liability notices climbed from 93 to 524 over the same period. Total departures reached 1,393 in 2025/26, and the agency logged 5,961 complaints and issued $641,000 in infringement fines.

This is not a static system going through the motions. Since the border reopened in July 2022, the compliance apparatus has been building steadily. Businesses that assumed enforcement was theoretical are working off out-of-date information.

The tool that removes your excuse

The sharpest change came in April 2025, when INZ reported the first-year results of its employment infringement scheme. The scheme handed the agency a graduated penalty below full criminal prosecution: 142 infringement notices to 139 employers, totalling $431,000 in year one. The largest single fine was $27,000 to a mining business for underpaying migrant workers. A Wellington construction company copped $18,000 for having five migrants working in breach of their visa conditions.

Then-Acting General Manager Michael Carley said in April 2025 that before the scheme, INZ had limited tools for lower-level offending. Now, he said, “employers can no longer claim they are unaware of the rules of hiring migrants, nor can they rely on their past compliance to escape the consequences.” The “I didn’t know” defence is gone. That is a material change in legal exposure, not a rhetorical flourish.

The ban hurts more than the fine

The legal reality is spelled out in Copeland McAllister Law’s May 2026 analysis, the most current treatment of employer risk. Liability applies even where a breach is unintentional. An employer cannot rely on ignorance of visa conditions. The test is whether the business took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence.

Get it wrong and you face fines, reputational damage, extra scrutiny on future visa applications, and a minimum six-month ban on hiring migrants. For a business already unable to fill roles, that hiring ban is arguably more damaging than any fine. It removes your recruitment pipeline at the exact moment you need it most.

Which sectors are in the firing line

The top three sectors for infringement notices in the scheme’s first year were construction, hospitality, and the beauty industry. That is not random. These are precisely the sectors that hit acute labour shortages after Covid, that have historically depended on migrant workers, and where informal or cash-in-hand arrangements are more common.

The legislative backdrop reinforces the direction of travel. In September 2025, the Government announced strengthened deportation settings, including lifting penalties for migrant exploitation from seven to ten years’ imprisonment and expanding deportation liability. INZ officers also gained broader powers to request identity-based information where they suspect a visa breach.

What sensible employers do now

The honest framing is that overstaying is a small proportion of a very large system. Only 0.13% of temporary visa arrivals over the last three years went on to overstay. But the agency’s intent, tools and track record are all pointing one way, and businesses that ignore that are gambling with their ability to hire.

The practical steps are not onerous. Copeland McAllister Law recommends using INZ’s Visa View tool to verify work rights, checking visa conditions and expiry dates on an ongoing basis rather than just at onboarding, aligning payroll and rostering with employment agreements, reviewing any change to duties or location against visa conditions, and training managers on the immigration consequences of operational decisions.

Treated as a periodic box-tick, immigration compliance is now a live enforcement risk. Treated as an ongoing business process, it is manageable. INZ has told employers which one it expects.

Sources

• Unlawful employers a ‘strong focus’ for Immigration NZ as it tackles thousands of visa overstayers (2026-09-16)
• More than 900 Americans have overstayed their visa in last three years (2026-09-15)
• Investigations and compliance (2024-09-17)
• Managing immigration compliance risk: what employers need to know (2026-05-26)
• Government announces crackdown on immigration breaches with new deportation rules, as overstayer numbers revealed (2025-09-03)
• Deporting criminals set to get easier under law change (2025-09-04)