Immigration New Zealand has reported a sharp increase in student visa refusals, rejecting 34 percent of full-fee applications between July and September 2026. The surge, which follows concerns over fraudulent financial documents and the use of sub-agents, has disproportionately impacted applicants from India and Bangladesh, prompting warnings about the sector’s rapid growth.
Refusal Rates and Fraud Concerns in Bangladesh and India
The rejection rate for international student visa applications rose significantly in the three-month window ending in September 2026. According to data provided to Radio New Zealand, the refusal rate for full-fee study applications hit 34 percent, a stark increase from the 13 percent recorded in the 2025–26 financial year. Between July and September 2026, a total of 6,273 full-fee student visa applications from all countries were turned down by Immigration New Zealand, coming close to the 7,503 denials tallied throughout the entire 2025–26 financial year.
The impact is most visible in Bangladesh and India, where refusal rates have nearly doubled. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) declined 70 percent of applications from Bangladesh and 39 percent from India during this period. The agency has publicly identified five countries—Nigeria, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and China—where it has detected fraudulent supporting documents and misleading financial information.
INZ is seeing increasingly sophisticated fraud in student visa applications, including genuine documents being altered, reused or repurposed across multiple applications to make those applications appear legitimate.
Immigration New Zealand
Official figures show that in the 2026 calendar year to date, offshore student visa applications from India have made up 22 percent of offshore volume received at 9,103 applications, China accounted for 21 percent at 8,751, Bangladesh made up 9 percent at 3,858, and Nepal represented 7 percent at 2,924.
The Role of Education Agents and Sub-Agents
Immigration advisers suggest that the rise in fraud is linked to the practices of recruitment agents in South Asia. Arunima Dhingra of Aims Global, who was in India recently, noted that agents have been using fake documents to show students had enough money to support themselves
and, in some cases, recirculating the same financial paperwork across multiple applications. Immigration New Zealand stated that it regularly identifies financial evidence being reused across multiple applications.
Himanshu Rai of Immigration Advisers New Zealand described the process as a money-making machine,
where sub-agents present their own company funds as belonging to the student to bypass financial requirements. This practice has led to what some in the sector call collateral damage,
where genuine students are caught in the resulting crackdown. Historical data shows that similar surges in student visa rejections among Indian applicants occurred in 2024 and around 2016 in New Zealand, driven by official worries regarding fake paperwork and sub-agent involvement.
Comparison with International Settings
The surge in New Zealand’s refusal rates coincides with tighter immigration settings in other major study destinations. Education agents report that some recruiters have redirected students to New Zealand after Australia and Canada tightened their rules. Furthermore, Britain also strengthened compliance requirements for universities, with institutions reportedly withdrawing admission offers from applicants in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh over concerns about exceeding visa refusal thresholds.
Unlike Britain, which introduced nationality-specific student visa restrictions on 26 March 2026 affecting applicants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan, New Zealand maintains that its recent refusals result from individual assessments of applications and supporting documents.
Sector Growth and Future Oversight
Despite the high refusal rates, demand remains high. INZ reported receiving 62,630 international student visa applications between January and September 2026, a 24 percent increase compared to the 50,565 applications received during the same period in 2025. In September, approximately 62,700 people held a valid international student visa, which is roughly 6,000 more than the total recorded in September 2025. Bangladesh has emerged as a significant market, having previously featured in New Zealand’s top source markets and now holding the third-highest volume of offshore international student visa submissions.
Education New Zealand chief executive David Downs stated that New Zealand’s ambition is to grow international education sustainably. He noted that the organization encourages providers to monitor their agents closely and that individual providers must decide how to invest their international student revenue. As refusal rates climb, institutions such as Victoria University have seen approval rates for Bangladeshi applicants drop sharply, highlighting the immediate financial and operational impact on the education sector. Whether these tightened measures will deter future fraudulent activity or continue to affect the pipeline of genuine students remains a point of concern for industry stakeholders.
