Most immigration news is about who can come. This one is about who was being turned away, and it went through with very little noise. From 3 August 2026, hepatitis B and hepatitis C are no longer on New Zealand’s list of high-cost health conditions for resident visa applications (Immigration New Zealand news release).

Bottom line up front: if you have hepatitis B or C, a resident visa application submitted on or after 3 August 2026 is no longer automatically assessed as failing the health requirement. A medical assessor now looks at your actual circumstances instead. That is a genuine change of outcome for people who had been told, in effect, not to bother applying.

What the health requirement actually is

Before we get to what changed, it is worth being clear about what this test is, because it is one of the least understood parts of any application.

New Zealand calls it the acceptable standard of health. Immigration New Zealand checks whether you are a risk to public health, whether you would add significant cost to or place significant demands on New Zealand’s health services, and whether your health would stop you doing the thing the visa is for (Immigration New Zealand · health requirements).

Then there is a sentence on that page that surprises almost everyone I show it to. When Immigration New Zealand decides whether you meet the health requirement, it cannot take into account your ability to use the private health system, any health insurance you hold, or the willingness of family, friends or an organisation to pay for your care (Immigration New Zealand · health requirements).

I have had that conversation many times. Someone says, reasonably, that they will pay for their own treatment and never touch the public system. It does not help. The test is about likely cost and demand on New Zealand’s health services, and an offer to go private is not an answer the rules will accept.

The cost line itself is a number. A resident visa application may be declined if the medical assessor thinks your health service costs are likely to exceed NZD $81,000 (Immigration New Zealand · health requirements). For applications lodged before 4 September 2022 that figure was NZD $41,000, which matters if you are looking back at an old refusal and wondering what threshold you were measured against.

What changed on 3 August

Immigration New Zealand removed hepatitis B and hepatitis C from the high-cost health conditions list, because treatment for both now costs well below the significant cost threshold (Immigration New Zealand news release). Medicine got cheaper, so the rule that assumed it was expensive stopped making sense.

The practical difference is the word automatic. Before, being on that list meant an assessor would find that you were likely to impose significant costs, without much room to argue. Now, INZ says its medical assessors will consider the individual medical circumstances of each applicant with hepatitis B or C (Immigration New Zealand news release).

You still have to meet the health requirement. Nobody is being waved through. But you are being assessed as a person rather than as a diagnosis, and for this particular pair of conditions that is the whole difference.

Immigration New Zealand worked with the Ministry of Health on the change, and Pharmac supported it (Immigration New Zealand news release). That matters for a small reason worth knowing: this is a considered clinical position, not a temporary loosening that might snap back next year.

Three other conditions had their wording narrowed

The same update rewrote several entries on the high-cost list to be clearer about what is actually caught (Immigration New Zealand news release):

  • Major psychiatric illness and addiction are now included only where significant support is required.
  • Severe autoimmune disease wording was updated to recognise a wider range of lower-cost treatment options.
  • Renal and hepatic disorders wording was clarified to better reflect which conditions were meant to be on the list in the first place. The live list now reads as severe renal or hepatic disorders that are chronic or progressive (Immigration New Zealand · health requirements).

Read those three carefully if any of them is close to your situation. A list entry that used to catch a broad category and now catches only the severe or high-support end of it is not a small edit. It is the difference between an automatic problem and an ordinary assessment.

Medical waivers still exist, and they are not the same thing

If you do not meet the health requirement, that is not always the end. Immigration New Zealand may consider a medical waiver, and it only declines outright when it cannot give one (Immigration New Zealand · health requirements).

A waiver is a separate argument with its own evidence, and not every visa category is eligible for one. It is worth knowing the option exists, and worth knowing it is not something you should be relying on as a first plan.

What I would actually do

If you were declined on health grounds before, go and check which condition was cited. If it was hepatitis B or C, the rule that stopped you is gone. If it was a psychiatric, autoimmune, renal or hepatic condition, the wording has moved and may no longer catch you. A refusal from three years ago tells you what the rules were then, not what they are now.

Check the date on your application, not the date of your diagnosis. The hepatitis change applies to resident visa applications submitted on or after 3 August 2026. An application already in the system before that date sits under the old settings.

Do not volunteer a self-assessment. People sometimes decide in advance that they will fail and either give up or, worse, leave something off the form. Non-disclosure is a character problem as well as a health one, and it is far harder to recover from than a condition that is simply assessed and found acceptable.

Get the medical done properly and early. Where a condition is likely to need discussion, the quality and completeness of the specialist evidence tends to decide the outcome, not the diagnosis itself.

If you have been carrying an old refusal around, or you have been assuming that a diagnosis rules you out, send me a few details and I will tell you honestly whether the door is actually open now.

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