New Zealand Superannuation is one of the more portable state pensions in this series. Portable doesn't mean unaffected, and the FIF rules on whatever's left in KiwiSaver are where most Kiwi retirees in Colombia get an unpleasant surprise.

Why IRD Might Still Think You Live in New Zealand

Inland Revenue doesn't use a simple day-count to decide whether you're still a New Zealand tax resident, and that catches out more retirees moving to Colombia than any single tax rule in this piece. Spend more than 183 days outside New Zealand in any 12-month period and you can stop being a tax resident under the day-count test. But IRD also applies a permanent place of abode test, and if you still have one in New Zealand — a family home you haven't sold or genuinely let go of, most commonly — you can remain a New Zealand tax resident regardless of how many days you spend in Medellín.

Sell the house, or let it long-term to someone who isn't family, and genuinely relocate your life, and the permanent-place-of-abode test stops anchoring you. Until you've actually done that, IRD can keep treating you, and your Colombian brokerage account, as though you never left.

Take Graham, 67, who moves to Medellín but keeps the family bach in the Bay of Islands "for the grandkids." On paper he's ticked the day-count box — he's not in New Zealand for more than half the year. IRD can still find him resident under the permanent-place-of-abode test, because a furnished home kept available to him counts as a place he could live, whether or not he's actually staying there. Every dollar of the portfolio he thought he'd left behind in New Zealand stays inside the FIF net until he sells the bach, or genuinely lets it go to someone outside the family on an arm's-length basis.

NZ Super Overseas: Portability and the Direct Deduction

NZ Super is more portable than most state pensions covered in this series, but portability comes with conditions rather than a blank cheque. New Zealand doesn't have a social security agreement with Colombia, so you're relying on the general overseas-portability settings rather than a bilateral agreement, and how much of NZ Super you can draw while living in Colombia depends on your qualifying years of New Zealand residence rather than a flat entitlement everyone gets regardless of history.

On top of that, the direct deduction policy reduces your NZ Super by the amount of any overseas state pension you actually receive, so a UK State Pension or an equivalent sitting alongside NZ Super doesn't simply stack on top of it — Work and Income nets the two off against each other.

KiwiSaver After You Leave

KiwiSaver doesn't just sit there once you're gone. If you've permanently emigrated — genuinely left, not on an extended holiday — you can apply to withdraw most of your KiwiSaver balance after being overseas for more than twelve months, though government member tax credits are typically excluded from what you can take out. The practical question is timing: withdraw and convert to pesos in one move, or leave it invested and manage it as an offshore holding once you're a Colombian tax resident. Either choice carries FIF consequences, which is where this actually gets complicated.

The FIF Rules on What You Take (or Leave) Invested

New Zealand's Foreign Investment Fund rules exist to stop New Zealand tax residents deferring tax by holding growth offshore instead of onshore, and they apply to New Zealand tax residents — exactly the group IRD's permanent-place-of-abode test can keep you inside for longer than you'd expect. If you're still an NZ tax resident and you hold more than NZD 50,000 (cost basis) in most offshore shares and funds, FIF typically taxes you on a deemed annual return regardless of what the investment actually paid out that year — meaning New Zealand can tax growth Colombia hasn't touched yet, and in some cases growth you haven't received as cash at all.

The moment you genuinely cease NZ tax residency, FIF stops applying to you. That's one more reason resolving the permanent-place-of-abode question cleanly, rather than leaving it ambiguous, matters more for a Kiwi retiree than it does for almost anyone else in this series.

No Capital Gains Tax Cuts Both Ways

One thing works cleanly in your favour: New Zealand has no general capital gains tax, so selling down a share portfolio or an investment property outside the residential bright-line period doesn't trigger the exit-year CGT bill an Australian or British retiree in the same position would face. That absence is also part of why FIF exists in the form it does — taxing offshore portfolio growth on a deemed basis precisely because New Zealand doesn't otherwise tax capital gains the way most of the home countries in this series do.

The Colombian Side

On the Colombian side, the mechanics are the ones every retiree in this series deals with. Colombian tax residency starts once you've spent more than 183 days in the country within any 365-day period, at which point DIAN expects a worldwide income declaration, with the first 1,000 UVT of monthly pension income exempt and the balance taxed on Colombia's ordinary scale. New Zealand and Colombia have no tax treaty, so there's no tie-breaker clause if both IRD and DIAN try to claim you as resident in the same year — one more reason to resolve the New Zealand side of the question decisively rather than let it sit unclear across two tax systems at once.

What to Sort Out Before You Land

Book a scoping call before you finalise the move. We'll test your position against IRD's permanent-place-of-abode rules specifically, not just the day count, map what happens to your KiwiSaver and any FIF-exposed investments under each residency scenario, and coordinate the timing with your Colombian tax residency start date so you're not accidentally resident in both countries for the same stretch of the year.

General information for New Zealanders weighing a move to Colombia. It doesn't replace advice from a chartered accountant familiar with your IRD position and KiwiSaver scheme.