Manaaki New Zealand Scholarships (2025)

Kia ora! New Zealand Scholarships build potential leaders. Our scholars leave with a world-class education, lifelong friendships and vital skills to strengthen their careers and home countries.

Age requirements for New Zealand Scholars

To apply for a full New Zealand Scholarship, you must be 18 years old or older when you start your scholarship. This means if you are 17 years of age when you apply, you must have your 18th birthday before you start your scholarship in semester one.

Exception for Samoa: Applicants applying for the Samoa Foundation intake can be 17 years of age when they commence their scholarship.

There is no upper age limit for applicants. This means if you are 18 and over, you can apply. However, we do prefer applicants who are under 40 years of age for New Zealand Scholarships for university or tertiary students.

Immigration and visa requirements for New Zealand Scholars

Only people who successfully get a New Zealand Scholarship need to apply for a student visa. But all applicants should check if they are likely to meet the student visa requirements before applying for a scholarship.

Check visa requirements before you apply for a scholarship

You only need to apply for a student visa, if we offer you a New Zealand Scholarship and you accept that offer. But before you apply for a New Zealand Scholarship, we strongly recommend that you check the student visa requirements on the relevant immigration website, listed below. This is because you can only study abroad on scholarship, if you successfully get a student visa.

When and how to apply for a student visa

As soon as a scholar accepts a New Zealand Scholarship, they must apply for a student visa on the relevant immigration website below. Once you accept the New Zealand Scholarship we recommend you start your visa application immediately. The visa application process can take two to three months and it involves medical tests.

If a scholarship recipient does not get a student visa, we will have to withdraw the scholarship.

Academic and English requirements for New Zealand Scholars

Successful scholarship applicants must meet both the academic entry requirements and the English language requirements determined by each education institution.

Scholars must contribute to their country’s development

The purpose of a New Zealand Scholarship is to fund the training of citizens from developing countries, so they can positively impact on their country's development by sharing new skills and knowledge gained from their study.

We expect scholars to contribute to their country’s social or economic development for two years after completing their scholarship study.

That is why we expect all scholars to return home after their scholarship for at least two years to contribute to the social and economic development of their own country.

When shortlisting scholarship applicants, we prefer applicants who can clearly describe on their application form, how they will improve their country’s social and economic development after their scholarship. 

Work experience requirements for New Zealand Scholars

Postgraduate scholarship applicants or applicants, who finished high school a few years ago, must have relevant work experience.

When assessing scholarship applications, we prefer applicants who want to study courses that align strongly with their current work experience. We prefer applicants who will continue working in their current job sector after they finish their scholarship.

On their New Zealand Scholarships application form, applicants must describe how their previous work experience relates to their proposed courses or career. Postgraduate applicants or applicants who finished high school a few years ago must have the following work experience:

• One year of fulltime work experience (i.e. 30 hours or more per week), OR
• Two years of part-time work experience (i.e. up to 29 hours per week).

Work experience can be either paid, unpaid or voluntary.

Exception for school leavers and first year undergraduate students: These two types of scholarship applicant do not need work experience:

1. Applicants who are in their final year of Secondary School, OR
2. Applicants who are in their first year of tertiary study that was started in the academic year immediately after completing Secondary School.

These are full tertiary scholarships for eligible international students to study fulltime at a New Zealand education institution or a Pacific university.