The question we're asked most about source of funds for Active Investor Plus is how many years of records to prepare.
The answer:there is no fixed look-back period.
That sounds like a non-answer, but it goes to the heart of it. INZ doesn't want a fixed span of history. It wants one thing established: that the money was lawfully earned or acquired, and an account of how it accumulated, was held, and finally moved here.
So what decides how many years you dig through isn't a rule. It'show your assets were formed.
Source of funds: no fixed look-back period, but a fixed logic
INZ's core requirement is proof that the investment funds were lawfully earned or acquired, with a reasonable account of how they accumulated, were held and were ultimately transferred to New Zealand.
That sentence contains three questions:
| Question | What must be shown |
|---|---|
| Where did the money come from | The original source: income, profit, sale proceeds, gift or inheritance |
| How did it become what it is now | The transactions, conversions and account movements in between |
| Where is it now | The form and location it's held in, and how it will be transferred here |
If the funds come from three years of company dividends, three years of documents may be enough. If they come from land bought twenty years ago, passed through an inheritance and reinvested into another company, then twenty years is what has to be accounted for.
That isn't obstruction. It's one logic applied to different assets.
Officers don't care about the balance — they care about the history
Many applicants arrive at the first meeting with a bank balance certificate.
A balance certificate answers whether the money is there. It cannot answer where it came from — and that is what the assessment turns on.
Think of it as a river. The officer wants the whole course — where it rises, what it runs through, and whether any stretch is missing. A balance certificate is a photograph of the mouth.
The missing stretch is what triggers a request for more information.Each of those costs weeks. Which is why this work takes longer than people expect — it isn't filling in a form, it's rebuilding a stretch of financial history into a verifiable chain of documents.
Source of funds: the four documents most often missing
These four come up most often in our cases. What they have in common:the applicant genuinely holds the asset, but the paperwork from the time wasn't kept.
1. Records of how assets were built up
The assets exist, but the bank, tax and transaction records from the time are incomplete.
The most common of the four. Wealth is often built over twenty or thirty years, and passbooks, statements and withholding certificates from the early part of that were rarely kept — while banks' own electronic records have retention limits.
In practice they weren't enough. The source of the proceeds is the house — and what the house was bought with is the real origin of the money. That case had to reach back fifteen years to show how the purchase funds had been earned.
“How many years” is the wrong question.The right one is: trace this money upstream — where is the source?
2. Movements between company and personal accounts
No complete chain between company profits, dividends, shareholder current accounts and personal accounts.
This affects owner-operators most. Company earnings, shareholder accounts and personal accounts are in practice often intermingled. But in this assessment every sum moving from company to individual needs its character stated: salary, dividend, repayment of a loan, or something else.
If the character can't be established, that money is difficult to accept as nominated funds.
3. Property transaction documents
Older sale and purchase agreements, payment evidence, deposit records or tax documents are incomplete.
Property is the largest part of most families' assets and the category where documents are most often missing. The house was sold and the money did arrive, but the agreement can't be found, the payment evidence wasn't kept, and which account the proceeds went into is no longer clear.
A complete chain usually needs four links joined: acquisition cost → period of ownership → sale price → funds received. A gap in any one of them has to be shored up with something else.
4. Gift and inheritance documents
Receipt of the money can be shown, but not where the giver's or the deceased's money originally came from.
The most underestimated of the four. People assume a gift or estate tax clearance certificate is enough. It does prove the money was lawfully transferred to you, butit says nothing about where the money came from in the first place.
INZ traces one level further up: how the giver acquired the asset. So what has to be prepared is often not only your own records but your parents' or the deceased's generation of them.
Documents typically used here include gift certificates or related paperwork, family trust deeds and legal documents relating to the estate. Which of them are needed depends on how the asset was transferred.
Which assets stall most often
An important point first:the issue is rarely that a type of asset can't be used — it's that the chain of evidence can't be completed.
These situations need more careful work:
- Large cash transactions in earlier years— nothing wrong with cash, but it leaves no trace to match against a source
- Years of transfers within a family— each transfer is a link in the chain and each needs explaining
- Company shares transferred several times— the price, the method of payment and the source of the consideration may all be queried
- Funds moved through multiple accounts— the more accounts, the more points to join up
- Older assets with no original transaction record— usually rebuilt with substitute documents
Recognising your situation above doesn't mean you can't apply. It meansthe preparation will take longer, and is worth starting earlier.
Before filing we work through how the assets were formed, where the funds came from and what evidence exists, then confirm which assets are suitable to nominate and plan the application around them. Sometimes changing which asset is nominated makes an enormous difference to the difficulty.
Why so many answers are “it depends”
By now you may have noticed how many answers here are “it depends”.
That isn't evasion. The nature of this assessment isone set of principles applied to entirely different asset structures. The same NZ$5m arising from twenty years of steady profit in one company, and from three property transactions plus an inheritance, require completely different documents.
And for that reason,judging which assets to nominate, which documents will hold, and which links need shoring up in advance is where the expertise actually lies at this stage.The rules can be looked up. Applying them to one family's financial history takes experience.
When to start
Earlier than most people think.
INZ currently publishes that 80% of approvals in principle are completed within about three months. But that is the timeafter filing. The source-of-funds work before filing usually takes four to twelve weeks, and longer where the asset structure is complex.
Filing to approval in principle about 3 months (80% of cases)
Transfer and investment normally within 6 months
If you have a fixed date in mind — a child starting a particular school year, say —working backwards shows that the source-of-funds work should begin a year ahead.
FAQ
Do the funds have to be mine?
Nominated funds must be held in the principal applicant's sole name, or jointly with a partner — the latter only where that partner is included in the application.
Can we use assets in my spouse's name?
If an asset is in a partner's sole name it must first be transferred into the principal applicant's name, or into joint names, before it can be nominated. Worth confirming early: the transfer itself takes time and may have tax consequences, and discovering it at filing pushes the whole timeline back.
What if some documents genuinely can't be found?
It depends on the document and the circumstances. A notarised declaration can be used in some cases, though it carries less weight than an original. The strategy is to find originals wherever possible, turn to substitutes only when they genuinely can't be obtained, and then assess whether that affects the viability of nominating that asset at all.
Further reading
Active Investor Plus: requirements and process
Growth or Balanced? The logic behind three family situations
This reflects policy published by Immigration New Zealand as at August 2026. Immigration policy, investment rules and individual eligibility change over time; the conditions that apply are those in force when you apply, assessed against your own circumstances. Nothing here is investment, legal or tax advice.