Auckland's Sky Tower has been lit up in the colours of the German flag tonight as the last Lufthansa plane took off to take German travellers home.

The Lufthansa A380 departed from Auckland for Frankfurt at 6.30pm tonight, the New Zealand German Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

"By end of today we will have moved 8500 stranded Germans back to their homeland," the German-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce confirmed in a statement.

Two flights are expected to depart New Zealand yesterday, including one from Christchurch, bringing the final total of Germans returning home from the country to 9300.