About 200,000 people, or five per cent of the fully vaccinated population, still haven't had their vaccine passes issued by the Ministry of Health.
Among those waiting are people who had their shots overseas.
Feilding woman Debi Potten, who was double jabbed in the UK, finally got her vaccine pass issued on Tuesday after waiting three weeks.
She was given a temporary exemption but that expired a week ago so she has been restricted on the places she could visit.
Potten said she felt like "persona non grata" and it had put her life in limbo including a planned Christmas holiday.
In her attempts to get her vaccination pass, she told 1News she was bounced between two different 0800 numbers, Healthline and the Ministry of Health.
"We get very nice people saying yes you're definitely on the system, but you'll just have to wait," Potten said.
She wants to see the process and communication improve for others in a similar situation.
"The not knowing, that was the worst bit."
Eight vaccines are recognised as part of New Zealand's vaccine pass.
The Ministry of Health is still processing 17,699 overseas applications for the vaccine pass.
But the ministry said a number of those applications are complex and staff are having to find out more information before they're completed.
"The process itself is also very involved, with a lot of varying documentation from many different countries and a range of vaccination information that needs to be processed. This has resulted in some applications taking longer than the expected 14 days to complete, as this extra information needs to be reviewed and verified," a Ministry of Health spokesperson said.
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