Americans top the list of people who have overstayed their visa in the last three years.
Overall, an estimated 19,153 people in New Zealand are overstayers, according to Immigration New Zealand.
In the last three years, the visas of 6559 people expired without them leaving.
Immigration New Zealand said new methodology was behind the overall decrease in overstayers from last year's figure of 20,979.
If that change had not occurred there would have been an increase of 15 in the estimated numbers.
Its general manager of immigration compliance and Investigations Steve Watson, said it confirmed the number of overstayers remains very small.
"Each year, INZ processes around one million visa applications and 1.6 million New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority requests and sees around 3.6 million non-New Zealand citizens arrive in New Zealand.
"The vast majority of people who come to New Zealand to visit, work or study comply with their visa conditions and either leave before their visa expires or obtain a further visa to remain lawfully in New Zealand."
Of those who had overstayed since 2023, 925 were from America. The largest percentage of those overstaying compared to visas issued was Tonga, with 666. China, the UK and India finish the top five countries for overstayers.
INZ said a snapshot shows 0.13 per cent of temporary visa arrivals in the last three years went on to overstay their visas.
An overall estimate of overstayers in the last 30 years suggested there are 2694 Chinese overstayers, 2541 from Tonga, 1981 from America and 1522 from India.
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