India-New Zealand FTA Comes Into Force on 20 October 2026

The India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement takes effect on 20 October 2026, the day of Vijay Dashmi. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and New Zealand's Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay announced the date together at a virtual ceremony on 19 October 2026.

What India gains

New Zealand has removed customs duty on every tariff line that covers Indian goods, wiping out peak tariffs that went as high as 10 per cent. Textiles, apparel, leather and footwear, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, automobiles and parts, chemicals, medicines, farm produce and processed food are the sectors expected to gain. Wooden logs, coking coal and metal scrap enter duty-free, which helps factories and MSME supply chains. Goyal said the opening of the market matters most to MSMEs, artisans, farmers and women-led businesses.

Services and mobility

New Zealand's services offer is the widest it has given in any trade pact, covering roughly 118 sectors with Most-Favoured-Nation treatment in about 139 sub-sectors. For the first time it has opened Health and Traditional Medicine Services, which brings in Ayurveda, Yoga and the other AYUSH systems. Indian professionals get a yearly quota of 5,000 Temporary Employment Entry visas and 1,000 Working Holiday visas. No ceiling applies to Indian students, and post-study work rights run to three years for STEM bachelor's and master's graduates and four years for doctoral scholars.

Farm partnership and safeguards

An Agricultural Productivity Partnership carries action plans for kiwifruit, apples and honey. Phase I kiwifruit sites are Pfutsero in Nagaland and Magra in Uttarakhand; two apple centres of excellence are proposed in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and honey centres in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Tariff rate quotas for apples, kiwifruit and Manuka honey are tied to these action plans under a Joint Agriculture Productivity Council. Dairy, sugar, edible oils and other sensitive farm goods stay out of the concessions, and rules of origin plus a bilateral safeguard guard against misuse.

Numbers to remember

Goyal also flagged off the first JCB machine ever exported from India to New Zealand. Negotiations had opened on 16 March 2025 and closed on 22 December 2025, inside nine months, and the pact was signed on 27 April 2026. It feeds the India-New Zealand Strategic Partnership Roadmap to 2030, whose goal is to double two-way trade in goods and services to NZ$7 billion, about Rs 35,000 crore.