Indians in Wellington: the 2026 guide to Kilbirnie, Newlands, Johnsonville, Naenae, Lower Hutt, Porirua and Tawa

Wellington — Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and Pōneke to its residents — is New Zealand's capital and the centre of Indian life in the lower North Island. The 2023 census counted 520,971 usual residents in the Wellington region, and 27,879 of them gave Indian as one of their ethnic groups: 5.4% of the region, the fifth-largest ethnic group there after New Zealand European (343,467), Māori (80,613), Other European (43,905) and Samoan (28,803), and just ahead of Chinese (22,695). The region holds 9.5% of the 292,092 people of Indian ethnicity in New Zealand. Stats NZ counts ethnicity — the group or groups a person chooses to identify with — and not passports or birthplaces, so a New Zealand-born Indian, a Fijian Indian and a student who landed in 2022 are all in the number, as is anyone who named two ethnicities. It covers people who usually lived in the region on census night, 7 March 2023, so nobody who arrived afterwards is in it.

"Wellington" in this guide means the region, because the Indian community lives as much in the Hutt Valley as in the capital. Stats NZ's counts by territorial authority (shown on Figure.NZ) are Wellington City 13,224, Lower Hutt 7,995, Upper Hutt 2,517, Porirua 2,421, the Kāpiti Coast 1,008 and the three Wairarapa districts 714 between them. Set against each authority's 2023 population, that is about 6.5% of Wellington City's 202,689 residents, 7.4% of Lower Hutt's 107,562, 5.5% of Upper Hutt's 45,759 and 4.1% of Porirua's 59,445 — our arithmetic from the two tables. So Lower Hutt has a higher Indian share than the capital, and the city and Lower Hutt together hold three in four (76%) of the region's Indian residents.

The national rules — the Accredited Employer Work Visa, the India visas that opened on 20 October 2026, tax and the IRD number, health eligibility, school fees by visa, driving and citizenship — are in the Indians in New Zealand guide and the New Zealand jobs guide, which this page does not repeat. The Auckland guide is the sister page for the country's largest Indian community, and the temples page lists every place of worship we confirmed. This page is about Wellington.

Wellington's Indian community is a century old, and it is organised. The Wellington Indian Association was founded on 1 March 1925, according to its Give A Little page, which gives 64 founding members and an incorporation in 1944; the association's own site says 1925. The New Zealand Indian Central Association followed in 1926 with three branches — Auckland, a country section at Taumarunui and Wellington — and today the Wellington Indian Association is its only full member in the capital. Many of the early arrivals in the city were Gujarati, from the south of the state. Te Papa holds a 1930s studio portrait of Vallabh Jasvant (1901–1960), born in Tavdi village in Navsari district, who reached Wellington in 1919 and, with five cousins, ran two fruit shops, Cuba Fruit Mart and Ghee's Fruit Shop, before 1945. The association's centenary was marked on 1 March 2025, and two books accompanied it: the historian Jacqueline Leckie's "Wellington's Indian Story: Beyond a Century", whose launch the High Commissioner addressed, and the association's own "Samaj & Seva: 100 years of the Wellington Indian Association". An RNZ item linked from the association's home page traces the Indian presence in New Zealand back to about 1769, when Indian sailors served on East India Company ships.

The recent growth is the national one. Between 2018 and 2023 the Indian ethnic group grew by 22.1% across New Zealand, and by 88.2% since 2013, through skilled migration, family sponsorship and students; in Wellington City the Asian share of residents rose from 18.3% to 20.4% in the same five years. Victoria University of Wellington's international students from India grew from 104 in 2021 to 284 in 2025.

What the 2023 census says about the region

Stats NZ publishes no count by Indian state of origin, and this guide will not guess. The associations are the better guide: Gujarati families came first, and both the Wellington Indian Association and the Indian Cultural Society in Petone teach Gujarati; Sikh Punjabis have the Naenae gurdwara and the Wellington Punjabi Women Association; Tamils have the Kurinchi Kumaran Temple, the Wellington Tamil Society and the Wellington Mutamizh Sangam; and the High Commission's 2022 directory lists Wellington groups for Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Garhwali and Kumaoni speakers and a Fiji Indian Association (more under associations and classes).

Where Indian families live

Suburb figures below are Wikipedia's tabulation of the 2023 census. They are for Asian ethnicity as a whole (which includes Chinese, Southeast Asian and others) and for Hindu affiliation, so they show where the community is concentrated, not an exact Indian share. - Kilbirnie (4,701 people across Kilbirnie Central and East; 22.8% Asian, 6.4% Hindu, 34.2% born overseas) — the heart of the community, with Bharat Bhavan on Kemp Street, the Coutts Street shops and the airport nearby. - Newlands (8,340; 32.7% Asian, 8.1% Hindu, 36.9% born overseas, median age 35.0) — the suburb with the highest Hindu share of those listed here, around the Kurinchi Kumaran Temple on Batchelor Street. - Johnsonville (11,520; 33.0% Asian, 5.5% Hindu, 39.8% born overseas, median income NZ$53,900) — the terminus of the Johnsonville railway line and the northern suburbs' shopping centre. - Tawa (12,654; 21.1% Asian, 3.6% Hindu, 32.5% born overseas), on the Kāpiti Line. - Newtown — where the Spinoff found 35% of residents born overseas, with the Riddiford Street shops and the hospital next door. - Naenae (8,739; 15.0% Asian, 3.1% Hindu, median income NZ$36,300) — the BAPS mandir, consecrated in August 2025, and the gurdwara, in Lower Hutt. - Petone (7,734; 17.5% Asian, 4.8% Hindu) — Jackson Street's restaurants and the Indian Cultural Society's hall. - Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua: in 2018 India was the second-largest overseas birthplace in Lower Hutt, with 3,183 people, behind England, and Upper Hutt (45,759 people; 11.9% Asian) and Porirua (59,445; 11.5% Asian) have smaller communities.

The rule of thumb: families who want a temple within walking distance choose Kilbirnie or Newlands; those who want space for the money choose Naenae, Taita or the Porirua suburbs; students and young professionals take flats in Te Aro and Newtown.

The national paperwork — the IRD number, a bank account, tax codes and health eligibility — is in the Indians in New Zealand guide and the jobs guide. This is the Wellington version, in the order that works here.

1. A short stay, not a lease. Landlords and property managers ask for references, a job letter and a bank history you do not yet have, and a week or two in a short-term room lets you see houses in person and pick a suburb after you know where you will work. Never pay a bond, holding fee or rent for a house you have not stood inside, and never pay anyone who is not the landlord or the property manager named on the listing.
2. Your IRD number. Apply online as a new arrival on your first days; without it your employer must tax you at 45%.
3. A bank account and a phone. The large banks open accounts for new migrants on a passport and visa; One NZ, Spark and 2degrees are the three main mobile networks.
4. A Snapper card, or your bank card. Metlink's stored-value card is Snapper, topped up in the Snapper app, at kiosks and at retailers. Since 2026 an adult can also tap a contactless bank card or phone on Metlink buses and trains, but without concessions or free transfers. See getting around.
5. Enrol with a GP, if you are eligible. A work visa that lets you stay two years or more qualifies; reduced fees apply only when you are enrolled, so do it in week one. The rules are in the health section of the country guide.
6. Check a school's zone before you sign a lease. Many Wellington state schools have a home zone, and a place is guaranteed only if you live inside it. See schools.
7. Learn the earthquake basics. Drop, cover and hold; if a quake is long or strong, leave tsunami zones at once on foot. WREMO runs free household earthquake planning sessions, in person and online. See weather and earthquakes.
8. Ask about warmth and damp. The 2023 census found 19.9% of homes in the region damp at least some of the time and 14.2% with mould larger than an A4 sheet sometimes or always. The Healthy Homes standards on heating, insulation and ventilation apply to rentals; see renting.
9. Your driving licence. Indian licences are valid for a limited time and India is not an exempt country; the rules are in the driving section of the country guide.
10. The mandir, the gurdwara or the association. An evening aarti at the Gita Mandir in Kilbirnie, langar at the Naenae gurdwara or a Wellington Indian Association event will give you the name of a landlord, an accountant and a GP faster than any website — and the Wellington groups on Namaste Community do the same without your having to know anyone first.
11. Check anyone who asks for money. Immigration New Zealand warns that job-offer scams are common in India and South Asia; if an employer, agent or "consultant" asks you to pay for a job, a visa or a letter, stop and read the scams section of the jobs guide.

Rent is the largest line in a Wellington budget, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment publishes the rent on every bond lodged with Tenancy Services. Its market-rent tool, opened suburb by suburb on 23 October 2026, covers the six months from 1 March to 31 August 2026. The figures are weekly rents in New Zealand dollars; "bonds" is the number of tenancies in the sample, so a large number means a reliable median.

Read across, the pattern is plain. A three-bedroom house costs about NZ$700 a week in Kilbirnie, Churton Park and Petone, NZ$650 to 660 in Newlands and Johnsonville, and NZ$600 in Naenae, so the Hutt Valley saves a family roughly NZ$50 to 100 a week on the northern suburbs for a longer train ride. Te Aro is cheap by the headline median (NZ$530) only because most of its bonds are apartments and rooms; a one-bedroom apartment there is NZ$450. Some lower quartiles look low — Tawa NZ$300, Hutt Central NZ$255 — because the sample mixes whole-house tenancies with rooms and low-rent flats, so read the median for the property type you actually want. We left out Titahi Bay and Elsdon, whose published all-property medians (NZ$285 and NZ$190) sit far below the house medians in the same tables and cannot be read as market rents, and Upper Hutt's central suburb, where the sample is only 66 bonds.

The asking market, beside the bonds

Bond medians describe tenancies already running; asking rents describe what a newcomer meets. Trade Me's Rental Price Index, opened on 23 October 2026, put the Wellington median asking rent at NZ$600 a week in August 2026, up close to 2% (NZ$10) on August 2025 and flat on the month, against NZ$625 nationally and NZ$660 in Auckland. The 2023 census median rent paid by Wellington-region households was NZ$500 a week, a reminder that long-standing tenants pay less than new ones.

The rules (Tenancy Services)

These are national, and the housing section of the country guide and the Auckland guide set them out in full. In short: a general bond is at most four weeks' rent and must be lodged with Tenancy Services; rent can rise at most once in 12 months, with at least 60 days' written notice; letting fees are banned; and rentals must meet the Healthy Homes standards for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and draughts. Get a written tenancy agreement and a bond receipt, and check the landlord's name against the agreement.

Scams and shared houses

A house at half the going rate, a landlord who is "overseas", a request for the bond before a viewing or for your passport as "security" are the patterns to refuse everywhere in New Zealand. Pay only after you have seen the house, met the person and checked the name; students sharing in Te Aro, Newtown and Kelburn should also check what the lease says about who is liable if a flatmate leaves.

Many Wellington households can manage with one car or none, because trains run from Wellington Station up the Hutt Valley, to Johnsonville and to Tawa and Porirua. The region's public transport is Metlink, run by Greater Wellington Regional Council, and its fares changed in 2026: they rose 3.1% on 15 May, the off-peak discount was cut from 30% to 20%, and contactless payment arrived.

Fares from 15 May 2026

Fares depend on the number of zones, counting the zone you start and end in. Metlink's list puts Kilbirnie's shops on the boundary between zones 2 and 3, Newlands, Johnsonville, Karori and Miramar in zone 3, Tawa, Petone, Hutt Central and Waterloo in zone 4, Naenae, Taita, Porirua and Wainuiomata in zone 5, Whitby and Silverstream in zone 6 and Upper Hutt in zone 7. Adult Snapper fares, from the Metlink table:

Peak on buses is weekdays 7am to 9am and 3pm to 6:30pm, and on trains weekdays until 9am and from 3pm to 6:30pm. Off-peak is weekdays 9am to 3pm and after 6:30pm, and all day on weekends and public holidays. A bus-only 30-day Snapper pass for Wellington is NZ$187.00, close to what 20 peak return journeys from a three-zone suburb cost at NZ$4.67 each way (NZ$186.80), so a commuter who can travel off-peak is better off paying per trip. Children under five travel free, a child concession is half the adult fare, and a tertiary concession (for students at a tertiary institution) is a quarter off; concessions need a Snapper card. The Airport Express bus has its own flat fare, listed by Metlink at NZ$9.23 for an adult.

Snapper, contactless and Motu Move

Snapper is the stored-value card. Since 2026 an adult can also tag on and off with a contactless bank card or phone on Metlink buses and trains, at the same fare plus a 1.5% card fee, but without concessions, passes, free transfers or paying for another person, and Metlink says cash will be phased out by March 2027. The card is the first step towards the national ticketing system, Motu Move, which has slipped repeatedly: the national transport agency told 1News in December 2025 that it expected Motu Move to be implemented in mid-2027 and completed by the end of 2027. Until then, use Snapper if you are a student or have children.

Trains, buses and the ferry

The Johnsonville line serves Johnsonville; the Kāpiti Line serves Tawa (Linden, Tawa, Redwood and Takapu Road) and Porirua; the Hutt Valley line serves Petone, Waterloo, Naenae, Taita and Upper Hutt. Newlands has no station and is served by buses, several of which connect to Johnsonville and the city, and Kilbirnie is served by the city's buses. A harbour ferry runs from Queens Wharf to Days Bay; it takes bank cards, not Snapper cards or cash.

The airport and flights home

Wellington Airport lists non-stop international flights to Nadi, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, on Air New Zealand, Fiji Airways, Jetstar and Qantas. There is nothing to India, so a trip home goes through Australia or through Auckland; the Auckland guide records the Air India and Air New Zealand codeshare that connects through Sydney, Melbourne or Singapore.

Driving

The driving section of the country guide sets out how long an Indian licence is valid and how to convert it. Wellington's hills, one-way streets and parking prices make a second car the first thing many families drop.

Wellington's weather is milder than most newcomers fear and windier than they expect. At Kelburn, on the hill above the city, the 1991–2020 normals give a mean daily maximum of 20.3°C in January and 11.7°C in July, a mean minimum of 13.7°C and 6.7°C, about 1,319 mm of rain and 2,094 hours of sun a year; the record low is −1.9°C and the record high 31.1°C. Frosts are common from May to September in the hill suburbs and the Hutt Valley, and snow at low levels is rare. The wind is the defining feature: Wikipedia describes Wellington as the windiest city in the world by average wind speed, at about 27 km/h, which is why a coat with a hood is of more use than an umbrella. Much of the winter cold is felt indoors, not outdoors: the 2023 census found 19.9% of homes in the region damp at least some of the time and 14.2% with mould larger than an A4 sheet, sometimes or always. Ask a landlord about the heating and insulation before you sign, and use the Healthy Homes standards in renting.

Earthquakes

Several major faults cross the Wellington region, including those of the Wairarapa, Wellington and Ohariu, and the Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO) — which coordinates civil defence for the region's nine councils — lists earthquakes first among its hazards, ahead of tsunami, floods and severe weather. Its advice is short and specific: - During shaking: drop, cover and hold. Get low, shelter under a strong table or next to an interior wall, and protect your head and neck. Do not stand in a doorway, and do not run outside; most injuries come from falling objects. - Long or strong, get gone. If shaking lasts longer than a minute, or is strong enough that you cannot stand, leave tsunami zones the moment it stops — inland, uphill or to the fifth floor or higher — without waiting for an official warning. The first wave can arrive in as little as ten minutes. Leave on foot or by bike, not by car. - Know your zone. The tsunami evacuation zones are coloured red, orange and yellow, and you can search an address on WREMO's map. Do it for your home, your workplace and your child's school before you sign a lease. - Store water. WREMO calls emergency water the single most useful thing to store, enough for seven days, with a grab bag by the door, an emergency toilet plan (do not flush after a quake) and a household plan. - Make the home safer. Fix tall furniture, hot water cylinders and free-standing wood burners; a landlord's permission is needed for some of it, so ask.

WREMO runs free one-hour Household Earthquake Planning sessions, in person and online, and publishes its Earthquake Planning Guide in 17 languages. Its Community Emergency Hubs, run by neighbours, are where people gather after a big quake, and meeting your neighbours now is part of the advice. The risk is long-term, not a forecast: nobody can predict when a fault will rupture, and the sensible response is a plan, not avoiding the region.

Wellington's job market is built around government, and in 2026 that is the story. The honest summary is a smaller public sector than at its 2023 peak, a plan to shrink it further, and a regional unemployment rate that has risen. Stats NZ's Household Labour Force Survey, as shown on Figure.NZ, had the Wellington region at 6.3% in the March 2026 quarter, up from 4.2% and 4.3% in the middle of 2025; the national rate reached 5.6% in the June 2026 quarter, the highest in eleven years, and we could not read the region's June figure. Infometrics, quoted by RNZ, put the central Wellington area at 5.1% for the year to December 2025, against 4.7% a year before, and said Wellington's spending fell 2.8% over the year. The jobs guide has the national picture.

The public service, in numbers

• The Public Service Commission's figures: full-time-equivalent staff in the core public service peaked at 65,699 in December 2023, fell 4.6% to a low of 62,654 in June 2025, and were 63,912 at 30 June 2026, 2.0% above a year earlier. The Wellington region held 41.2% of the Public Service workforce in the latest data, down from 42.6% a year earlier and 44.9% in 2021.
• The 19 May 2026 plan: the Finance Minister announced a target of about 55,000 core public service full-time roles by July 2029 — about 8,700 fewer, according to 1News — with most agency operating budgets cut 2% in the first year and 5% in each of the next two, mergers of agencies, and $2.4 billion of savings redirected, the government said, to health, education, infrastructure, defence and police. Teachers, doctors, nurses, Health NZ staff, police and defence staff are outside the savings exercise, as are several agencies including Corrections and Oranga Tamariki, though the Minister said that did not make them immune from headcount reductions.
• The argument: the Public Service Association called the plan destructive; the NZ Initiative called it precisely right; Infometrics said Wellington would have to adjust to a public sector that is a weaker driver of the economy and that the process would be gradual. A general election is due on 7 November 2026, the day before Diwali, and commentators quoted in the coverage said the plan could change after it.

For a migrant the effect is mostly indirect. The state sector's jobs portal says a non-citizen appointed to a permanent public service position must hold residence, and a fixed-term position needs a work visa that suits the role, so an arrival on an employer-tied work visa is rarely competing for the permanent roles; the exposure is to the work that public spending supports — contractors, consultancies, hospitality, retail and rentals.

Who else hires

Employment by industry in the region at the 2023 census was led by public administration and safety (16.3%), professional, scientific and technical services (12.5%), health care and social assistance (9.3%), construction (8.6%), retail (7.4%), education and training (7.1%) and accommodation and food services (5.9%), with 294,144 people employed. - Health. Health New Zealand runs Wellington Regional Hospital in Newtown and Hutt Hospital on High Street, both with emergency departments, and Kenepuru Community Hospital in Porirua. Registered nurses are one of the jobs on the India Skilled Work Visa, which opened on 20 October 2026 with 900 places; the visa section of the country guide and the jobs guide have the conditions. - Universities and colleges. Victoria University of Wellington had 18,759 students at 9 March 2026, Massey University has a campus on Wallace Street in Mount Cook, and Whitireia and WelTec — with campuses in Wellington, Petone and Porirua and more than 8,000 students a year — become a single standalone institution on 1 January 2027. - Technology. Xero and Trade Me are both headquartered in Wellington; Xero's 2026 annual report gives it 5,114 employees worldwide. Software engineers and ICT project managers are on the India Skilled Work Visa list (1,000 places), and the jobs guide explains how the Accredited Employer Work Visa works for the rest. - Local government, the airport and small business. The councils, Wellington Airport and the Indian-owned shops, restaurants, accountants and travel agents listed in the Indian businesses directory for New Zealand all hire.

What helps

Check an employer against Immigration New Zealand's accredited-employer list before you send documents. The market is small and networked: the Wellington Indian Association, the temples and the groups are where "my team is hiring" is said first. And you never pay for a job: report any request to MBIE on 0800 200 088, and read the jobs guide's section on fraud.

On the rent figures that matter, Wellington is cheaper than Auckland on Trade Me's asking index and dearer than most of the Hutt Valley and Porirua on the bond data, and its housing market is soft: RNZ reported in May 2026 that Wellington house values were still 27% below their peak, the largest fall in the country. Numbeo's Wellington page refused our request on 23 October 2026 (a monthly limit), so there is no crowd-sourced shopping basket here; the Auckland guide has Auckland's, and the figures below are the official ones.

The fixed costs, worked through

Take the Tenancy Services medians for the March–August 2026 bonds and convert them to months (weekly rent × 52 ÷ 12). The jobs guide's take-home pay for 2026–27 is about NZ$55,550 a year from a NZ$70,000 salary and NZ$75,370 from NZ$100,000, before any KiwiSaver (which a work-visa holder cannot join), or NZ$4,630 and NZ$6,280 a month.

That arithmetic is why many new arrivals share a house for their first months, and why a family on one income often starts in the Hutt Valley.

Pay and transport

The adult minimum wage is NZ$23.95 an hour since 1 April 2026. The Living Wage — a voluntary rate set by the Family Centre Social Policy Unit and paid by accredited employers — rose to NZ$29.90 an hour on 1 September 2026. The median personal income in the Wellington region was NZ$48,700 at the 2023 census. On transport, a three-zone commuter making 20 peak return journeys a month pays about NZ$187 (2 × NZ$4.67 × 20), the same as a bus-only 30-day pass at NZ$187.00, and off-peak travel is a fifth cheaper; compare that with petrol, which the Auckland guide records at NZ$3.505 a litre on 5 October 2026.

What saves money

• Where you rent. A three-bedroom house in Naenae is NZ$50 a week cheaper than in Newlands or Johnsonville and NZ$100 cheaper than in Kilbirnie, for a bus-and-train commute with a mandir and a gurdwara in the suburb.
• Groceries. Indian grocers in Newtown, Lower Hutt and Kilbirnie sell atta, dal, rice and spices in bulk; compare the per-kilo price with the supermarkets before you decide (see groceries).
• Concessions. Children under five travel free on Metlink and a tertiary concession takes a quarter off.
• Shared houses. Trade Me says groups and multi-generational households are pushing up the rents of large houses, which is the market a joint family enters.

What costs more than expected

Heating, because Wellington houses are cold and damp in winter; contents insurance; the emergency supplies WREMO recommends, with water for seven days; childcare, where each centre sets its own fee and you should ask what is subsidised for your visa; and the cost of a trip home, since no flight goes direct. Sending money to India is a cost most households carry, so compare the exchange rate as well as the fee each time.

Whether you can use New Zealand's publicly funded health system depends on your visa, and the rules do not change in Wellington. A work visa that lets you stay two years or more qualifies, as do residents and citizens, children aged 17 or under in the care of an eligible parent, and (for maternity care only) partners; students and holders of short visas do not, and need insurance. The health section of the country guide sets this out, including the changes taking effect on 1 December 2026. Enrol with a general practice in your first week, because the reduced fee applies only to enrolled patients, and take your passport and e-Visa letter.

The hospitals

Health New Zealand's page for Wellington, the Hutt and Kāpiti lists the hospitals that matter to most Indian families. | Area | Hospital | |---|---| | Wellington City, Kilbirnie, Newtown | Wellington Regional Hospital in Newtown — emergency department, a tertiary birthing unit and mental health services | | Naenae, Taita, Lower Hutt, Petone | Hutt Hospital, 638 High Street — emergency department, a secondary birthing unit and mental health services | | Children | Te Wao Nui Child Health Service and Hospital, the children's hospital | | Porirua and Tawa | Kenepuru Community Hospital — no emergency department, but after-hours accident and medical care and a primary birthing unit | | Kāpiti | Kāpiti Health Centre — no emergency department |

When to call

For a life-threatening emergency, call 111. Healthline (0800 611 116) is a free 24-hour nurse advice line, and 1737 is a free call or text, day or night, to speak to a counsellor. Ask your practice where its after-hours clinic is on the day you enrol. ACC, the no-fault injury scheme, covers accidents for residents and visitors alike.

Language and community

Hindi is spoken by 7,683 people in the region; ask a practice whether it has a doctor or nurse who speaks Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi or Tamil, or ask in the groups. Adults pay for dental care. The Wellington Indian Association runs health and fitness classes and senior weekly meetups, and the Naenae gurdwara serves langar to anyone who comes. Loneliness in the first winter is common enough among people who arrived alone that it is worth naming; a weekday aarti, a Sunday langar or an association picnic is a reasonable response, and the groups below are another.

Most children start school at five, and school or home education is compulsory from six to sixteen. Enrolment at a state school is free for domestic students, and a child of a work visa holder counts as one for as long as the parent's visa lasts, provided the child holds a student visa that does not name a school; the schools section of the country guide sets out the visa tests, the Dependent Child Student Visa and the fee for university study.

Zones, and why your address picks the school

Many Wellington state schools have an enrolment scheme with a home zone: a child who lives inside it is guaranteed a place, and one who does not may apply for an out-of-zone place if the school has any. The priority order for out-of-zone places is set in law: special programmes, siblings of current students, siblings of former students, children of former students, children of board employees, then everyone else, with a ballot within a group if there are more applicants than places. You must live at your usual address in the zone when you start, and a school can cancel an enrolment made with a false address.

Newlands College shows how it works. Its 2027 home zone covers Grenada Village, Hunters Hill, Paparangi, Newlands, Woodridge and Bellevue, and Churton Park, Johnsonville and Ohariu Valley. For Year 9 entry in 2027 its out-of-zone applications closed on 22 July 2026, with a ballot on 27 July; for Years 10 to 13 they closed on 12 October 2026, with a ballot on 16 October. In-zone students are not subject to a ballot, and Wellington High School, Wellington East Girls' College and Wellington College ran the same Year 9 dates. Wellington High School's zone is the part of the city south of a boundary that follows the Kaiwharawhara Stream and Churchill Drive; other colleges publish their own zones or have none. Find a school's zone on the Ministry of Education's Education Counts "Find your nearest school" tool, and look before you sign a lease. If the pattern holds, applications for Year 9 entry in 2028 will close in the middle of 2027.

Universities and colleges

Victoria University of Wellington (Te Herenga Waka) had 18,759 students at 9 March 2026 and 973 commencing international full-fee students, up from 650 a year earlier; the United States was the most common country of origin, followed by China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Its Indian international enrolments grew from 104 in 2021 to 284 in 2025. Massey University has a campus on Wallace Street in Mount Cook. Whitireia and WelTec, with campuses in Wellington, Petone and Porirua, train more than 8,000 students a year and will stand alone from 1 January 2027. A student visa does not give access to public health care, so insurance matters; how a New Zealand degree now counts towards residence is in the jobs guide.

Childcare

Early childhood education is charged by the centre. Put your child's name on the lists of several centres as soon as you have an address, and ask each what it charges and what is subsidised for your visa.

Heritage languages and classes

Language and culture classes run through the associations, temples and gurdwara. The Wellington Indian Association has a Gujarati language class and school; the Indian Cultural Society in Petone runs a Gujarati Sunday school every week at its hall; and the High Commission's 2022 directory lists a Wellington Hindi Vidyalay, the Kamban Tamil School, a Telugu pathasala and Kannada Katte, whose classes used to meet at the Newlands community centre. Timetables change each term, so ask the organisation nearest you.

Nothing in an Indian kitchen is hard to find around Wellington; the question is which area. The names below come from four kinds of source, and the difference matters. Own site means the business's website carried a 2026 date or notice when we read it on 23 October 2026. Reported means a council or news report named it (Hutt City Council, October 2025; the Spinoff, July 2025; Michelin, June 2026). Mapped means it is on OpenStreetMap as of 23 October 2026 — a recent community listing, in which closures are not always recorded. Opening hours change, so check before you travel.

Newtown and Riddiford Street

The Spinoff's July 2025 guide to Newtown, where 35% of residents were born overseas, names three places that matter to an Indian kitchen. Indian Sweets & Snacks (176 Riddiford Street) serves the chaat and regional dishes that the usual curry menu leaves out, and sells packets of snacks to take home. Wellington Halal Meats (160 Riddiford Street) is a butcher and a mini supermarket, with a full aisle of spice blends and masalas and about twenty kinds of ready-made paratha. Newtown Greengrocer is open seven days and keeps Indian snacks, spices and sundries at the back. Mapped in Newtown: The Curry Pot, a South Indian restaurant at 14 Riddiford Street, Planet Spice and Curry Heaven.

Kilbirnie and Coutts Street

Tandoori Heritage, 23 Coutts Street (own site, a short walk from the Kilbirnie shops), is a licensed restaurant and takeaway open for dinner every day from 5pm and for lunch Wednesday to Saturday. The mapped grocery is The Spice Emporium at 31 Coutts Street, listed as open Monday to Saturday 9am to 8pm and Sunday 10am to 7pm.

The city centre and the northern suburbs

Indian Alley, 3/290 Wakefield Street in Te Aro, was one of four Wellington restaurants given a Bib Gourmand when the first Michelin Guide to New Zealand was announced on 30 June 2026. Higher Taste City, 138a Lambton Quay (own site), is a vegetarian restaurant that serves paneer butter masala, dosa, idli and samosas, open Monday to Saturday and closed on Sundays and public holidays. Flavours of Rajasthan, 3/22 Herd Street (own site), closes on Tuesdays; Delhi7 at 66 Northland Road (own site) has a bar. Mapped: Masala (12 Allen Street), Taste of India (19 Cambridge Terrace), Spices Karori (92 Karori Road) and English Dhaba in Tawa (6 Collins Avenue).

Lower Hutt, Petone and the Hutt Valley

Hutt City Council's October 2025 report on the city's food shops names Bombay Bazaar, which opened its Lower Hutt branch in October 2024 and sells Indian groceries and chutneys, House of Spices and SHIVAAY Spices & Food among the city centre's Indian shops, and Lakdiv market, a Sri Lankan grocer there since 2021. OpenStreetMap maps Bombay Bazaar on Rutherford Street, Chilli Masala at 458 High Street, Kiwi Halal Meats at 280 High Street and Mayur Foodmart at 19a Railway Avenue in Alicetown. Petone's Jackson Street has the thickest cluster: The Lucky Dhaba at 223 (own site; open every evening, with weekend lunch) and Everest Chullo at 304 (own site; Indo-Nepalese, closed Mondays), with Spice Valley, Bikaner and CurryToGo mapped nearby. In Taita, Bawarchi Khana is mapped on Taine Street, and in Upper Hutt Yatra and Curry Land on Fergusson Drive.

Porirua

Curry Village, 19 Hartham Place North (own site), serves Indian dishes beside a Bangladeshi menu; the Taj restaurants in Whitby and Plimmerton are mapped.

Halal, vegetarian and sweets

Halal butchers are in Newtown, Lower Hutt and the northern suburbs; vegetarian food is easiest at Higher Taste and near the temples. For mithai before Diwali on 8 November, order a week ahead. The businesses near Wellington on Namaste Community's directory appear below as they are added; if your grocer or favourite dosa house is missing, add it.

The region's Hindu and Sikh places of worship are in three clusters — the Wellington Indian Association's hall in Kilbirnie, the northern suburbs and the Hutt Valley. Addresses and hours below come from each place's own site where it has one, as recorded in the temples page, and otherwise from the reference named; hours change on festival days, so confirm before a first visit.

Notes

• Hindu worship. Bharat Bhavan's Gita Mandir is the community's central hall and mandir; Tamil devotion is at Newlands; the BAPS mandir is the Swaminarayan home, and the Prime Minister joined its Annakut on 22 October 2025.
• Sikh Wellington. The Naenae gurdwara serves langar, a free vegetarian meal, to anyone who comes; cover your head and take your shoes off. The Wellington Punjabi Women Association, listed in the High Commission's directory, works on the education, sport and culture of Punjabi women and families in the region.
• Christian, Muslim and Jain families. Indian Christians, Muslims and Jains worship at churches, mosques and halls we have not listed; ask in the groups for the nearest.
• A first Sunday. The Gita class at Bharat Bhavan, a gurdwara langar and the Naenae mandir's evening aarti are all open to a visitor without an introduction, and are where you will meet people who know who is renting and who is hiring.

Indian Wellington organises itself by region and language, and the structure is a century old. The Wellington Indian Association (WIA) describes itself as the largest Indian organisation in the Wellington region; its Give A Little page gives more than 1,200 members and almost 140 volunteers (undated), a Ladies Auxiliary, a youth group, a Hutt sub-branch, a senior citizens group and a Gujarati school. It is a full member of the New Zealand Indian Central Association, which was formed in 1926 with Wellington as one of its three branches and now lists nine full members and ten associate groups.

The Wellington Indian Association

• Where: Bharat Bhavan, 48 Kemp Street, Kilbirnie (postal address PO Box 14-480; office phone (04) 387 3003). The Gita Mandir is in the same building.
• What it runs: health and fitness classes on a seasonal timetable, a Gujarati language class, senior weekly meetups and a Women's Book Club that meets on the first Thursday of each month, led by a librarian. Its named events are Namaste Wellington, Holi and Navratri; the 2026 Navratri (Dholida) ran from 10 to 20 October with tickets from NZ$18. It hires out its hall for private events.
• The centenary: the association marked 100 years on 1 March 2025, with a book of its own history, "Samaj & Seva", and a project with Te Papa to name the people in 1930s portraits of the community's forefathers and foremothers.

Other organisations

• Indian Cultural Society (Petone). A charity founded in 1998 to preserve Indian religions, cultures and languages; it runs a Gujarati Sunday school, a Food Fiesta and a hall for up to 300 at 2 Udy Street.
• Wellington Tamil Society Incorporated. A registered charity whose purposes include Tamil language, literature, arts, music, dance and drama, and which runs a Tamil Language and Cultural School.
• Regional and language groups. The High Commission's February 2022 directory of Indian associations lists, for Wellington, the Wellington Mutamizh Sangam (Tamil language, music and drama), a Telugu pathasala, Kannada Katte, a Maharashtrian association, a Punjabi women's association, the Devbhoomi Association of New Zealand (Garhwali and Kumaoni), the Fiji Indian Association and Ekta New Zealand. We have not confirmed that each is active in 2026; the groups below are where to ask.
• Yoga groups. In 2026 the High Commission held its International Day of Yoga programme with Heartfulness and the Art of Living Foundation, at its own premises and at the Beehive, and a curtain-raiser with the Satsang Foundation.
• The press. Indian Newslink and the Indian Weekender carry notices and reports from the associations.

Dance, music and sport

The 2022 directory lists Kathak, classical, South Indian and Bollywood dance teachers and music teachers in Wellington; ask the association nearest you for the current ones. Cricket is played at clubs across the region; ask for a team that needs a player.

Students

Most universities and colleges have South Asian student societies, and for an international student they are the most useful first contact: they know which landlords to avoid and which employers underpay. If yours does not answer, the student groups on Namaste Community are the next stop. Read the jobs guide on how a New Zealand degree counts towards residence.

Wellington's Indian calendar is built around Diwali, with one free public festival on the waterfront and the rest run by the Wellington Indian Association, the temples, the gurdwara and the societies. What follows is what had been published as of 23 October 2026. The Wellington events page carries what is added later, and the Diwali page for Wellington gathers the Diwali events in one place.

Diwali in Wellington, explained

The council's page gives Sunday 25 October 2026, 2pm to 8:30pm, at TSB Arena and Shed 6 on the waterfront, free to enter, with a short fireworks display over the harbour at about 8:50pm, watched from Queens Wharf or along the waterfront. The festival is run by Communities Action Trust NZ with the council, the High Commission of India and Radio Tarana as supporters; the council says it has backed the event since 2001. The stage programme starts with opening acts at 2:05pm and an opening ceremony at 2:30pm, then runs through a kids' zone (3:00), classical acts (3:40), traditional and modern rhythms (4:25), a mix and match slot (5:15), fusion acts (6:45), a Bollywood segment (7:40) and the finale acts (8:10). There are Indian fashion and jewellery stalls, henna painting, community groups and vegetarian food from across the regions. Programme times can change on the day; the festival's Facebook page carries cancellations, and the council's contact centre ((04) 499 4444) answers calls. The event guide on the council's page covers what to bring, sensory needs and how to get there.

Diwali itself is Sunday 8 November and is not a public holiday in New Zealand; it falls the day after the general election on Saturday 7 November. Families light lamps and visit the mandir, the Swaminarayan mandirs hold Annakut on the next day, and Sikh families mark Bandi Chhor Divas at the gurdwara. The temples and associations post their own programmes a few weeks ahead, and the Kurinchi Kumaran Temple lists Deepavali as a yearly event without a date.

Fireworks

Private fireworks are legal in New Zealand, but shops may sell them only from 2 to 5 November, which in 2026 is the week before Diwali. A few sparklers at home are possible; the displays are the festival's own, and councils set rules about where fireworks can be let off, so check yours (see the festival section of the country guide).

Through the year

• January to March: Pongal, Makar Sankranti and Lohri in January, Maha Shivaratri, Ugadi and Holi in the spring months; the Wellington Indian Association runs Holi.
• April: Vaisakhi at the gurdwara.
• June and August: the High Commission's International Day of Yoga programme on 22 June, and its celebration of India's 80th Independence Day on 17 August.
• September and October: Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri and Dussehra, with the association's Dholida nights.
• Cricket: India's tours draw the community to the grounds.

Indian Wellington runs on WhatsApp. There is a group for the volunteers of every temple, every university intake, every flat-share hunt in Te Aro and Newtown, every language association, every cricket team, the Newlands and Johnsonville parents, the Hutt Valley commuters and each hospital's nurses — and Facebook pages called "Indians in Wellington" where newcomers ask for the links. This guide will not pretend otherwise: the groups are how the community has organised itself for years.

What the groups are good at, and what they are not

They are fast and generous. Ask at nine in the evening which GP in Johnsonville has a Gujarati-speaking doctor, or whether the Hutt Valley line is running this weekend, and someone answers by ten. But you need to know someone to get in, the links that circulate are often dead, and the live ones are where the "room in Lower Hutt, no viewing, send the bond today" and "job at a restaurant, pay the agent first" messages start. A group of a thousand members has nobody checking who joined, so the same questions about GP enrolment and school zones are asked every January and the answers scroll away; every member can see your phone number; and a group has no idea where you live, so a tip about Wainuiomata and one about Kilbirnie arrive with the same weight. The Wellington region is half a million people, so "Wellington" in a group's name tells you very little.

What Namaste Community offers

Namaste Community is a community platform for Indians abroad, on the web and as an app. The app has groups, events and a directory, and on the website: - the local groups for this city are listed at /groups/in/new-zealand/wellington, with the ones near Wellington under this section; groups are moderated and tied to a place; - the events near Wellington — garba nights, Diwali programmes, temple pujas, Bollywood nights — are on the Wellington events page, and the Diwali ones on the Diwali page for Wellington; - the directory lists the grocers, restaurants, temples and services across New Zealand, and businesses can add themselves; - in Ask, members answer questions about paperwork, housing, schools and where to find a good dosa, and you can post anonymously when the question is one you would rather not sign.

Your first week, practically

1. Find the group for your suburb or your language on the Wellington groups page and read before you post; the GP and Metlink questions are usually answered already.
2. Pick one event in the next fortnight — the Diwali Festival of Lights on the waterfront, a temple puja, a cricket match — from the events page. It is the fastest way from "the Indian community in Wellington" as a phrase to three people whose names you know.
3. Ask the question you actually have, and say where you live: the answer for Naenae, Newlands and Porirua is rarely the same.
4. Never send a bond, a passport scan or a fee to someone you met in a group without meeting them and checking who they are, and never pay for a job. Report anything that looks like a scam.
5. When you have found your flat, your GP and your grocer, leave an answer or a review for the next person from Hyderabad, Ludhiana or Surat.

If the group you need does not exist yet — Malayali nurses at Wellington Regional Hospital, Telugu parents in Johnsonville, a Gujarati cricket team in Lower Hutt — start it, so the next person searching finds it here.

Indian Wellington is shared every day with the region's other South Asian communities and with the Fijian Indian community, which sits inside the Indian group in the census but has its own history, food and language. Everything on this page about renting, GP enrolment, schools and transit applies identically to all of them; the differences are the high commission, the festival calendar and the shop you head for. Stats NZ's detailed ethnic groups, as shown on Figure.NZ, give only national counts, and we found no Wellington-only figures for the groups below.

Fijian Indian

The 2023 census counted 23,808 people of Fijian Indian ethnicity in New Zealand, classed within the Indian group; their families went to Fiji generations ago, many left after the coups of 1987 and 2000, and their everyday language is Fiji Hindi. The High Commission's 2022 directory lists a Fiji Indian Association in Wellington, formed to unify Fiji Indians in the capital, and Wellington Airport's non-stop flight to Nadi is the link home.

Sri Lankan and Tamil

Nationally the 2023 census counted 14,436 Sinhalese, 4,221 Sri Lankan Tamil and 5,100 who gave Sri Lankan without saying which. In Wellington the Wellington Tamil Society, a registered charity, runs a Tamil language and cultural school and says part of its purpose is helping new migrants settle, and the Wellington Mutamizh Sangam works on Tamil language, music and drama; both share events with Indian Tamils, as does the Kurinchi Kumaran Temple, whose devotees come from India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Fiji. In Lower Hutt, Lakdiv market has sold Sri Lankan jams, curry sauces and spices since 2021.

Nepali

The census counted 6,948 Nepali New Zealanders. Everest Chullo in Petone serves Indo-Nepalese food, and Tihar, the Nepali festival of lights, falls at about the time of Diwali, so the lamps are shared. We found no Wellington Nepali association to name.

Pakistani and Bangladeshi

The census counted 8,094 Pakistani and 3,552 Bangladeshi New Zealanders. They share the halal butchers of Newtown and Lower Hutt with Indian Muslims, Urdu and Punjabi are common ground, and Pakistan's Independence Day on 14 August falls the day before India's. Curry Village in Porirua has a Bangladeshi menu beside its Indian one, and Bangladesh is one of Victoria University's top five countries of origin for new international students in 2026.

Shared ground

Newtown's Riddiford Street, the Diwali crowd on the waterfront, the cricket pitches, the university societies and the councils' multicultural events are where the flags mix most easily. Wellington City Council describes the Diwali Festival of Lights as the main cultural celebration of the capital's Indian and South-East Asian communities. The ordinary experience is a Gujarati landlord, a Punjabi GP, a Pakistani butcher and a Sri Lankan grocer on the same street, and a city that takes that for granted.

Consular services

The High Commission of India is at 72 Pipitea Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011 (PO Box 12211). It serves New Zealand outside Northland, Auckland and Waikato — residents of those three regions apply at the Consulate General in Auckland — and also Samoa, Niue, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands. Applications are received at the counter from 9:30am to 12:30pm on working days with no appointment, documents are collected from 4pm to 5pm, and emergencies with supporting papers are seen from 2pm to 4pm. The mission lists no general office telephone number and asks people to use its website and email: passport.wellington@mea.gov.in, visa.wellington@mea.gov.in, oci.wellington@mea.gov.in and pcc.wellington@mea.gov.in. Its out-of-hours line, +64 21 539817, is for deaths, medical emergencies, serious accidents and emergency travel documents.

We found no outsourced application centre named on the High Commission's pages in October 2026: passports and other applications are lodged online and then handed in at the counter or sent by tracked courier to the mission itself, with a prepaid return bag.

Passports

Fill in the application online on India's passport portal for missions and choose "New Zealand-Wellington". There is no Tatkal or emergency passport service in Wellington, because passports are printed in India; the mission says to allow up to 30 days for a new passport, longer if the old one was not issued in Wellington. The fees listed from 1 July 2026 are in New Zealand dollars, payable by online bank transfer or debit card (no cheques or credit cards):

OCI

An OCI card is not dual citizenship, and the High Commission requires you to surrender your Indian passport first — and not to submit the two applications together. A fresh OCI application costs NZ$452. Fill in the form on the OCI services portal, upload photographs and Justice-of-the-Peace-attested documents, and submit by courier or at the reception counter. Biometric enrolment has been mandatory since 7 January 2026, by appointment on a Tuesday or Thursday, for everyone aged 12 to 70. The mission says to allow 10 to 15 working days for an acknowledgement and about 45 working days to process, with no fast-track, and that the card is delivered in New Zealand only. Its page does not mention the electronic e-OCI that the Auckland consulate says it has issued since 30 June 2026, so check with the mission. The rules on surrender, citizenship and OCI are in the citizenship section of the country guide and the High Commission section.

Help lines

• 111 for police, fire and ambulance in an emergency; 105 is the police non-emergency line.
• Healthline, 0800 611 116, free 24-hour nurse advice; 1737, free call or text day and night to speak to a counsellor.
• MBIE, 0800 200 088, to report migrant exploitation, including being asked to pay for a job; Crimestoppers, 0800 555 111, to report it anonymously.
• Tenancy Services and the Tenancy Tribunal for rent, bond and repairs, and your community law centre for free legal advice.
• WREMO (wremo.nz) for hazards and emergency preparation in the region.

Safety, honestly

Wellington has the problems of any capital, but the dangers that actually hurt Indian newcomers here are four. - Paying for a job. Nobody may charge you for a job, a visa letter or a slot, and Immigration New Zealand will decline a visa if you or your agent offered money to an employer. The jobs guide's section on fraud explains the schemes and where to report them. - Rental fraud. A house at half the going rate, a landlord abroad, a bond requested before a viewing: see renting. - Earthquake and tsunami unpreparedness. It is a hazard of living here and the cheapest to fix; see weather and earthquakes. - Cold, damp houses. A fifth of the region's homes are damp at least some of the time; check heating and insulation before you sign.

One search for reports of attacks on Indian places of worship in Wellington or Lower Hutt in 2025 and 2026 found none; that is not proof that none happened, and any incident should go to the police. The national rules on work and visas are in the jobs guide, the groups and events are on Namaste Community's Wellington groups and events pages, and the businesses near you are in the New Zealand directory.