Work visas issued to foreigners are the biggest factor behind NZ's immigration gain.

Immigration is unlikely to come off the boil soon, banks have concluded in the wake of another rise.

Net immigration edged up to a new record high of 71,964 in the year to May 31, Statistics NZ said.

That was up from 71,855 in the year to April.

Statistics NZ counts people as migrants if they plan to stay in New Zealand for at least a year.

The "net" figure counts people coming to New Zealand to live, work or study – minus those leaving.

Statistics manager Peter Nolan said 130,403 migrants arrived in the country with 58,439 people departing.

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Of the arrivals, 61,195 were on work or residence visas, up by 7145 on the year prior, with student arrivals down 4029 to 23,740.

Another 38,326 were New Zealand citizens returning to the country, or Australians, with their number up by 2005.

Westpac said it expected net migration would remain "firm for some time yet", in part because of relatively positive economic conditions and because of changes to policies affecting Kiwis in Australia.

"It's expected to gradually ease off over the coming years as the global economy improves and more New Zealanders start to look at moving offshore. Nevertheless, the eventual easing in migration looks like it will be quite gradual," it said.

ANZ Research said barring "a far more draconian political response, we can't really see this story changing much going forward".

Of the foreigners coming to New Zealand, 12 per cent were from China, 10 per cent from the United States and 10 per cent from Australia.

Migrant arrivals from India dropped 31 per cent to 9247, mainly due to a drop in Indian foreign students.

Visitor arrivals by people intending to stay less than a year in New Zealand – for example to have a holiday or to visit friends and family – also hit a record, climbing 10 per cent to 3.6 million in the year to May 31.

Forty per cent of visits were by Australians and 11 per cent by Chinese, Statistics NZ said.

New Zealanders took a record number of trips overseas, up 11 per cent to 2.7 million trips, with the biggest increases to Australia, the US and China.