New Zealand is home to one of the smallest and most remote Albanian communities in the world, with a history that reaches back to a single postwar refugee ship. This guide tells its story.
It is part of our Albanians Around the World series.
Quick Facts: Albanians in New Zealand
- Population: 357 people at the 2023 Census (Stats NZ, Albanian ethnic group, usually resident count), up from 249 in 2018 and 243 in 2013. It is one of the diaspora’s smallest communities.
- Postwar arrivals: A group of Albanian Muslim men came in 1951 aboard the Norwegian refugee ship MS Goya, as displaced persons.
- Later arrivals: More than 400 relatives of Kosovo Albanians already in New Zealand were resettled between March 1999 and June 2000, under a special offer of 600 places.
- Origins: Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.
On This Page
How Many Albanians Live in New Zealand?
The Albanian community in New Zealand is tiny. Stats NZ counted 357 people who identified as Albanian at the 2023 Census, up from 249 at the 2018 Census and 243 in 2013. It is one of the smallest and most far-flung branches of the Albanian world.
A History Begun on the MS Goya
The story begins in 1951, when a group of Albanian Muslim men arrived in New Zealand aboard the Norwegian refugee ship MS Goya, among the many displaced Eastern Europeans resettled after the Second World War on ships provided by the International Refugee Organization. They came from Albania and from Albanian communities in Kosovo and North Macedonia. Decades later, during the Kosovo War of the 1990s, more than 400 Kosovo Albanians with relatives in the country were resettled in New Zealand between March 1999 and June 2000.
What Three Censuses Show
Albanian is one of the ethnic groups that Stats NZ publishes separately, so the community can be followed from census to census. The figures below are census usually resident population counts, meaning people who usually live in New Zealand and who wrote Albanian as one of their ethnic groups. People can name more than one ethnic group and are counted in each.
The count barely moved between 2013 and 2018, then rose to 357 at the 2023 Census. That is 108 more people than in 2018, a rise of about 43 percent in five years. Stats NZ rounds small counts to protect confidentiality, so every figure here should be read as approximate to within a few people.
| Measure (Stats NZ, Albanian ethnic group) | 2013 Census | 2018 Census | 2023 Census |
|---|---|---|---|
| Usually resident population count | 243 | 249 | 357 |
| Median age | 30.8 years | 31.7 years | 33.7 years |
| Children under 15 | 39 (16.0%) | 45 (18.1%) | 90 (25.2%) |
| Identify with Albanian as their only ethnic group | 76.5% | 72.3% | 66.4% |
| Speak English | 92.5% | 90.4% | 89.9% |
| Adults employed full time | 37.3% | 47.8% | 58.4% |
| Adults unemployed | 11.9% | 4.3% | 1.1% |
The same release counted 150 families and 174 households with at least one Albanian member in 2023, up from 108 families and 129 households in 2018.
An Auckland Community Above All
Almost four in five Albanians in New Zealand live in one city. At the 2023 Census, 282 of the 357 people counted, or 79 percent, lived in the Auckland Region. Wellington followed with 18 people, Canterbury with 15 and Otago with 12, and no other region reached double figures.
Inside Auckland the pattern is just as concentrated. The Ōrākei Local Board Area alone was home to 114 people, close to a third of the national total. Next came the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board Area with 36 and Kaipātiki with 27, and no other local board area had more than 15.
Born Abroad, Raising Children Here
This is still largely a first-generation community. In 2023, 72.3 percent of Albanians in New Zealand were born overseas, compared with 28.8 percent of the whole population, and 68.1 percent were born in Europe outside the United Kingdom and Ireland. More than half of the overseas-born, 52.9 percent, had been in the country for 20 years or more, a span that reaches back to the arrivals of 1999 and 2000 and beyond. Another 30.6 percent had arrived within the previous ten years.
The generations split cleanly. Every Albanian aged 65 or over and 98.3 percent of those aged 30 to 64 were born abroad, but only 16.7 percent of the children under 15 were. Those children are now a quarter of the community, and their number doubled between 2018 and 2023, from 45 to 90.
Language follows the same line. Stats NZ reports that 62.2 percent of the group speak more than one language, against 21.4 percent nationally. The summary does not list the Albanian language by name, but 63.9 percent reported speaking a language in its “other” category in 2023, down from 82.5 percent in 2013.
Faith, Work and Home Ownership
The 1951 arrivals are remembered as a Muslim group, but the community today is mixed. At the 2023 Census, 47.1 percent of Albanians reported no religion, 21.8 percent Islam and 13.4 percent Christianity, while 16 percent objected to answering.
The economic figures show a community that has found its feet. Median personal income for Albanian adults was $53,500 in 2023, above the national median of $41,500, and 52.3 percent of adults held a post-school qualification, close to the national 54 percent. Home ownership still lags: 34.9 percent of Albanian adults owned their home or held it in a family trust, compared with 51.3 percent nationally, though the share who own or partly own rose from 18.3 percent in 2018 to 30.2 percent in 2023.
The Displaced Persons Scheme Behind the 1951 Arrivals
The Goya passengers were part of a larger program. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, records that between 4,500 and 5,000 displaced persons from Europe arrived from 1949 to 1952, on ships provided by the International Refugee Organization. The government had been reluctant at first, and its selection mission stated a preference for people from the Baltic states, but displaced persons of many nationalities were admitted.
Te Ara notes that very few Albanians lived in New Zealand before the Second World War, and that those who came as displaced persons were predominantly male. They had left when the Communists took power in Albania, and Te Ara describes the Albanian New Zealand Civic League as one of the most outspoken anti-Communist organizations in the country.
Historians Abdullah Drury and Douglas Pratt, writing in 2021, describe the Goya as a Norwegian refugee ship that made three trips to New Zealand, and they give May 1, 1951 as the date it brought hundreds of Eastern European refugees. Many of the Muslims on board joined the New Zealand Muslim Association, which Indian Muslims had founded in Auckland in 1950. One of them, Nazmi Mehmeti, an Albanian from Macedonia, secured the country’s first specifically Muslim burial plot at Auckland’s Waikumete cemetery in 1963.
Mazhar Krasniqi, From Refugee to National Leader
No one shaped the community more than Mazhar Krasniqi, a Kosovar Albanian born around 1931 or 1932 who left Communist Yugoslavia and reached New Zealand on the Goya. The New Zealand Herald’s obituary says he arrived penniless, spent the 1950s farming in Southland and steam drilling around Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, and then settled in Panmure.
He went on to serve as president of the New Zealand Muslim Association. In April 1979, when regional associations formed the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, he became its first president, and the Herald adds that he led the NZ Albanian Civic League and helped establish the halal meat export trade. He was also a founder of the Ponsonby mosque, built in 1979 and 1980 and described by Drury and Pratt as the first purpose-built mosque in the country.
In 1973 he was part of a group that met Mother Teresa during her visit. He received the Queen’s Service Medal in 2003 and died in Australia on August 8, 2019, aged 87.
The Kosovo Intake of 1999 and 2000
The second chapter was far larger than a handful of arrivals. According to Immigration New Zealand, the government of the day offered places to 600 family members of Kosovo nationals already living in the country, on top of the annual refugee quota of 750. More than 400 of those places were taken up between March 1999 and June 2000, by refugees who had fled to Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries.
A research team at Auckland University of Technology, writing in Forced Migration Review, explains how it worked. The local Albanian community had asked the government to help evacuate relatives, and in return its members committed to act as sponsors, arranging housing and settlement support. Unlike most countries, which offered only temporary protection, New Zealand granted permanent residence together with the option of an assisted airfare home.
The first group landed in Auckland in May 1999 and was met at the airport by relatives, the prime minister, members of parliament and Māori representatives. Krasniqi was there too. “You have double responsibility, as Albanians and citizens of New Zealand,” he told the newcomers, in a speech quoted by Drury and Pratt. After about a week at the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre, where the program included health care, orientation to life in New Zealand and English classes, families moved on to housing arranged by their sponsors.
Settling was not easy. The researchers, who interviewed refugees six to twelve months after arrival, found many highly educated professionals still unemployed, renting and struggling with English, even as their children settled quickly at school. In August 2000, 100 people accepted the government’s airfare and went back to Kosovo. For those who stayed, the census trend is striking: unemployment among Albanian adults fell from 11.9 percent in 2013 to 1.1 percent in 2023.
New Zealand, Kosovo and the 25th Anniversary
New Zealand recognized Kosovo on November 9, 2009, becoming the 63rd country to do so, as Balkan Insight reported at the time. Our guide to the countries that recognize Kosovo has the full list.
On May 24, 2024, former refugees and Immigration New Zealand marked 25 years since the first arrivals. Kosovo’s ambassador to Australia and New Zealand joined community members to plant an olive tree at the Māngere centre, now called Te Āhuru Mōwai o Aotearoa, and an evening of Kosovo dance, music and art followed, with a video message from former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley. One of the organizers, Majlinda Rakovica, was 12 when her family of eight arrived. She now works as a project manager in finance.
Timeline: Albanians in New Zealand
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1949 to 1952 | Between 4,500 and 5,000 European displaced persons arrive on International Refugee Organization ships |
| 1951 | The Norwegian ship Goya brings Eastern European refugees, among them Albanian Muslim men including Mazhar Krasniqi and Nazmi Mehmeti |
| 1963 | Nazmi Mehmeti secures the first Muslim burial plot in the country, at Waikumete cemetery in Auckland |
| 1979 | The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand is formed with Krasniqi as first president |
| 1979 to 1980 | The Ponsonby mosque is built in Auckland |
| 1999 | New Zealand offers 600 places to relatives of Kosovo nationals; the first group arrives in May |
| 2000 | More than 400 places have been taken up by June; 100 people return to Kosovo in August |
| 2003 | Krasniqi receives the Queen’s Service Medal |
| 2009 | New Zealand recognizes Kosovo on November 9 |
| 2013 | Census counts 243 Albanians |
| 2018 | Census counts 249 Albanians |
| 2019 | Mazhar Krasniqi dies on August 8, aged 87 |
| 2023 | Census counts 357 Albanians, 79 percent of them in Auckland |
| 2024 | 25th anniversary of the Kosovo arrivals is marked at Māngere on May 24 |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Albanians live in New Zealand?
Stats NZ counted 357 people of Albanian ethnicity at the 2023 Census, up from 249 in 2018. It is one of the world’s smallest Albanian communities.
When did Albanians come to New Zealand?
A group of Albanian Muslim men arrived as displaced persons in 1951 on the refugee ship MS Goya, and more than 400 Kosovo Albanians followed between March 1999 and June 2000.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Albanian New Zealanders
- Stats NZ: Albanian ethnic group summary, 2013, 2018 and 2023 Censuses
- Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Central and South-eastern Europeans, People from the Balkans
- Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Refugees, 1950s to 1970s refugee groups
- Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies (Qatar University): Drury and Pratt (2021), Islam in New Zealand, A Mixed Reception
- Immigration New Zealand: 25th anniversary celebrations for former Kosovo refugees settled in New Zealand
- Forced Migration Review: Improving resettlement support for Kosovan refugees in New Zealand
- NZ Herald: Mazhar Krasniqi, “a real kaumatua” of New Zealand Muslim community, passes away
- Balkan Insight: New Zealand Recognises Kosovo
Related Reading
Author: Val Demiri
Valbona is an editor and writer at ALB Connection, where she covers the people, businesses, and culture shaping the Albanian diaspora. A journalism graduate of the University of Iowa, her work spans community profiles, success stories, and features on Albanian life across the US, Europe, and beyond. She is drawn to stories that celebrate Albanian achievement and keep the community connected across borders.
