© 2026 NZeTA - New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority. All Rights Reserved.
The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is a sovereign island nation of approximately 115,000 people occupying 607 islands spread across approximately 2.7 million square kilometres of the western Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of only 702 km². The nation comprises four states — Yap, Chuuk (formerly Truk), Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), and Kosrae — each with its own distinct language, culture, and landscape. FSM lies in the Caroline Islands north of New Guinea, and uses the US dollar as its currency following a Compact of Free Association with the United States that also grants Micronesian citizens the right to live, work, and study in the USA without a visa.
Micronesia is renowned in the international diving community for the Chuuk Lagoon (Truk Lagoon) — a former Japanese Imperial Navy anchorage sunk during Operation Hailstone in February 1944, when US forces destroyed over 60 Japanese ships and 275 aircraft in a two-day bombardment. The lagoon is now home to one of the world’s most spectacular dive destinations, with cargo ships, destroyers, tankers, and submarines now encrusted with coral and inhabited by marine life at depths accessible to recreational divers. Yap State is equally renowned for its traditional culture, particularly the rai (stone money) — enormous circular limestone discs up to 4 metres in diameter quarried in Palau and sailed to Yap, where their value is determined not by possession (most rai stones are too large to move) but by community recognition of their ownership history. Pohnpei is home to the ancient megalithic city of Nan Madol — a UNESCO World Heritage site built on a series of artificial islands in a lagoon, constructed between 1200 and 1500 CE, considered the “Venice of the Pacific”.
New Zealand, approximately 6,000 kilometres to the south, shares with Micronesia a deep Pacific identity — both nations’ peoples are linked by the broader Austronesian migration story that connected the Pacific 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. FSM passport holders are on New Zealand’s visa-waiver list and must obtain an approved NZeTA before travelling to New Zealand.
Four documents required to complete the NZeTA application from the Federated States of Micronesia. USD-denominated cards accepted.
Your FSM passport must be biometric and valid for at least 3 months beyond your planned departure from New Zealand. The passport number entered in the NZeTA application must exactly match your physical travel document. Micronesian citizens also have the option of travelling on a US passport if they hold dual citizenship — the NZeTA must be linked to whichever passport you will present at the airport.
A clear digital photograph of your face taken against a plain white or light-coloured background within the past 6 months. Your full face must be clearly visible with eyes open and looking at the camera, and no glasses, hat, or facial coverings. This is uploaded during the online application process. Photo compliance issues are the most common cause of NZeTA processing delays.
An active email address is required to receive the NZeTA approval notification and reference number. The NZeTA is entirely electronic — no physical document or stamp is issued. Your airline verifies the NZeTA at check-in using your passport number. Internet access can be limited in some FSM states — apply well before your planned travel date.
A credit or debit card to pay the NZeTA service fee and the mandatory New Zealand International Visitor Levy (IVL) in one secure online payment. Since Micronesia uses the US dollar (USD), USD-denominated cards issued by FSM banks or US banks are accepted directly. Major international Visa and Mastercard debit/credit cards also accepted.
Complete your NZeTA application in four stages, entirely online from Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae, or anywhere.
Complete the online form with your full name, FSM passport number, expiry date, date of birth, and travel dates. All details must exactly match your physical passport document.
Upload a clear digital face photograph on a plain light background. Full face visible, no glasses or hat. Photo quality is the most frequent cause of processing delays for FSM applicants.
Review all details and pay the NZeTA service fee + New Zealand IVL in one secure USD payment. Your application submits automatically on payment confirmation.
Approval by email in ~72 hours. No physical document needed. NZeTA is electronically linked to your FSM passport. Valid 2 years, multiple entries, 90 days max per stay.
Activities covered and not covered by the NZeTA for FSM passport holders.
Each FSM state has its own international airport. All routes to Auckland connect through Guam (GUM) and then onward through Tokyo, Manila, or Sydney.
Pohnpei is the FSM capital and most connected state. United Airlines’ Micronesia service connects PNI to Guam, from which multiple carriers serve onward Pacific destinations. Alternative routing goes via Manila (MNL) on Philippine Airlines from Guam.
Chuuk is world-famous for Truk Lagoon dive sites. United Airlines connects TKK to Guam; onward to Auckland is best via Manila on Philippine Airlines or via Tokyo on United/JAL.
Yap is home to the traditional rai stone money culture and some of the Pacific’s most intact traditional villages. United Airlines connects YAP to Guam with onward Pacific connections. Allow generous connection time at Guam Airport.
Kosrae is the most remote FSM state and requires a connection via Pohnpei before reaching Guam. Kosrae is prized for its pristine coral reefs and ancient Lelu ruins. Allow an overnight in Pohnpei if connections are tight.
Four extraordinary aspects of Micronesian culture, history, and nature paralleled with Aotearoa New Zealand.
Truk Lagoon (now Chuuk Lagoon) was the Imperial Japanese Navy’s primary Pacific base when US forces launched Operation Hailstone on 17–18 February 1944, sinking approximately 60 Japanese warships and destroying 275 aircraft in a two-day air and naval assault. The lagoon floor is now one of the world’s largest artificial reef systems — cargo ships still hold their wartime loads (gas masks, bicycles, ammunition, sake bottles), destroyers and tankers are encrusted with hard and soft corals, and some vessels sit at recreational diving depths of 15 to 50 metres. Jacques Cousteau called Truk Lagoon “the most extraordinary dive site I have ever encountered.” The wrecks attract approximately 5,000 divers per year specifically to Chuuk — a number that defines the state’s entire tourism economy.
NZ counterpart: Rainbow Warrior wreck (Bay of Islands) — the Greenpeace vessel bombed by French intelligence agents in Auckland Harbour in 1985, now deliberately sunk off the Northland coast as a dive site. It has become New Zealand’s most-visited dive wreck. Both wrecks tell stories of conflict through underwater archaeology, and both have become marine sanctuaries where life has reclaimed what was lost.
Nan Madol is a series of 92 artificial islets constructed on a coral reef off the eastern shore of Pohnpei Island, connected by a network of canals and built from basalt columnar prisms — some weighing up to 50 tonnes — without mortar, machinery, or metal tools. Built between approximately 1200 and 1500 CE as the ceremonial and political capital of the Saudeleur dynasty, Nan Madol served as a seat of power from which the Saudeleur rulers controlled Pohnpei’s social order through elaborate ritual obligation systems. How the massive basalt logs (sourced from distant quarries) were transported and stacked remains a subject of ongoing scholarly investigation — and a persistent source of local legend suggesting supernatural assistance. UNESCO inscribed Nan Madol in 2016, noting it is the only pre-European city built on a coral reef in the Pacific.
NZ counterpart: The stone pā (fortified village) sites of New Zealand’s North Island — particularly the terraced earthwork fortifications carved into volcanic hills throughout the Waikato, Auckland, and Coromandel regions — represent Māori engineering achievement on a comparable Pacific scale. Both Nan Madol and the New Zealand pā demonstrate the capacity of Pacific peoples to transform their landscapes into sophisticated political and ceremonial architecture.
The rai stones of Yap are enormous circular limestone discs quarried from Palau’s aragonite limestone and sailed 400 kilometres to Yap on bamboo rafts — a journey of extraordinary difficulty and danger. The rai range from a few centimetres to 4 metres in diameter and can weigh up to 4 metric tonnes. They are never physically moved to transfer ownership — a transaction is validated by community acknowledgment of the ownership change, and a rai’s value is determined by the difficulty of its voyage, the number of people who died during its transport, and its oral history of ownership exchanges. This is considered an early example of a “ledger-based” currency — an analogue of modern blockchain cryptocurrency in which value derives from shared community recognition of a record rather than physical transfer. Yap’s rai stones are still used for traditional transactions such as marriage, land agreements, and political alliances.
NZ counterpart: Māori taonga (treasured objects) — pounamu (greenstone/nephrite jade) weapons, cloaks, and hei-tiki pendants — which similarly derive value not only from material quality but from the whakapapa (genealogy) of previous owners and the history of exchange relationships they embody. Both cultures created value systems where the object’s relational history matters more than its physical characteristics.
The navigators of Micronesia’s outer islands — particularly Satawal, Puluwat, and Polowat in the Chuuk State — are among the last living practitioners of traditional Carolinian ocean wayfinding, a system of navigation using memorised star paths, ocean swell patterns, wind direction, cloud formations, bird behaviour, bioluminescence, and the feel of ocean swells against the body to navigate across hundreds of kilometres of open Pacific without instruments. The knowledge system — called pwo — is transmitted through long apprenticeship and validated through ceremonial recognition. Master navigator Mau Piailug of Satawal played a central role in the Hawaiian Polynesian Voyaging Society’s project to revive traditional Polynesian navigation, sailing as navigator on Hōkūle’a’s 1976 voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti — proving that traditional navigation could successfully guide a double-hulled canoe across the open Pacific.
NZ counterpart: Māori traditional ocean navigation — the knowledge system (whakatere waka) that guided Polynesian waka hourua (double-hulled voyaging canoes) across the Pacific to Aotearoa approximately 700 years ago. New Zealand’s Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāpoho navigators have worked with the Polynesian Voyaging Society to revive and demonstrate these same skills. Both traditions share ancestors in the Austronesian oceanic culture that settled the Pacific.
100% online from Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, or anywhere. Approved within 72 hours. Valid 2 years.
Start NZeTA Application — Micronesia Passport© 2026 NZeTA - New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority. All Rights Reserved.