A contingent of about 100 New Zealand soldiers left for Afghanistan on Monday, Xinhua reported.
Another 20 or so will leave in a few days, and most will join the Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Bamyan province.
Others will work in roles within the international force's headquarters in Kabul and at another control center at Bagram.
The deployment is the 17th to Afghanistan, and the first since Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell was killed by a roadside bomb in Bamyan province in August.
New Zealand Joint Forces Commander Air Vice Marshal Peter Stockwell said the risk assessment in Afghanistan hasn't changed, despite O'Donnell's death.
Stockwell said most of Bamyan province is reasonably secure but there is a heightened security situation in the north-east of the province, where O'Donnell was killed.