Moving to New Zealand from South Africa

The family moves together, so plan it as one application

More than most origin countries, South African migration to New Zealand tends to be a household decision rather than an individual one. That changes what you should check first.

Whether your partner can work, and on what terms, and whether your children can study as domestic students, depends on the visa you hold and often on the skill level and pay of your role. Two people doing similar jobs can end up with very different family rights.

Establish that before you accept a role, not after. It is one of the few things in this process that is fully knowable in advance and frequently is not asked about.

Registration is often the real gate

For a large share of South African applicants the visa is not the hard part. The professional or trade registration is.

Nursing, medicine, teaching, engineering, electrical work and several trades each have a New Zealand registration body with its own assessment, its own evidence requirements and its own timeline. Some of those timelines are long. In many cases an employer cannot make a firm offer until registration is at least under way, which means the registration application effectively sits ahead of everything else.

If your plan depends on working in a regulated occupation, start that enquiry in parallel with the job search rather than after it.

Green List occupations

A number of the occupations South Africans commonly move in appear on New Zealand’s Green List, which is a published list of roles the country is short of. Some go straight to residence, others after a period of work here.

The list is revised, and your role has to match it rather than resemble it. Check the current version before building a plan on it, because both the list and the conditions attached to each entry have changed.

Documents to start on first

Police certificates and medicals are the usual delay. Both come from third parties and neither can be hurried.

The police certificate requirement follows the countries you have lived in rather than your citizenship, so time in the United Kingdom, the Middle East or elsewhere in Africa usually adds certificates. Immigration New Zealand publishes the issuing authority and the process for each country, and that list is the one to work from.

What commonly goes wrong

Two things. Assuming a trade qualification transfers automatically, when it needs assessment and often registration. And accepting a role before the employer’s accreditation and the job check are confirmed, which is the mistake that causes the most damage because it usually follows a resignation.

Both are checkable in advance and neither costs anything to check.