The Pacific Access Category is a ballot
The Pacific Access Category is a residence ballot for citizens of Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) runs it once a year and sets a number of places for each country. If your registration is selected, INZ invites you to apply for the Pacific Access Category Resident Visa. Registering does not give you a visa. It gives you a chance to be invited to apply.
To register, INZ says you must:
- be a citizen of Tonga
- be within the age range INZ sets for the ballot
- have been born in Tonga, or have a parent who was born in Tonga
- be outside New Zealand, or legally in New Zealand, when you register online.
Registration is open for a short period each year, and INZ announces the dates on its website. Registrations for the 2026 ballot are closed. The INZ page for the Pacific Access Category Resident Visa gives the age range, the number of places for Tonga and the current fees.
You can include your partner and dependent children in the visa application only if you included them when you registered. Before you register, make sure everyone you want to bring is on the registration.
Being drawn is not the same as getting residence
After you are invited, INZ assesses your visa application against its own requirements:
- You, or your partner, need an offer of full-time work that meets INZ’s minimum length.
- The job must pay enough to support you and anyone included in your application. You can combine your income with your partner’s. INZ sets the minimum income and reviews it each year.
- You need a chest X-ray and a medical examination once you are invited.
- You need police certificates from Tonga and from any other country where you have lived long enough to meet INZ’s rule.
- You must be able to speak, read and understand English.
You must apply for the visa while you are in Tonga, or while you are in New Zealand on a valid temporary visa. A job offer takes time to arrange from Tonga, and you cannot apply without one. Start looking for work before the draw.
Seasonal work is a separate scheme
Tonga is one of the Pacific countries in the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme, which brings workers to New Zealand for horticulture and viticulture work. You need a job offer from a Recognised Seasonal Employer, and you can work only for the employers named on your visa.
The RSE Limited Visa is short term. You cannot include your partner or children, you cannot apply for any other visa while you hold it, and you must leave New Zealand before it expires. Seasonal work is useful income and work history. It does not lead to residence by itself.
Other routes
If you are not drawn, the usual work route is the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), which needs an accredited employer and an approved job check, the same as for any other applicant. If your partner is a New Zealand citizen or resident, a partner visa is assessed on evidence of your relationship.
Tonga is not on New Zealand’s visa waiver list, so Tongan citizens need a visitor visa to visit. A visitor visa does not allow you to work.
Qualifications
Most qualifications gained outside New Zealand need an International Qualification Assessment from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). Some qualifications from the University of the South Pacific, which serves Tonga and other member countries, are on INZ’s exempt list for the Skilled Migrant Category. Check that list before you pay for an assessment.
Who may advise you
Only a licensed New Zealand immigration adviser, a New Zealand lawyer, or a person with a legal exemption may give immigration advice about New Zealand. That applies in Nuku’alofa as much as in Auckland. Check any adviser’s licence on the public register before you pay.
The draw is a ballot, so nobody can improve your chance of being selected. Be careful of anyone who charges you to help with the ballot and suggests they can make your registration more likely to be drawn. Charging a worker for a job in New Zealand is illegal, wherever the payment is made.
Where to start
Routes Tongan applicants most often use
Ordered by how commonly they are used, not by how easy they are. Each one is assessed on different evidence.
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01
Pacific Access Category Resident Visa
A yearly ballot with places set aside for Tongan citizens. If you are drawn, you can apply for residence with a job offer.
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02
Accredited Employer Work Visa
The usual work route if you are not drawn, through an accredited employer and an approved job check.
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03
Partner and family visas
For joining a partner who is a New Zealand citizen or resident, assessed on evidence of your life together.
Start these first
The four things that hold applications up
All four come from someone other than you, and all four run on their own timetable. Beginning them late is the most common self-inflicted delay.
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Police certificates
From every country you have lived in for long enough to trigger the requirement, which is often more than one. Slow, and outside your control.
Find your country’s issuing authority -
Medical examination
Has to be done by a doctor on the approved panel. A medical from your own doctor does not count, however thorough it is.
Find an approved doctor -
Qualification assessment
NZQA decides whether an overseas qualification is recognised and at what level. Immigration New Zealand does not, and professional bodies decide separately again.
How NZQA assesses qualifications -
English evidence
Check which tests and scores are currently accepted before you book one. Sitting the wrong test is a common way to lose a month.
Accepted tests and scores