Work visas
Working in New Zealand
Almost every work visa depends on somebody else being approved first. Understanding whose approval you are waiting on is the single most useful thing you can know.
The short answer
How do you get a work visa for New Zealand?
For most New Zealand work visas, three approvals have to happen in order, and only the last one is yours. Your employer must first be accredited by Immigration New Zealand, then the specific job must pass a job check, and only then can you apply for the visa for that job.
- You cannot apply before your employer is accredited and the role has passed a job check. Both are checkable in advance and both are public.
- Immigration New Zealand publishes a list of accredited employers, so you can confirm an employer yourself before resigning from anything.
- Wage rates for work visas are set by Immigration New Zealand, differ by visa and role, and are reviewed, so check the current published rate rather than one quoted to you.
- Charging a worker a premium for employment is unlawful in New Zealand. A job offer you have to pay for is a warning about the job.
- Most work visas name one employer, so changing jobs generally requires a new application.
Start with who has to be approved, not which visa to pick
Most people arrive at this looking for the right visa name. That is the wrong first question. For the main work visa route, three separate approvals have to happen in order, and only the last one is yours:
- The employer is accredited by Immigration New Zealand.
- The specific job passes a job check.
- You apply for the visa for that job.
If step one or two has not happened, your application cannot succeed no matter how strong you are as a candidate. This is why people who are well qualified are sometimes declined and people who are not are sometimes approved. It is often not about you.
It is also why the most valuable question you can ask an employer is not "will you sponsor me" but "has this role passed a job check yet, and can I see it".
What changes the answer
Beyond those three approvals, four things drive almost every difference between one person's work visa and another's: the skill level of the role, what it pays, how long you have done that kind of work, and whether your occupation is on the Green List. Those four decide how long a visa you get, whether your family can join you, whether English evidence is required, and whether the job leads anywhere.
New Zealand sets pay thresholds for several of these visas and reviews them periodically. Check the current rate on Immigration New Zealand rather than a figure from a forum, an agent or an older page. Rates that were right last year are one of the most common sources of a wasted application.
Four checks
What Immigration New Zealand is actually deciding
A work visa decision comes down to a small number of questions. Each one has a public answer you can look up before you apply.
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Is the employer accredited?
You cannot fix this yourself and you cannot apply around it. Check the employer against the published accredited employer list before you resign from anything.
Accredited employer list -
Has the job passed a job check?
The job, not the employer. A business can be accredited and still not have an approved job check for the role you were offered.
How the job check works -
Does the pay meet the rate for that visa?
Wage rates are set by Immigration New Zealand, change periodically, and differ by visa and by role. Check the current rate rather than the one you were quoted last year.
Current wage rates -
Do you meet the skill and English requirements?
These depend on the skill level of the role. Lower skill levels attract more requirements, not fewer, and English requirements now reach further down the scale than they used to.
English requirements for work visas
Routes
The work visas people actually use
Immigration New Zealand holds the rules for each of these, so where a link goes to their site, that is deliberate. What we add is the context around it.
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Accredited Employer Work Visa
The main work visa. Your employer has to be accredited first, then have the job checked, and only then can you apply. Three separate approvals, and the first two are not yours to make.
Read on immigration.govt.nz -
Partner of a New Zealander work visa
If your partner is a New Zealand citizen or resident, this route usually gives you open work rights rather than tying you to one employer.
Read more -
Post-study work visa
For people who have finished a qualifying New Zealand qualification. What you studied, and where, decides whether you get one and for how long.
Read on immigration.govt.nz -
Working holiday visas
Only for citizens of countries that have an agreement with New Zealand, and normally only ages 18 to 30, though a few countries go to 35. Each agreement sets its own age range, length of stay and conditions, so check your own country rather than a general description.
Read on immigration.govt.nz -
Green List roles
A list of occupations New Zealand is short of. Some go straight to residence, others after a period of work. Your role has to match the list, not resemble it.
Read on immigration.govt.nz -
If you are the employer
Accreditation, job checks, advertising and the record keeping you have to be able to produce later.
Read more
What goes wrong
Five mistakes that cost people the most
None of these are about being unqualified. They are about acting on an approval that has not happened yet.
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Resigning from a job overseas before the New Zealand employer has an approved job check. The offer is not a visa, and the two approvals ahead of yours can both fail.
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Paying someone for a job offer. Charging a worker a premium for employment is unlawful in New Zealand, and a job that has to be bought is usually not a real one.
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Assuming the visa moves with you. Most work visas name one employer. Changing jobs generally needs a new application, and starting the new job first can put your visa at risk.
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Treating a verbal offer as a contract. Immigration New Zealand assesses the written employment agreement, including hours and pay, not what was discussed.
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Leaving police certificates and medicals until the end. They come from third parties on their own timetable, and they are the most common reason an otherwise complete application sits waiting.
Questions
Common questions
Can I come to New Zealand and look for work once I am here?
Most work visas require a job offer before you apply, so arriving as a visitor and job hunting is not a route to a work visa for most people. A visitor visa also normally prohibits working, and working on it can affect later applications. There are exceptions, including some post-study and partnership visas, which is why the visa you hold matters more than your intention.
My employer says they will sort the visa out. Is that enough?
Your employer handles their side, which is accreditation and the job check. The visa application itself is yours, and you are the one held to what it says. Ask which of the three approvals has actually been granted and ask to see it, rather than relying on a reassurance.
Can my partner and children come with me?
Sometimes, and it depends on the visa you hold and on the skill level and pay of your role rather than on your family circumstances. The rules here have changed several times, so check the current position on the Immigration New Zealand page for bringing family rather than relying on what applied to a colleague.
How long does a work visa take?
Immigration New Zealand publishes processing times by visa type each month, and they move. Anyone who gives you a fixed number of weeks without pointing at that page is guessing.
Does a work visa lead to residence?
It can, and it does not do so automatically. Whether work in New Zealand counts towards residence depends on the visa, the role, the pay and how long you hold it. The residence section explains which routes connect to which.
Where this comes from
Immigration New Zealand publishes the rules and can change them without notice. These are the pages this one is based on. If something here and something there disagree, Immigration New Zealand is right.
- Requirements for work visas The overview of every work visa category immigration.govt.nz
- Wage rates for work visas Current rates by visa type immigration.govt.nz
- Accredited Employer Work Visa immigration.govt.nz
- Green List roles immigration.govt.nz
- Accredited employer list Check your employer here immigration.govt.nz
- English language requirements immigration.govt.nz
- Visa processing times by month immigration.govt.nz
- Protecting yourself from immigration scams immigration.govt.nz
Licensed advice
Not sure which approval you are waiting on?
This site explains how the rules work. It cannot tell you what will happen in your case, because that depends on facts only an adviser who has seen your file can weigh up.
In New Zealand it is a criminal offence to give immigration advice without a licence or an exemption. ProVisas holds IAA licence 201301110.