Family Stream
In July 2008, we announced the order and manner of processing of applications for residence permits and visas. New Zealand carefully plans allocation of permanent residence places.
The Government's annual residence programme gives priority to skilled and business migrants and the partners of returning New Zealanders. The family capped stream (which comprises parent, adult child and sibling residence cases) is currently allocated 4,950-5,500 places per year. Demand for these places currently exceeds supply.
Family Partnership and Dependent Child applications (under Family Category) will be processed before other categories. We expect to allocate your Family Category application for residence (under these criteria) to a case officer within four months of acceptance of your application.
All other types of Family Category applications (Parents, Adult Siblings, and Adult Child) will have a lower priority. However, if you can show that your application is genuinely urgent and the circumstances justify an exception, immigration officers have some discretion and can urgently process a particular residence application if this is required. There is a current waiting time of 18-24 months for a place to become available within the cap. In practice this means that an application will usually take from 18-24 months from the time of lodgement to be allocated to a case officer for assessment.
Take a look at the Skilled Migrant Category option
We encourage people who do not meet the criteria for priority processing and who are under 56 years of age to look at their eligibility under the Skilled Migrant Category. We have a Skilled Migrant Category Points Indicator where you can do a self-assessment of the number of points you might be able to claim under this category.
Important information
We can only prioritise applications if the situation is ‘genuinely urgent’ and the circumstances are ‘clearly exceptional’.
If an applicant chooses to travel to New Zealand before their application is approved, then they will only be granted a standard temporary permit with normal entitlements, except in the most exceptional of circumstances. These people will then be expected to leave New Zealand once their permit expires. Such people are unlikely to obtain a visitor permit extension in New Zealand.
Skilled Migrant
Workflows and priorities
The Pool draw which would potentially allocate your Expression of Interest (EOI) to the Hamilton branch occurs every two weeks.
An initial assessment is then made by your case officer and they will contact you shortly after either inviting you to apply or requesting further information. Generally the processing time for an Expression of Interest can be up to 60 days.
Once the pre-populated application form is returned to our branch and you lodge your residence application, your case officer will take on average between six to nine months to make a final decision on your application. (Processing times largely depend on whether you have supplied your case officer with everything they have requested in your Invitation to Apply and any verification that is required.)
Things that may delay a Skilled Migrant application include:
- an existing medical condition (please provide a report from your specialist clarifying the history and prognosis of the condition)
- a criminal conviction listed on your police certificate (please give a written account outlining the circumstances surrounding the offence)
- work references which do not list your position and the start and end dates of your complete employment history
- any custody issues surrounding children that may be included with a residence application
- the time needed to carry out verification work
- the time for New Zealand police certificates to be processed (these can take up to six to eight weeks).