Family Stream Category

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. Demand for places under the capped family stream (which consists of parent, adult child and sibling residence cases) currently exceeds the number of places available.  

There is a current waiting time of 18 to 24 months for a place to become available within the family capped stream (parent and adult sibling applications). In practice this means that an application will usually take 18 to 24 months from the time of lodgement to be allocated to a case officer for assessment.

Priority Family Applications – Partnership/Dependent Child applications

We will allocate your application to an immigration officer within 14 days of your application being received by our branch and you will receive an acknowledgement letter.

The current processing time frame for partnership and dependent child applications is six to twelve months.

Non-Priority Family Applications – Parent/Adult Sibling applications

You will receive an acknowledgement letter within 14 days of your application being received by us.

The application will normally be allocated to an immigration officer within two years of being accepted and the assessment may take 12 to 18 months. 

Medical and chest X-ray certificates

There are guidelines concerning the medical status of people applying for visas to visit, study, work, or live in New Zealand.

If you have an existing medical condition or there are questions arising from the Medical and Chest X-ray Certificate (INZ 1007) PDF that you have submitted with your application for a temporary or resident visa, we are required to refer your documents to an independent medical assessor for their opinion on your health.

It may take six weeks for certificates referred to an assessor to come back to us. Following this you may be asked to provide additional information in the form of specialist reports clarifying the nature and prognosis of your condition.

Please be aware that no decision can be made on the outcome of your temporary or resident visa application until all questions regarding your medical status have been resolved.

Temporary Entry Class Visa Category

We process temporary entry class visa applications as quickly as possible. However, the processing time may differ across individual applications and can be brought forward or pushed back depending on risks perceived in individual applications.

The times given below should be read as a guideline.

Times given are calendar days unless specified otherwise.

For applications that fall within positive profile the processing time is 15 days.  For other applications, further 15 to 30 days will be taken for processing.

If your application does not include the required documents that are given in our checklists, it is likely that the application will be processed under the ‘other applications’ timeframe above.

Positive profile visitors

The following is a list of factors which determine what we consider to be a 'positive profile' visitor.  

• The applicant meets good health and good character requirements, and 
• has a clear purpose for visiting New Zealand (including flight bookings and itinerary and prepaid activities), and 
• has evidence of funds, e.g. bank statement showing regular salary payments or savings or bank deposit with sufficient funds, and 
• has no adverse immigration or application history with New Zealand or other countries, and
• has completed a Sponsorship Form for Temporary Entry PDF [108KB].

Positive profile students

The following is a list of factors which determine what we consider to be a 'positive profile' student.

• The applicant meets good health and good character requirements, and
• has a good academic record, and 
• has an IELTS score of at least 5.5 OR evidence of having met English language entry requirements for the course of study in New Zealand, whichever is higher, and
• has verifiable evidence that the student’s immediate family has the funds to meet the educational and living expenses of the student while he or she is in New Zealand – including paper trails to explain any recent large deposits in accounts OR funds deposited in the Funds Transfer Scheme, and 
• has a regular source of sufficient income of financial guarantors, and 
• has relevant to qualifications and/or work experience to the intended course of study, and 
• has career progression opportunities.

Note: If your application does not meet the above criteria, it does not mean that the application will not be approved. It simply means that the application may take longer processing time to finalise.