If you have short term vacancies in your organisation, you can employ young people from overseas who are interested in working temporarily while travelling around New Zealand.

New Zealand has reciprocal working holiday scheme (WHS) agreements with more than thirty countries. Working holiday makers are generally aged between 18 and 30, and hold open work visas, so they can work for any employer.

You can employ a working holiday maker in temporary employment for a maximum period of three to 12 months, depending on which country they are from. You can check the requirements for each nationality on our website.

Some WHS work visa holders can apply for a three-month working holidaymaker extension visa, if they have undertaken three months of seasonal work in the horticulture or viticulture industry in New Zealand during their working holiday and they would like to stay in New Zealand a little longer.

If you would like to offer an ongoing position to someone who has a WHS work visa, and they qualify for a visa under another category, they can apply for a different visa in order to take up your job offer. In this situation, you would need to wait until their new visa is approved before allowing your employee to start working in the ongoing position.

The job offer

While the employee holds a working holiday visa, the job must:

• be temporary employment
• meet New Zealand employment laws, and
• be paid at appropriate labour market rates.

What you need to do

As an employer, you need to:

• check the person has a valid work visa. This may be either in their passport or on a letter from Immigration New Zealand, and
• check how long the WHS work visa holder can work for you, according to their nationality.