Please make sure you give us your contact details in New Zealand. We want to be able to provide settlement support, and send you a questionnaire about your immigration experiences.

Migrant levy

You pay this levy when your application has been approved, and before we place a resident visa in your passport.

The purpose of the migrant levy is to contribute to the funding of programmes intended to assist the successful settlement of migrants. For instance, the levy funds help with costs related to the Language Line telephone interpreting service, the Migrant Employment Assistance service, and the Citizens Advice Bureau Language Link service. The funds also include a contribution towards English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) tuition for adults and children.

The migrant levy is also used to carry out research into settlement issues and the impacts of immigration. For instance, the Longitudinal Immigration Survey: New Zealand (LisNZ) and short-term research on settlement and immigration. The information gained from this research helps Immigration New Zealand develop immigration policies that can best help migrants settle in and contribute to New Zealand.

If you have already paid the migrant levy on an earlier application you will not be required to pay it again.

The levy is NZ$310 for people aged five and over, and NZ$155 for children under five years of age. If there are more than four people included in a single application, the migrant levy is only payable by the four oldest family members. If you have made your application outside New Zealand, your immigration officer will tell you how much the levy is in local currency.

Resident visa conditions

If you were granted a resident visa, you must still meet some requirements to ensure you remain a New Zealand resident.

• If you gained points for an offer of skilled employment, you must take that job up within three months of your first entry into New Zealand. You must also stay in that job for at least three months and provide us with evidence of having done so. 
• If you gained points for already having a skilled job that you have held for less than three months, you must stay in the job for a minimum of three months.

A Job Search visa

If you have been offered a job search visa, there are certain things you have to do.

• Within three months of the offer, you must return your application form for the job search visa. 
• You must show us that you are able to support yourself in New Zealand. This means NZ$1000 for each month, or NZ$400 each month if your accommodation has been paid for. 

You will also have to show that you have the money available to purchase tickets to your home country should you have to leave New Zealand.

If you are out of New Zealand, you will get a job search visa with travel conditions allowing you to travel to New Zealand within three months. On arrival, or if you are already in New Zealand, you will be granted a further work visa for nine months.

• Back to Skilled Migrant homepage.