You will receive an acknowledgement letter within fourteen days of your application being received by Bangkok branch. This will give you further information about the application process, your application number, and may also request additional information where necessary.
Your application will then be allocated to an immigration officer for assessment.
It can be difficult to give an accurate timeframe for the allocation and assessment process, as circumstances differ. When a file is allocated to an immigration officer for assessment, you will receive more accurate information about the final processing time for your application.
As a guideline, please use the following timeframes. These will be updated as necessary.
Allocation timeframe – two months
Processing timeframe – Within six months after allocation.
Existing Sibling and Adult Child applications will be processed with other Parent Category applications in date order, only after tier one Parent Category EOIs and if numbers allow. Please see Frequently Asked Questions on the Parent Category changes for more information on this.
The number of people who can be granted residence through the Sibling and Adult Child Category each year is limited. This number is determined by the New Zealand Residence Programme and the number of people approved through other New Zealand residence categories.
It can take several years from the time of lodgement with INZ to process Sibling and Adult Child applications. The queue for existing Sibling/Adult Child Category applications is expected to be approximately seven years. The exact time it will take to process the application depends on the number of Tier One expressions of interest (under the new process) submitted and where this application sits within the global queue for the existing applications. We are not able to provide an exact timeframe at this point.
The queue for existing Parent Category applications is expected to be approximately five years. The exact time it will take to process the application depends on the number of Tier One expressions of interest (under the new process) submitted and where this application sits within the global queue for the existing applications. We are not able to provide an exact timeframe at this point.
If your client meets the requirements for Tier One, they can submit an expression of interest for consideration under the new Parent Category and they may be eligible to have their application fee waived. They will need to submit a completed Parent Category Expression of Interest Form (INZ 1202) and they will still need to pay a fee of NZ$420 for the expression of interest. The fee for any resulting application will be waived. People who apply under Tier Two will not be eligible for this fee waiver. If they apply for a resident visa under the new Parent Category after it opens, the previous application will lapse.
Read additional information on the Parent Category.
