Glossary

Skyfather

A form of secure online identification that allows you to use a wide range of New Zealand Government digital services using a single username and password.

For us to recognise your business experience:

• your business experience must include planning, organisation, control, senior change management, strategy, and mentoring;
• you must have gained your business experience as an owner or senior manager of a lawful business enterprise. This business must have had 5 or more full-time employees, or an annual turnover of NZ$1million (one million New Zealand dollars).

When we assess applications for Investor 2 Resident Visas, we only award points for business experience that meets this criteria.

A certificate, degree or diploma that is officially sanctioned based on:

• an assessment by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that relates to the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQF)
• its level on the NZQF as set out in the 'List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment'
• its level on the NZQF based on the applicant's job registration in New Zealand (if that registration involves an assessment equal to a qualification on the 'List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment')

List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment

For the purposes of Skilled Migrant Category bonus points for New Zealand qualifications, Immigration New Zealand considers "two years" of study to be study undertaken for at least 16 months over four or more semesters.

An employer who has Immigration New Zealand's approval under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme to recruit workers from overseas to work in our fruit and vegetable growing industries when they need extra workers.

Employers in the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Scheme get an RSE allocation based on the RSE Cap numbers available. The allocation is how many workers they can hire and bring into New Zealand on the RSE Limited Visa.

The Government sets the total number of RSE workers who can work under the RSE scheme. It is called the RSE Cap and is currently 19,500. The RSE Cap is the total amount of RSE workers that can arrive into New Zealand over a season. For the purposes of the RSE Scheme a season starts from 1 July one year and ends 30 June the following year.

If there is an increase to the RSE Cap, then a decision is made by Immigration New Zealand (INZ) around allocations and RSE employers are advised.

When setting the RSE Cap, consideration is given to the horticulture and viticulture industries' assessment of its needs, production growth forecasts, employer demand, and RSE Cap growth trends from recent years.

A person granted New Zealand residence for one of the following reasons:

• they were given refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees before they arrived in New Zealand
• they were recognised as a refugee by the New Zealand Government after they arrived in New Zealand.

Refugee and protected person status is a legal status. Refugees are people who meet the definition of a refugee provided in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by the 1967 Protocol.

A refugee

A refugee is a person who:

• Is outside of his or her home country or country of habitual residence.
• Faces a real chance of being harmed if returned to that country.
• The harm faced is a sustained or systemic breach of a fundamental human right.
• The harm faced is for reasons of who the person is, or what they believe. The reasons may be race (or ethnicity), religion, political opinion, nationality or membership of a particular social group (such as family status, gender, or sexual orientation or identity).
• Needs and deserves protection in New Zealand.

A protected person

A protected person is a person:

• whose deportation from New Zealand would violate the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment 1984 (Convention against Torture) and/or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR).
• for whom there are substantial grounds for believing she or he would be in danger of torture, arbitrary deprivation of life or cruel treatment if deported from New Zealand.

Cruel treatment is defined in the Act as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

If a person can obtain effective protection from the authorities of their country or a third country, New Zealand is not obliged to protect them.

A person may be excluded from refugee status if there are serious reasons for considering that he or she has committed serious crimes such as war crimes or crimes against humanity.

We use two tiered queues to help us select people to invite to apply for residence under the Refugee Family Support Category.

To join a queue, family members have to be sponsored by a person who has been granted New Zealand residence because they were a refugee or protected person, and are an eligible sponsor.

Different criteria apply for sponsors to register for tier one and tier two queues. Tier one sponsor registrations are selected in the order they are received until the annual quota is met. If there are any places left after this, we fill the remaining places from the tier two queue.

An organisation authorised by New Zealand law to give occupational registration.

Paid or unpaid work that's in one or more of the following activities:

• teaching religious scripture or philosophy
• leading religious ceremonies, worship or prayer
• ordaining new religious leaders, initiating new members into your religious community, carrying out religious ceremonies
• providing spiritual guidance and care.

Remote work is an activity you do for gain or reward for a company, employer or client that is not in New Zealand. Gain or reward includes work done for payment, or for a benefit that can be valued in terms of money, for example accommodation, food or services.

If you are self-employed or a digital nomad, you can work remotely for clients outside New Zealand.

All visitor visas applied for on or after 27 January 2025 allow you to work remotely in New Zealand. There is no limit to the amount of remote work you can do while you have your visitor visa.

Remote work includes:

• answering emails and phone calls
• coding and testing
• writing reports
• attending meetings or giving presentations to colleagues outside New Zealand
• creating content as a social media influencer — as long as you are not promoting an activity, event or product for gain or reward from a New Zealand business or person in New Zealand.

Remote work does not include any work you do:

• that is for a New Zealand employer
• with a New Zealand business or person in New Zealand in exchange for goods or services, for example free accommodation in exchange for a review
• that requires you to be in New Zealand.

If you want to work for or with a New Zealand-based employer, you must apply for a visa that will allow you to work in New Zealand.

Find and choose a visa

A request further information (RFI) is when we ask visa applicants for more information to make a decision on their application.

The Residence from Work Category includes:

• Talent (Accredited Employer) Resident Visa
• Talent (Arts, Culture, Sports) Resident Visa
• Long Term Skill Shortage List Resident Visa
• Religious Worker Resident Visa
• South Island Contribution Resident Visa.

For the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme, a residential house is a self-contained house, flat, unit, townhouse or apartment designed to accommodate a household — a home for families or individuals living in New Zealand on a more permanent basis. If a house is advertised online — for example, through holiday or peer-to-peer websites — it is still considered to be a residential house.

A residential house is not transitory accommodation used to temporarily accommodate people who would normally live outside New Zealand.

If a child under the age of 16 is travelling with just one parent, we need to be satisfied that the accompanying parent has the right to bring the child to New Zealand with them.

Evidence of the right to remove a child includes:

• legal documents to show the accompanying parent has sole custody of the child and the other parent has no visitation rights, or
• a signed statement from the other parent, witnessed according to local practice or law, stating that the other parent allows the child to remain in New Zealand with the accompanying parent over the period of intended stay.