Immigration New Zealand (INZ) empathises with the difficult situation that Iranians living in their home country and family members in New Zealand find themselves in because of the current circumstances in Iran.

Visa applicants must demonstrate that they have genuine intentions to visit New Zealand temporarily.

Any circumstances that may discourage applicants from returning to their home country when their visa expires are taken into account before a decision is made.  Applicants must provide evidence in support of this as part of their visa application.

In some circumstances, we may request further information from an applicant, however we don’t always request further information and may make decisions on offshore applications without requesting this.

Some applications require third party checks to be undertaken. These checks may be required for a range of reasons and the time it takes to complete them varies depending on the applicant and their circumstances. As these checks are carried out externally, we have limited control of the time it takes to process.  We are only able to make a decision on applications after receiving the result of these checks.

We acknowledge that all our customers expect a fast turnaround time for their visa. We are working hard to continually improve our processing times and ensure our applicants have a good customer experience.

Between 1 July 2022 and 13 March 2023 17 applications for Parent and Grandparent Visitor Visas made by Iranian nationals have been approved and 24 declined.

We are looking into declines for the Parent and Grandparent Visitor Visa category involving Iranian nationals as part of our standard assurance process to ensure that immigration instructions are being applied consistently across the system.We have Standard Operating Procedures that provide guidance to Immigration Officers on the process for assessing and deciding visa applications.

Parent and Grandparent Visitor Visa