Renew your employer accreditation

Your first accreditation will be valid for 12 months. You can renew your accreditation before the end of this 12 month period. If you do not renew your accreditation it will expire.

When you renew your accreditation, you can change your accreditation type. For example, downgrade from a high-volume accreditation to standard accreditation.

If you renew your accreditation, it will be valid for:

• 24 months if you have standard accreditation
• 24 months if you have high-volume accreditation
• 12 months if you have franchisee accreditation or controlling third party accreditation.

Your accreditation will be valid for 12 months if you renew any accreditation that expired more than 12 months ago.

Who should renew their accreditation

You should renew your employer accreditation if you want to:

• employ new workers on an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV)
• change accreditation types, for example change from high volume to standard accreditation
• support an AEWV holder to apply for their AEWV balance (also called maximum continuous stay)
• support a migrant worker to apply for a different visa that requires you to be accredited, such as a Work to Residence Visa or Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa.

You do not need to renew your accreditation if you do not want to employ any new migrants on AEWVs or support an AEWV holder with further visa applications. For example, if you have not used your current accreditation or valid job tokens.

If you do not renew your accreditation

Your accreditation will expire automatically on the expiry date.

You can continue to employ any migrants already working for you for the duration of their visa, including AEWV or Partner of a Worker Work Visas holders until those visas expire. If they want to continue to work for you on another AEWV or Partner of a Worker Work Visa, you must hold a valid accreditation.

You cannot apply for another Job Check to hire new workers or support a worker to apply for their AEWV balance.

You will not be able to support a migrant worker to apply for a Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa, Work to Residence Visa, Transport Work to Residence Visa, Care Workforce Work to Residence Visa or Straight to Residence Visa.

If you have any Job Check tokens available they will expire when your accreditation expires.

After your accreditation expires, you will still be able to access your employer dashboard in Immigration Online.

How to renew your accreditation

Log in to Immigration Online to apply to renew your employer accreditation.

To renew your accreditation:

1. Select the 'Employ Migrants' tab
2. Go to the 'My accredited organisations' section
3. Select 'View organisation' from the options menu to open the 'Organisation details' page
4. Select 'Renew accreditation' to start your application.

To help streamline the processing of your application, upload the supporting documents listed in the 'Evidence to provide' section on this page with your application.

You will need to pay the fee.

Paying for AEWV accreditation and Job Checks

Check you are applying for the correct accreditation type for your business. If you apply for the wrong accreditation type, you will need to apply again and pay another application fee. You cannot get a refund of the first application fee.

We will renew your accreditation from the date we approve your application. For example, your accreditation is due to expire on 30 August and you submit your renewal application on 1 June. We approve your application on 1 July, your new accreditation will begin on 1 July.

Timeframes

We recommend you allow at least 6 weeks to apply to renew your employer accreditation.

Check our wait times page to find up to date information on how long we are taking to process applications.

Work visa and employer accreditation wait times

Interim employer accreditation

You may qualify for an interim 3-month accreditation if your accreditation expires while you are waiting for the outcome of your renewal application. You must have submitted your application before your current employer accreditation expired.

Who can get an interim accreditation

An interim accreditation is granted if:

• you applied for a subsequent accreditation before your accreditation expired
• your application is still in progress
• you applied for the right type of accreditation for your business.

You will not be granted an interim accreditation if you applied for:

• standard accreditation but you have more than 5 jobs associated to your business
• franchisee accreditation but do not currently hold franchisee accreditation.

Interim accreditation process

We will send you an email 2 weeks before your accreditation expiry date to remind you that your accreditation is about to expire. You must submit your application before your accreditation expires if you want to renew your accreditation. If you do not want to renew your accreditation, you do not need to do anything.

If you qualify for an interim accreditation, we will email you to let you know your interim accreditation has been granted when your accreditation expires.

You cannot apply for an interim accreditation.

Types of interim accreditation granted

The interim accreditation you are granted will be based on your current accreditation type and the type you have applied for.

Your interim accreditation will be:

• standard accreditation if you held standard accreditation or you have applied to change to standard accreditation
• high volume accreditation if you held high volume accreditation and have applied for high volume accreditation
• high volume accreditation if you held controlling third party accreditation and have applied for high volume accreditation
• high volume accreditation if you held franchisee accreditation and applied for high volume accreditation
• high volume accreditation if you held high volume accreditation or franchisee accreditation and applied for controlling third party accreditation
• controlling third party accreditation if you held controlling third party accreditation and have applied for controlling third party accreditation
• franchisee accreditation if you held franchisee accreditation and have applied for franchisee accreditation.

What you can do with an interim accreditation

If you have an interim employer accreditation, you can:

• apply for a new Job Check
• use an existing job token to ask a migrant to apply for an AEWV.

You must have the right type of interim accreditation for the number and type of jobs you want to fill.

If the interim accreditation you are granted is different to the accreditation you have applied for, you must meet the requirements of the interim accreditation.

Evidence to provide

When you renew your employer accreditation, upload supporting documents to show how you met the accreditation requirements and the commitments you made during your initial application.

For faster application processing, upload supporting documents to show evidence of being a viable and genuinely operating business or organisation, compliance with business standards and settlement support given to AEWV employees. If this information is not provided and we need to request it, your application will take longer to process.

Upload the documents in the "Optional evidence" or "Further evidence" sections of your application.

This information includes recommended examples, however you may choose to provide different or additional documents.

Supporting documents can include, but are not limited to:

• latest available evidence showing your business is viable and genuinely operating
• GST or PAYE records showing your business’ Inland Revenue (IR) number
• latest available evidence showing the time you provided to employees to complete the Employment New Zealand employee modules
• Evidence showing that the Employment New Zealand employer modules have or will be completed
• Evidence showing that you provided settlement support information within 1 month of the AEWV holder starting to work for you
• the latest organisation chart, do not include employee names, showing structure and positions in the business to help us understand the structure and nature of your business operation.

For examples of evidence you can provide to show your business is viable and genuinely operating:

Financial evidence for your accreditation application

Evidence showing Employment New Zealand modules have been completed

If your business has more than 5 people making these recruitment decisions, your evidence should show:

• the number of people making recruitment decisions about an AEWV holder or applicant
• completion certificates for 5 people making recruitment decisions.

If your business has 5 people or less making recruitment decisions about an AEWV holder or applicant, provide all the employer module completion certificates for each person making recruitment decisions.

If you declare that recruitment staff have not completed Employment New Zealand employer modules during the previous accreditation period, you will be asked to provide supporting evidence with your application.

Evidence can include:

• An explanation why modules were not completed, for example, if you have not employed any migrant workers during the accreditation period
• Policies implemented to ensure modules will be completed and this does not happen again
• Documents showing steps taken to ensure that the modules have or will be completed in the future.

We may ask to see more information or evidence during your application or as part of post-accreditation checks.

Evidence of settlement support

Examples of evidence of settlement support include, but are not limited to:

• copies of any documents or information you gave your employee to help them settle in New Zealand, for example, emails to the employee, letters and invoices from relocation specialists or settlement training courses completed
• copies of your on-boarding or induction policy
• evidence you gave your employee time to complete the Employment New Zealand employee modules, for example references to time to complete these modules in the settlement information you provided to your employees.

If you declare that you have not provided settlement information to all AEWV holders recruited since your last accreditation application within 1 month of their starting work, you will be prompted to provide supporting evidence with your application.

Evidence can include:

• an explanation why settlement support was not given, for example you have not employed any migrant workers during the accreditation period
• copies of policies implemented to make sure this does not happen again
• documents showing steps taken to ensure that this information will be provided in the future
• employment policies showing that time will be given to complete Employment New Zealand employee modules within 1 month of AEWV holders starting work in the future.

Employer requirements to help settle AEWV employees in New Zealand

If we request further information

When we request for further information (RFI) the link we provide with the RFI will only allow up to 5 documents to be uploaded at once. If you have more than 5 documents to upload in response to our request, you can follow the instructions in our Enhanced Immigration Online user guide under section ‘4.4 Correspondence’.

Enhanced Immigration Online - User Guide

There is also a maximum file size limit of 10 MB per file. Make sure that your documents are within the maximum file size limit. If you have issues uploading a document you can try:

• reducing the file size of the document, or
• splitting the document into multiple smaller documents.