Meeting your AEWV accredited employer obligations
Understand the accreditation and legal requirements that you need to meet as an AEWV employer.
Your obligations as an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) employer
To get and keep your accreditation, you must:
- meet the commitments you made during your application to be an accredited employer
- comply with New Zealand employment laws and standards, and with the Immigration Act 2009
- tell us of any changes to your organisation or if a migrant stops working for you.
Commitments you make when you apply
You and key people in your business must not have:
- employed a migrant who did not have the right visa or visa conditions to work in that role
- provided false or misleading information to us
- been involved in immigration breaches in other businesses
- been banned from acting as a director
- been subject to a stand-down period for breaching minimum employment standards or committing immigration offences
- been permanently banned from sponsoring work visas for committing serious immigration offences.
We may complete inspections, either desk-based or through site visits, to confirm you are meeting your obligations as an AEWV employer.
How to tell us of a change
The process to tell us if something has changed depends if the change is:
- to the key people in your organisation
- a migrant with an AEWV stops working for you.
If your key people change
You must let us know within 10 working days if key people in your organisation change. If you do not let us know, you will not be meeting your obligations and your accreditation may be revoked or suspended.
Call our employer line if your situation changes or if you are unable to meet our requirements for accredited employers.
Employer line: 0508 967 569
If a migrant with an AEWV stops working for you
You may need to tell us if a migrant worker with an AEWV has stopped working for you, in order to meet our requirements for accredited employers.
Tell us if a migrant stops working for you
If your business is going through a restructure, liquidation or bankruptcy
Get in touch with us as early as possible if you are experiencing a change in business circumstances or operations, for example:
- a restructure
- redundancies
- bankruptcy, or
- liquidation.
Our employer line is open between 08:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday.
Employer line: 0508 967 569
A Job Change or Variation of Conditions may be required if you plan to change a migrant worker’s role in a restructure. Employers may receive an infringement notice and the migrant may face deportation if they work in a different role. If a migrant worker loses their job, this may affect their work visa.
Changing the conditions of a work visa or applying for a Job Change
Migrant workers affected by a restructure, redundancy, bankruptcy or liquidation should contact our Customer Service Centre to discuss their options.
Post-accreditation checks
We check a proportion of accredited employers each year. These checks are to make sure you are continuing to meet our requirements for accredited employers.
We may ask you to provide information as part of our checks. If you do not give us the information we ask for, your accreditation may be revoked.
Guide to post-accreditation checks
If you are not meeting your employment obligations
We expect accredited employers to take their responsibilities seriously and comply with AEWV requirements.
If we believe you are not meeting our requirements for accredited employers, we send you a letter outlining our concerns and ask you for your feedback.
We then assess your feedback and decide if any further action is required. The further action required depends on the significance of our findings.
We may revoke your accreditation if you are not meeting your obligations. If the issue is minor, we may give suggestions for improvement. Major issues can result in losing accreditation status, a stand-down period, infringement notices and fees or prosecution and a permanent ban from supporting visas for other migrant workers.
From 7 April 2024, employers being actively investigated for any breach of accreditation may have their accreditation suspended.
If you have concerns about an accredited employer
Anybody with concerns about employers who are not complying with the law can help us take action.