Foreign Crew on Fishing Vessels - Approval in Principle

Employers can apply for an Approval in Principle to recruit 7 or more foreign crew for work on a fishing vessel. Approvals in Principle will only be approved if there aren’t enough New Zealanders available to do the work.

Valid for
Initial

12 months

Cost
From
NZD $6310
Processing times
80% within
10 months
With this approval in principle you can
  • Recruit 7 or more foreign crew to work on a single New Zealand flagged fishing vessel.
Things to note
  • There is a cap of 940 places per year for the Fishing Crew Work Visa. You must have a share of this cap to apply. Seafood New Zealand will contact employers through industry channels to find out if they are interested in applying for a share of the cap.
  • You must apply for the maximum number of migrant places required on the vessel at one time. Crew changes are not counted as part of the cap. You must tell us in your application any positions which will have a crew change, and the expected date the crew will change.
  • You don’t need to apply for an Approval in Principle to recruit fewer than 7 crew for work on a single fishing vessel. But you will need to complete a supplementary form and support a candidate's visa application in every other way an employer with an AIP is required to. These places will also count towards your share of the cap. If you have no places available or have not been given a share of the cap, you cannot support a visa application in this way.