Care Workforce Work to Residence Visa

Prove your identity by providing:

• 1 acceptable photo, and
• a scan of the personal details page of your passport or certificate of identity.

Acceptable photos for a visa or NZeTA

After you apply, we let you know if we need to see your original passport.

Providing your passport for online applications

If you, or anyone else included in your application, are aged 17 or older you must provide a police certificate from:

• all the countries you are a citizen of, and
• any other country you have stayed in for 12 months or more over the last 10 years, even if it was not all in the same stay.

How to get a police certificate

Good character for residence visas

You, and your partner if they are included in your application, need to show us you have an acceptable standard of health.

Acceptable standard of health criteria for visa approvals

This means you, and anyone else included in your application, must complete a chest X-ray and medical examination.

Who needs an X-ray or medical examination

The panel physician will prepare a medical certificate detailing the results of the examination and send it to us. It must be no more than 3 months old when you apply for your visa.

Getting an X-ray or medical examination

If you have provided medical certificates to us before and those certificates were issued within the last 3 years, you may not need to provide them again.

Health of your children

Dependent children aged 24 or younger included in your application must get a full general medical examination, but if they are:

• aged 10 or younger, they must get a medical examination, but do not need a chest X-ray unless we or your panel physician ask for one
• 11 to 14 years old, they must get a medical examination and a chest X-ray, but only need a blood test if we or your panel physician ask for one.

We check your identity documents — for example, your passport — to confirm your age.

Provide documents — like marriage and birth certificates — that prove your relationship to your partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger.

Partnership

Dependent children

If your partner or dependent children already have, or are applying for, a work, student or visitor visa based on their relationship to you, you must include them in your residence application.

There are 2 ways to show us you speak and understand English – through:

• your citizenship, where you studied and the qualifications you gained
• English language tests.

The results of your English language test must:

• meet the minimum score we set
• be no more than 2 years old when you apply.

Find out about the citizenship requirements, the evidence needed for study and qualifications, or the test results required:

English language requirements for skilled residence visas

There are 3 ways your partner or dependent children aged 16 or older can show us they speak English – through:

• their citizenship, where they studied and the qualifications they gained
• English language tests
• paying for English language lessons.

The results of their English language test must:

• meet the minimum score we set
• be no more than 2 years old when you apply.

Find out about the requirements around citizenship, study and qualifications, the test results required, and how to buy English language lessons:

English language requirements for skilled residence visas

We check our records to confirm that, for the full 24 months before you apply, you held:

• 1 or more work visas
• a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allowed you to work, or
• an Interim Visa which we gave you when you:
  • applied for another work visa, or
  • a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allowed you to work.

Visas that allow you to work

Critical Purpose Visitor Visa

Interim Visa

The documents you can provide include:

• previous or current employment agreements
• job contracts
• a summary of income from Inland Revenue.

Things an employment agreement must contain — Employment New Zealand

Request a summary of income — Inland Revenue

When we assess your application, we may ask for more evidence such as bank statements or pay slips showing your salary payments.

Your job

You must have worked in New Zealand in a full-time care workforce role as a:

• Māori Health Assistant — Kaiawhina (Hauora)
• Disabilities Services Officer
• Residential Care Officer
• Aged or Disabled Carer
• Nursing Support Worker
• Personal Care Assistant
• Therapy Aide
• Child or Youth Residential Care Assistant, or
• Diversional Therapist.

If your role is removed from the care workforce list after you start working, your time in that role still counts towards your 24 months.

Care workforce sector wage rate

You must have been paid at least:

• NZD$27 an hour (or the equivalent salary) between 29 September 2021 and 30 June 2022, or
• NZD$28.25 an hour (or the equivalent salary) from 1 July 2022.

Wage rate requirements for visas

Calculating 24 months' work

You must have worked in a care workforce role for at least 24 months in the 30 months before you apply. You can start counting your 24 months' work any time on or after 29 September 2021.

To make up the 24 months you can:

• have been working in care workforce roles for 24 months
• count annual, bereavement or other leave you are legally entitled to, such as parental leave
• complete it in several stretches — for example, you could work for 2 lots of 12 months with a gap of 6 months in between
• work for some of the time in a role that is not in the care workforce, but it must be:
  • in Tier 2 of our Green List of in-demand roles
  • a transport sector role, or
  • a role that paid at least twice the median wage.

Green list roles

Transport Work to Residence Visa

Documents you can provide include:

• an employment agreement
• a fixed-term contract
• a letter offering you a job and describing your role, hours of work, length of employment and what you will be paid.

Things an employment agreement must contain — Employment New Zealand

Your job

Your job must be:

• full-time
• paid NZD$28.25 an hour or more (or the equivalent salary)
• permanent, or fixed-term for at least 12 months.