Victims of Family Violence Resident Visa

You can apply for this visa if you have experienced family violence from a New Zealand citizen or resident. It allows you to live and work in New Zealand permanently.

Length of stay

Indefinitely

Cost

NZD $0

Processing time
80% within
10 months
With this visa you can
  • Live, work and study in New Zealand.
Things to note
  • You can apply if you have experienced family violence and your partner was a New Zealand citizen or resident.
  • You must show that you are unable to return to your home country.
  • You can include dependent children, aged 24 and under, in your visa application.
  • You do not have to pay application costs for applications under this category.

What you need to apply

Check if you are eligible to apply for this visa and what supporting documents and information you need to provide.

View All Evidence

Acceptable photos

Note

If you do not have access to your passport or certificate of identity, provide your original birth certificate or certified copy.

Tips

You may provide your original passport or a certified copy when you submit your application. If you provide a certified copy, we may request your original passport to complete your application.

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

Tips

Police Certificates must be less than 6 months old when you apply for residence.

If police certificates are not available from your home country, you must provide a separate statutory declaration in both English and your own language (if it is not English). These must:

  • detail your attempts to obtain a police certificate
  • say whether you and any accompanying family members have been found guilty of offences against the law of your home country
  • be supported by other information confirming your character.

If your partnership with a New Zealand citizen or resident has not previously been assessed by us, you may be required to provide evidence of your relationship. You can find more details of how we assess relationships and evidence examples on our partnership page.

Partnership

You need to provide evidence showing that:

  • the abuser is a family member or someone close to you, and
  • you lived at the same address.

Evidence can include:

  • a confirmation from the New Zealand Police
  • a statutory declaration by an authorised professional
  • a statutory declaration from you
  • any other evidence.

Professionals who can make statutory declarations for a family violence visa

You must provide evidence you are unable to return to your home country because:

  • you would have no independent financial support from employment or other sources, or
  • you might be abused or excluded from your community.

Evidence could include:

  • information about your employment and education history
  • the way your home community treats separated, single, or divorced people.

For us to consider your children dependent, they must be single and either:

  • 17 or under, or
  • 18-24 with no children of their own.

We will ask you to sign a declaration that your children are single when you complete your residence application.

We will use the documents you provide as proof of your children’s identity to confirm their age.

Dependent children

Process and costs

The information below will help you understand the process, timeframes and costs involved in applying for this visa, so you can plan ahead and have the best chance of submitting a complete application.

2
We make a decision about your application

Your application for a Victims of Family Violence Resident visa will be determined by an immigration officer who has received specialist training in this category.

We will contact you if you need to do anything else.

You must hold a valid visa while you are in New Zealand. If your current temporary visa will expire before we make a decision on your residence application, you should apply for a further temporary visa if you wish to remain in New Zealand.

Interim Visas are not granted to people who have made an application for a residence class visa.

Timeframes - Processing
80% within 10 months

80% of applications are currently completed within this time.

How to submit

Payment methods and receiving centre details if applicable.

How to apply

Postal address

Immigration New Zealand
PO Box 76895
Manukau City
Auckland 2241
New Zealand

Courier address

Immigration NZ
DX Box: EP71514
20 Fairfax Avenue
Penrose
Auckland 1061
New Zealand

Conditions

These are the conditions that you must meet once you have your visa.

Travel

You can travel in and out of New Zealand as often as you like until your travel conditions expire — normally 2 years from the date you first arrive in New Zealand as a resident.

Alert

If you are outside New Zealand when your travel conditions expire, your visa will expire as well.

 

To travel in and out of New Zealand after your travel conditions expire, you need to apply for:

  • a variation to your travel conditions, or
  • a Permanent Resident Visa.

Extending the travel conditions of a resident visa

Resident to permanent resident

Notes

Your travel conditions will expire 2 years from the date you first arrive in New Zealand as a resident. Your visa label and approval letter will detail the date that your travel conditions expire.

If you are outside of New Zealand when your travel conditions expire, your visa will expire as well.

Keep your visa in a valid passport

If you want to travel, your visa must be in a valid passport.

If your passport expires, you must apply to transfer your visa to a new passport before you can travel.

Transferring my visa to a new passport

Work

You can work in any occupation for any employer in New Zealand.

Study

You can study in New Zealand.