Student visa wait times

These timeframes can vary and may be different at the time you submit your visa application, especially during the student peak season.

Average wait time

'Average wait time' is how long it took for 50% of applications to be processed.

Most completed within

'Most completed within' is based on 80% of applications processed. Both figures are calculated using working days. ‘Working days’ excludes Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

These processing times show the combined time for the most common student visas used by international students. They are:

• Fee Paying Student Visa — including English language students
• Pathway Student Visa
• NZ Government Scholarship Student Visa, and
• Exchange Student Visa.

The processing time is broken down by the type of education provider:

• universities
• Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics
• Private Training Establishments (PTE), and
• schools.

Check your application status

To find out information on your visa application you can log in to your Immigration Online account and check your visa status.

Checking your visa application status

How student visa applications are prioritised

We generally process student visa applications in the order we receive them, starting with the oldest.

During busy times, we may prioritise applications if the course start date is coming up soon, provided the application was submitted with enough time before the intended travel date. We may also group similar applications together to help manage risk and increase efficiency.

Apply early

If you are outside New Zealand when you apply, we strongly recommended you apply for your visa 3 months ahead of your intended travel date. This is especially important if you are applying from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan. We receive a high volume of applications from these countries so it can take longer to process them. You can apply earlier than this if you have all the documents you need.

You can apply with a conditional to get your visa application started early. If you meet our requirements, we can . You will be given a date by which you need to provide any outstanding documents, including an unconditional offer of place. Once you meet the requirements of the approval in principle, we can grant you the visa.

Make sure you include all the information we need to help avoid delays in the processing of your application. If you do not apply in line with our advice, you risk having your visa declined or not having it in time for your course.

Assessing your application

We must make sure you meet your student visa requirements and that your intentions to study in New Zealand are genuine. This can take longer in some cases, depending on your situation.

We assess all visa applications on a case-by-case basis. We consider information you provide in your application, along with any other relevant information we have, when making a visa decision.

Genuine intentions to study in New Zealand

Some applications can take longer to process

Some visa applications may take longer to process than others. If your application is taking longer than what is shown in Table 1, you can find out what factors may affect visa wait times.

Why some visa applications take longer to process than others

Escalating an urgent application

You can request to have your application allocated urgently for assessment using our visa escalation process. When assessing an escalation request, we look at how early you applied for your visa.

Check if you can make an escalation request

Find other visa wait times

To find the wait time for a visa that is not listed on this page you can use our fees, decision times and where to apply tool.

Fees, decision times and where to apply

You can also find data on our processing times for the last 6 months in our Research and Statistics section.

Visa processing times by month