Transport Work to Residence Visa

A Transport Work to Residence Visa lets you stay in New Zealand indefinitely with travel conditions for 2 years.

After you have had this visa for 2 years in a row, you can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa that lets you travel in and out of New Zealand indefinitely with no travel conditions.

Check the 'While you are in New Zealand' section for more information.

While you are in New Zealand

To apply for this visa, you must:

• be aged 55 or younger
• work in, or have a job offer for, an approved transport job
• meet the work experience requirements, including having worked in New Zealand for at least 24 months within the 30 months immediately before applying for residence
• have a job, or job offer with an accredited employer (either when you apply, or when your visa is decided) under the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) policy
• be in good health
• be of good character
• have a genuine relationship with your partner and dependent children, if including them
• speak and understand English.

Age

You must be aged 55 or younger when you apply.

We check your identity document to confirm your age.

Your work visa

For at least 2 years (24 months) before you apply, you must have a visa that allows you to work in New Zealand.

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

• 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.

Interim Visa

Your current job or job offer

You must currently be working in, or have a job offer for, a job that is:

• an approved transport job
• permanent or fixed-term for at least 12 months
• paid the required wage rate for the job
• for an employer who is accredited under the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) policy.

Check if your employer is accredited:

Accredited employer list

Check the wage rates:

Work to residence wage rates

Approved transport jobs

The following jobs are approved work to residence transport jobs.

You must provide evidence with your application showing you meet any income, work experience, or qualifications required for your job.

Ship's Master

ANZSCO code: 231231

On the day you apply for your Transport Work to Residence Visa you must:

• be currently working for, or have a job offer from, a New Zealand employer as a Ship's Master
• have been working for at least 24 months as a Ship's Master
• have been paid at least the median wage for 24 months — check the section 'How to calculate 24 months of work experience' for more information about the median wage you can use
• hold either:
  
  • the Skipper Restricted Limits qualification with 500GT or 3000GT endorsement, or
  • a Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) certificate for duties of a Ship's Master on a vessel that is 500 gross tonnes or more (as recognised by Maritime New Zealand).

Deck Hand

ANZSCO code: 899211

On the day you apply for your Transport Work to Residence Visa you must:

• be currently working for, or have a job offer from, a New Zealand employer as a Deck Hand
• have been working for at least 24 months as a Deck Hand
• have been paid at least the median wage for 24 months — check the section 'How to calculate 24 months of work experience' for more information about the median wage you can use
• hold either a:
  • Qualified Deck Crew Certificate of Proficiency (CoP), or
  • Deck Watch Rating (DWR) Certificate of Proficiency (CoP) that entitles the holder to perform the duties of Deck Hand (as recognised by Maritime New Zealand).

How to count 24 months of work experience

Before you apply, you must have worked in New Zealand in an acceptable transport job for at least 24 months in the 30 months before you apply, and been paid at least the wage rate in place for your job when you started counting your work experience.

You must provide documents proving you meet the work experience requirements.

Evidence of your current job or job offer

Check the ‘Documents you need’ section on this page to find out what evidence to provide with your application.

Documents you need

What counts as work experience

To make up the 24 months you can:

• be working in approved transport jobs for 24 months
• count annual, bereavement or other leave you are legally entitled to, such as parental leave
• work for some of the time in a job that is not an approved transport job, but it must be a job that is either:
  
  • in a Green List Tier 2 job
  • in an approved care workforce job, or
  • a job that paid at least twice the median wage at the time.

Green List roles — jobs we need people for in New Zealand

Care Workforce Work to Residence Visa

When you can start counting work experience

You can start counting your work experience when you start your job if you are getting the required wage rate. If you are not getting the required wage rate when you start, you can start counting your work experience later when your pay is increased to the required wage rate.

During your work experience, you must have been paid at least:

• the median wage rate in place at the start of your 24 months, or
• NZD $28 an hour, if you are a bus driver.

For previous median wage rates, check table 3 in the 'Transport Work to Residence Visa' section in the wage rates page:

Work to residence wage rates

If you change jobs during your 24 months of work experience

Your work experience continues to count towards your 24 months as long as your new job pays at least the required wage rate that was in place for that job when you started counting work experience.

Your work experience stops being counted towards your 24 months if your new job pays below this wage rate.

You can start to count work experience again if your pay increases and you now earn at least the wage rate you were paid when you first started counting your work experience.

Health

You, and anyone else included in your application, must be in good health.

Why you may need to provide evidence you are in good health

You, and anyone else included, must complete a chest X-ray and medical examination.

The exceptions are dependent children included in your application:

• aged 10 or younger, who must get a medical examination, but do not need a chest X-ray unless we or your panel physician ask for one
• aged 11 to 14, who 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.
  
  

Who needs an X-ray or medical examination

How to get 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.

Character

You, and anyone else included in your application, must be of good character.

If you, and anyone else included, are aged 17 or older, you must provide police certificates that are less than 6 months old when you apply.

If you have a criminal conviction, or are a security risk to New Zealand, we might not give you a visa.

You must get police certificates from:

• countries you are a citizen of, and
• countries where you have spent 12 months or more in over the last 10 years — even if those 12 months were not all in one stay.

Police certificates must show any criminal records you have had at any time in any of these countries — not only in the last 10 years.

If we ask for a new police certificate when processing your application, you will need to send us a new one.

For information on how to get a police certificate that meets our requirements:

Police certificates

Partner and dependent children

If you include your partner and dependent children in your application, you must have a genuine relationship with them.
You need to provide documents — like marriage and birth certificates — that prove your relationship to your partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger.

Partnership and how to prove it

Bringing 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.

English language

You must speak and understand English.

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

• 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.

English language for family

Your partner and dependent children aged 16 or older must speak English or pay for classes to learn English in New Zealand.

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

• 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

When you apply

When you apply, you will need to provide:

• a copy of your passport or
• 1 acceptable photo
• evidence of a chest X-ray
• evidence of a medical examination
• police certificates from any country you are a citizen of, or any country that you have spent more than 12 months in the last 10 years
• evidence that you can speak and understand English
• evidence that you have worked in an approved transport job for 24 months
• evidence you have a job offer or already work in an approved transport job with an accredited employer
• translated versions of all your documents if they are not in English.

Evidence of your work experience, current job or job offer

Include any documents that show:

• the work you did
• how much you were paid
• when you did the work
• how many hours a week you worked (on average)
• the locations you did the work in
• the contact details of your employers.

Current job or job offer

For current job or job offer, documents include:

• an employment agreement
• a fixed-term contract
• certificates or licences required for your approved transport job
• a letter offering you a job and describing your job, hours of work, length of employment and what you will be paid.

Documents from your employers should be on official company letterhead and signed by an authorised person.

Work experience

For work experience, documents include:

• an employment agreement
• bank statements or pay slips
• a job description, and
• a summary of earnings from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) that also confirms the 24 months of work.

Your employment agreement must include all the clauses required by New Zealand employment law. Check the section 'What an employment agreement must include' for more information about what must be in your employment agreement.

What an employment agreement must include — Employment New Zealand

Request a summary of income — Inland Revenue

You must include evidence showing you meet the requirements for your approved transport job. For example, your Skipper Restricted Limits Certificate of Competency (CoC) with 500GT or 3000GT endorsement.

Evidence you need if you are including your partner and dependent children

If you are including your partner and dependent children, provide:

• documents to show your relationship with them
• proof of their identity and acceptable photos
• police certificates, if they are aged 17 years or older
• evidence of medical examinations
• evidence of chest X-rays, if they are aged 11 years or older
• evidence they can speak English or have paid for English language lessons.

Providing your passport for an online application

Visa and NZeTA photos

After you apply

After you apply, we may contact you and ask for:

• your original passport
• more evidence such as bank statements or pay slips showing your salary payments
• more evidence of your ability to speak and understand English.

Your visa conditions are recorded in your eVisa.

Travel

You can travel in and out of New Zealand as many times as you like until your travel conditions expire.

Your travel conditions expire 2 years from:

• the date you first arrive in New Zealand as a resident, or
• the date your visa is issued, if you are already in New Zealand.

To travel after that, you need to:

• get a Permanent Resident Visa, or
• extend your travel conditions, which would let you return to New Zealand at a later date.

Permanent Resident Visa

Check or change your resident visa conditions

With a Permanent Resident Visa, you can travel in and out of New Zealand indefinitely, as long as you keep your visa in a valid passport.

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

Transferring a visa to a new passport

Work

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

Study

You can study anywhere in New Zealand for any length of time.

Getting a Permanent Resident Visa

After you have had a Transport Work to Residence Visa for 2 years in a row, you can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa.

With a Permanent Resident Visa, you can travel in and out of New Zealand indefinitely, as long as you keep your visa in a valid passport.

Becoming a permanent resident of New Zealand

Permanent Resident Visa

Getting citizenship

For most people, after 5 years of living in New Zealand as a resident, you may be able to get New Zealand citizenship. You do not need a Permanent Resident Visa first.

Requirements for NZ citizenship — New Zealand Government