Work to Residence Visa

A Work to Residence Visa lets you stay in New Zealand indefinitely.

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.

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
• have a work visa for at least 24 months before you apply
• have been working in a Green List Tier 2 job in New Zealand for 24 months, in the 30 months immediately before you apply
• have an offer of, or be working in, a Green List Tier 2 job with an accredited employer
• meet wage and other requirements for your job
• be in good health
• be of good character
• have a genuine relationship with your partner and dependent children, if including them
• must 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 current visa

For at least 24 months before you apply, you must have a work visa or a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allows you to work.

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.

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:

• full-time
• a Green List Tier 2 job
• paid at least the required wage rate for your job when you started to count your 24 months skilled work experience 
• permanent or fixed-term for at least 12 months (from when you apply), and
• for an employer who is accredited (either when you apply, or when your visa is decided) under the Accredited Employer Work Visa policy.

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

Check if an employer is accredited 

Your Green List job

The Green List is a list of jobs that we need people for in New Zealand. These jobs are separated into levels called tiers (Tier 1 and Tier 2):

• Tier 2 jobs allow you to apply for a Work to Residence Visa
• Tier 1 jobs allow you to apply for a Straight to Residence Visa.

All jobs on the Green List have requirements you need to meet to get the job and use the job to apply for a visa. This could include having a specific qualification, registration or needing to be paid above a certain amount.

You must meet any additional requirements listed for your Green List job.

You must provide documents proving you meet the current work requirements and Green List job requirements.

Search the Green List for your job:

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

How much you must earn

To be eligible for a Work to Residence Visa, you must meet certain wage rate requirements.

To find out more, check the work to residence wage rates page:

Work to residence wage rates

Qualifications not gained in New Zealand

Some Green List jobs require you to have a qualification. If you did not gain this qualification in New Zealand, you may need an

If you need an IQA, you must apply for this through the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). You must include the results in your visa application.

Not all international qualifications need to be assessed. For example, the Washington or Sydney Accord qualifications and qualifications on the List of Qualification Exempt from Assessment (LQEA).

Check if you need an International Qualification Assessment

Apply for an International Qualification Assessment (IQA) — NZQA

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

How we check your work experience

Before you apply, you must have worked in New Zealand in a Green List Tier 2 job for at least 24 months in the 30 months before you apply. You must be paid at least the wage rate in place when you started your eligible work experience.

You can complete the 24 months in several stretches within the 30-month period. For example, you could work for 2 lots of 12 months with a gap of 6 months in between.

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

For more detailed information on wage rates and work experience, check the page:

Work to residence wage rates

What counts as work experience

Work experience only counts for any jobs you worked:

• that were full-time, and
• that were Tier 2 on the Green List, or in a job paid twice the median wage, and
• where you earned at or above the required wage rate for your job.

Any leave you get while working in these jobs is counted as part of your work experience. This includes annual, bereavement or other leave you are legally entitled to, such as parental leave.

If your job is removed from the Green List after you start working, your time in that job still counts towards your 24 months.

If you applied for your work visa before 29 September 2023

You only need to be paid the amount required for your work visa, if:

• you applied for your work visa or Critical Purpose Visitor Visa before 29 September 2023, and
• an hourly rate was not specified for your Green List Tier 2 job.

When your work experience starts being counted 

Work experience can start being counted towards your 24 months when:

• you have an eligible visa
• you are in a job that meets our requirements, and
• your pay is at or above the required wage rate.

When your work experience stops being counted

Work experience stops being counted if:

• your work visa ends, or
• you are no longer in a job that meets our requirements, or
• your pay decreases and drops below the wage rate in place for your job at the time you started counting work experience.

If your work experience stops being counted, you:

• keep the time you have already got
• must meet the rules for your work experience to start counting work experience again
• can only count work completed in the 30 months before you apply.

The required wage rate to count work experience

The required wage rate is:

• the hourly rate specified for your Green List Tier 2 job when you started counting work experience, or
• the median wage in place at that time, if an hourly rate was not specified.

If the median wage goes up later, your work experience still counts as long as you continue to meet the wage rate that was in place when you started counting your work experience. 

Grace period for wage rate changes

If the required pay rate for your job increases before you start work, a grace period of 5 months may apply.

If you changed jobs during your 24 months of work experience

If you changed jobs, you can continue to count time in that job towards your 24 months of work experience, as long as:

• the new job is another green list job, and

• you are paid at least the required wage rate in place for the new job at the time when you started counting work experience.

For more details on the grace period, and other wage rate rules, check the wage rate page:

Work to residence wage rates

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 aged 15 or older, must complete a chest X-ray and medical examination.

Dependent children included in your application and aged:

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

Character requirements for New Zealand visas

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.

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 – 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.

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 – 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

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
• evidence that you can speak and understand English
• documents that show that you have been working for 24 months and what you have been paid during that 24 months
• evidence you have a job offer or already work in a Green List Tier 2 job with an accredited employer
• documents that show you meet your Green List job's requirements
• 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
• a letter offering you a job and describing your job, hours of work, length of employment and what you will be paid.

Work experience

For work experience, documents include:

•  an employment agreement
•  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.

What an employment agreement must include — Employment New Zealand

Request a summary of income — Inland Revenue

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 required
• evidence of chest X-rays and medical examinations, if required
• 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 given, 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 Work to Resident 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