The New Zealand PR facilitates easy migration to New Zealand and live, work and study there. The country is recognized for offering a balanced lifestyle and high-quality of living to people, including those from other nations. Unlike other countries New Zealand boasts of its expansive open spaces with less or no pollution. Acquiring a New Zealand PR visa, you can have a relaxed pace of life for the country offers enough options when it comes to lifestyle choices. New Zealand has many cities and towns that are not crowded and traveling between them is easy and less stressful while going to work or shopping, sightseeing and exploring.
Living in the country as a New Zealand PR will help you enjoy the Maori culture, as well as understand the connected of land and sea and temperate climate of wet winters and dry summers, which are mild. You can stay in any of the cities like Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Wellington, Marlborough, Canterbury, and so on. With innumerable visa options, you can have easy accessibility to New Zealand PR.
Various Visa Options for New Zealand PR
Where you desire to migrate to New Zealand permanently, you can do so with any of the visa options given below. Nevertheless, much depends on the eligibility criteria that you need to satisfy with.
Skilled Migrant Category: You can find a visa like:
- Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa
Work to Residence Category: This type of visa category helps you work in New Zealand for a minimum period of 24 hours and then apply for a New Zealand PR. Some of the visa options include:
- Long Term Skill Shortage List Work Visa
- Long Term Skill Shortage List Resident Visa
- Talent (Accredited Employer) Work Visa
- Talent (Accredited Employer) Resident Visa
- South Island Contribution Work Visa
- South Island Contribution Resident Visa
Family Sponsorship Category: The following are the choices under this category.
- Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa
- Parent Retirement Resident Visa
- Dependent Child Resident Visa
- Refugee Family Support Resident Visa
- Inter country Adoption Resident Visa
- Parent Resident Visa
Investors and Entrepreneur Category: This category of visa has:
- Investor 2 Resident Visa
- Entrepreneur Resident Visa
- Investor 1 Resident Visa
- Entrepreneur Work Visa
Other Categories: You can also find:
- Second or Subsequent Resident Visa
- Permanent Resident Visa
- Religious Worker Resident Visa
- Australian Resident Visa
- Community Sponsored Refugee Resident Visa
How to Apply for New Zealand PR?
(A) Under Skilled Migrant Category
If you are a skilled migrant with ready-to-transfer skills and experience, you have an opportunity to apply for the New Zealand PR under this category. However, you need to qualify by scoring enough points on various factors. The following steps will let you know how to apply for the New Zealand PR under the Skilled Category stream.
1. Conduct Self Assessment: In case you are applying for New Zealand PR under the Skilled Migrant Category Resident visa, you need to undergo two stages: one, the submission of paper Expression of Interest and the other, submission of application. It is advisable to check whether you enough points on the age, skilled employment, qualifications, work experience, and partner’s skills and qualifications in your Expression of Interest. To qualify, you need to score a minimum of 100 points and get into the selection pool. However, those applicants who have more than 160 points are chosen for the New Zealand PR.
2. Create and Send your EOI: The creation of EOI asks for certain information like age, employ ability, capacity building, health, character, and language ability factors. You can send the completed EOI either by paper or online and the fee should also be paid.
3. Selection of EOI in the Pool: The EOIs of the Skilled/Business stream of the New Zealand PR are selected based on the highest points scored in the pool. Where the EOI is not selected, it will remain in the pool for 6 months, wherein you can make changes to the EOI to increase your points. If the EOI is selected, it will undergo credibility check of the points and if passed, you will be invited to apply.
4. Invitation to Apply: The next step in the New Zealand PR process is to receive an invitation to apply for residence. For the purpose, you have to fill in a number of forms after reading the instructions and then validate and sign them.
5. Gather and Prepare your Documents: You have to get ready all the supporting documents against your claims in the New Zealand PR application. The documents to include:
- Two photographs
- The birth certificate
- The passport or the certified copy of it
- Health check reports
- Good character certificates
- Documents showing your educational qualification
- English skills results
6. Submit your Application: Once you have completed the New Zealand PR application under the skilled migrant and prepared the documents, you can submit the application online or through paper submission and pay the fee. The online submission asks for uploading the application form and scanned copies of the evidence documents.
7. Wait for the Decision: You need to wait until your application is processed. In the mean time, you are allowed to update any changes in the information provided.
8. Settling in New Zealand: The approval of the residence application will permit you to travel to New Zealand. It is important to go through the tools and resources given on the immigration website to acquire knowledge on various aspects like housing, standard of living, education, healthcare, and so on.
(B) Work to Residence Category
This category of visa is meant for those who are skilled, qualified and experienced to work in a skilled occupation and contribute to the economic growth in New Zealand. The skilled occupation can be on the LTSSL (Long Term Skill Shortage List). The category also includes visas that are designed for skilled people with full-time job offer, as well as those with work experience of two years at an accredited employer’s place. As for those skilled persons employed in South Island, the category has special visas for work and residency. Given below are the steps to acquire New Zealand PR under this category.
1. Fill Out your Application: You can apply for any of the Work to Residence category visa mentioned above either online or by paper. Nevertheless, the first step in either case is to fill in all the mandatory fields with complete information.
2. Gather and Prepare your Documents: You have to get ready all the supporting documents against your claims in the New Zealand PR application. The documents to include:
- Two photographs, the passport or the certified copy of it
- The birth certificate
- Documents showing your educational qualification recognized by the (NZQA) New Zealand Qualifications Agency and work experience
- Evidence showing full or provisional registration
- Health check reports
- Good character certificates
3. Pay the Processing Fee: The next step is to pay the New Zealand PR processing fee, which includes the application cost and receiving center fees. The amount of fee varies based on the method of your submission of application, which can be either online or by paper.
4. Submit your Application: The submission of application can be done online or by paper. For an online submission, you need to have the scanned copies of the supporting documents to be attached with the completed application form. The paper-based application with evidence can be sent by post or courier to the New Zealand immigration office address mentioned online.
5. Wait for the Decision: Finally, you have to wait for the decision. During the processing, you may be contacted for anything you need to do, for instance, you may have to attend an interview. This may however require you to have a valid visa while in New Zealand. In case, your visa is going to expire while waiting for the decision, you are required to apply for a further temporary visa to be in New Zealand.
6. Apply for a PR Visa: Where you are granted a temporary work visa to work in an occupation for an employer
(C) Family Sponsorship Category
With this category of visa, you can stay, work and study in New Zealand for an indefinite period of time. The family sponsorship visas mentioned above help you apply for the New Zealand PR after staying in the country for a certain period of time as a resident. However, you need to meet certain common eligibility criteria for the different types of visa under this category.
