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(Updated on 3 November 2021)
Before checking out some of the Frequently Asked Questions regarding the 2021 Resident Visa and our answers below, you may wish to first read the page where we have put together a summary: 2021 Resident Visa - Explained.
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Yes, you can include your partner and/or dependent children in this visa. There will be one single residence application that includes the whole family, not separate applications for each family member.
Family members do not need to meet the same requirements as the principal applicant in terms of being in New Zealand, holding an acceptable visa, or meeting settled/skilled/scarce: offshore family members without a visa are eligible to be included, and may (once the resident visa is granted) travel to New Zealand, pending MIQ and health requirements for border entry.
Yes, but the decision on your partner’s resident visa application will be deferred until the 12-month ‘living together’ requirement is met. If necessary, the partner may be granted a work visa with sufficient duration for the 12-month ‘living together’ duration to be met.
Relationships with a short duration, or with substantial periods of separation (apart from separation obviously related to the border closure), or with little to no time spent ‘living together" can be more difficult to establish in the visa application.
Children aged 0-17 are dependent if they are single.
Children aged 18-20 are dependent if they are single and have no children of their own.
Children aged 21-24 are dependent if they are single, childless, and substantially reliant on their supporting parent(s) for financial support. Evidence may be required to establish financial reliance.
Children aged 25 and over are normally not considered ‘dependent’ under any circumstances, but for the 2021 Resident Visa, some (but not all) children aged 25 and over may be approved in a separate application. Please ask us or INZ for more details.
If your child is overseas and under 16 years old, and one of their parents is not included in the application (eg. the supporting parent is a single mother, divorced from the father who remains in the home country), then evidence may be required to show the right to remove the child from their home country. If your child is adopted, we strongly recommend consulting a professional as international conventions may or may not complicate INZ’s recognition of your parenthood.
The government expects to process most visa applications within 12 months of submission, but applications may be processed much sooner than this. Requirements for this visa have been tailored for quick processing: the government has publicly committed to not creating another years-long queue like the one that affected the SMC and Residence from Work categories.
No.
Police certificates from foreign countries will not be required unless requested by INZ. INZ will conduct its own NZ police check during the application process, you do not need to provide anything for this.
Medical certificates will be required. If you submitted medical certificates in the last 36 months in a previous application you might not need to provide new ones. We recommend not getting this too early if you are submitting in March 2022: unsubmitted medicals are valid for just 3 months from issue, so if you get these too early then they may expire before you are eligible to apply.
Most likely not. If you leave New Zealand while the resident visa application, approval will most likely be postponed until you return to the country. As a temporary visa holder awaiting the outcome of your residence application, you will be subject to the same border restrictions as other temporary visa holders and may need a critical travel exception to return, and even if you obtain this will still need to consider MIQ and other health policy limitations. INZ is under no obligation to place your residence application on hold indefinitely until you return to the country.
The cost of the 2021 Resident Visa will be $2,160, which includes a $1330 application fee and $830 immigration levy.
Charges will be collected differently for those who have already submitted an EOI or application for residence, and those who have not:
You can secure our services today!
If you commit to signing with us by 30 November 2021, and pre-pay your fees at the time, we can offer you a lower price than we would normally charge. You will have peace of mind knowing that your application is in good hands – although we cannot submit your application immediately, we will commit to doing so as soon as we can.
We include a free, no-obligations eligibility assessment as part of the package, and if we deem you to meet eligibility you’ll be invited to sign with us. Pre-pay your fees, and you will be eligible for a refund later (subject to our refund policy, which will be given to you before you pay).
You can find out our service fee and current special here.
To sign up for our application service, you can use our Eligibility Test Tool and complete the form here.
