New changes to visa processing and border exemptions for partners, investors, entrepreneurs and skilled workers!
September has brought several promising updates that show the New Zealand government is slowly working on easing restrictions for different groups of individuals.
Partners of NZ Citizens and Residents
INZ has advised that Partners and dependants of New Zealand citizens and residents who normally live in New Zealand or hold a visa on the basis of their relationship will no longer need to travel with their New Zealand citizen or resident family member to be granted an exception to the border closure. They have also indicated that the following applications will resume processing for partners of New Zealand citizens and residents who currently reside outside of NZ:
- Partnership – Visitor Partnership
- Partnership – Visitor Culturally Arranged Marriage
- Partnership – Work Partnership
- Partnership – Resident Partnership
- Partnership – Resident Partnership – Partner of an Expatriate
- Dependent Child – Visitor Child of NZ citizen/resident
- Dependent Child – Visitor Adopted child
- Dependent Child – Student Child of NZ citizen/resident
- Dependent Child – Resident Family child dependent
- Dependent Child – Resident Family child dependent – Dependant of an Expatriate
If granted a visa, these visa holders will be exempt from New Zealand border restrictions. The visa holder can travel to and enter New Zealand without seeking an approval from us and will not need to submit an Expression of Interest for an exception to travel to New Zealand.
Note that these positive changes unfortunately do not yet apply to partners and dependants of temporary work visa holders.
Select visa categories resuming processing 15th September 2020
In an exciting announcement, INZ has confirmed that the following applications will resume processing:
- Refugee Family Support - Tiers 1 and 2
- Migrant Investor (Investor 1 and 2), including EOIs for Investor 2
- Parent Retirement
- Entrepreneur
Successful applicants for these visas are not yet eligible for border exemptions. However, it is extremely positive that processing will again resume as it appears to be an indication that they may be looking at further easing restrictions soon.
Critical worker exemptions
INZ has eased the criteria for ‘other critical workers’ to update the criteria from unique experience and technical or specialist skills and experience needing to be completely unobtainable in New Zealand to now being required to not be ‘readily obtainable’. Effectively, this means that whilst the skills and experience may already exist in New Zealand, they are not readily obtainable to the employer.
‘Unique experience and technical or specialist skills that are not readily obtainable in New Zealand’ can include, but isn’t limited to, skills and experiences such as expertise that has been gained in a specialist training institution or by working in a highly-specialist firm, or can be shown by having global experience, or skills and experiences that are inherent to a person.
Skills are considered not readily obtainable if there are no workers in New Zealand who can do the role
Skills are considered not readily obtainable if there are no workers in New Zealand who can do the role, or there is a very limited pool of available workers who can do the role and they are not available to the employer. We typically demonstrate this with recent, unsuccessful recruitment attempts onshore, and New Zealand Shores can provide employers guidance on this process.
If you are an employer get in touch with us today
What to do next?
If you believe that you may meet one of the above exemption criteria or If you believe you are eligible to apply under one of the above listed categories, please get in touch with our team by emailing [email protected] to discuss your options with one of our licensed advisers.
We have several advisers who specialise in entrepreneur and investment based categories so please do not delay getting in touch with us!
If you do not meet the new criteria, you may need to wait for the next round of changes.
