Employer Immigration Accreditation

What is a New Zealand Immigration Accreditation?

New Zealand employers are required to apply and be approved for one type of accreditation from Immigration New Zealand, before they can hire migrant workers.

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This page details the process of accreditation, the different accreditation levels, our accreditation service, how to become accredited, and how to renew your employer accreditation.

Immigration New Zealand is mandating compulsory accreditation for all New Zealand employers with migrant workers. The aim is to ensure temporary migrant workers are only recruited for genuine shortages whilst also endeavouring to ensure employers can still access the skills and labour they need. Immigration New Zealand will place significant emphasis onto employers to prove commitment to hiring and training New Zealanders, financial sustainability, compliance with employment law practices and sound HR and recruiting processes.

Employers who are already accredited must transition to meet new requirements to keep their current migrant staff.

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How to become an Accredited Employer?

Becoming an accredited employer

Are you struggling to recruit skilled workers and develop your business with the local work force? Are you unable to find New Zealanders to fill the roles? You are at a point where you have identified the need to rely on overseas talents to take your company to the next level, or simply to keep it running. You are at the point where you should wonder how to get company accreditation.

We can help you become an Accredited Employer by Immigration New Zealand.

Using an INZ accreditation consultant

The aim by Immigration New Zealand is to ensure temporary migrant workers are only recruited for genuine shortages whilst also endeavouring to ensure employers can still access the skills and labour they need.

To get your company accredited, a comprehensive application must be prepared and lodged with Immigration New Zealand that presents a case on a wide range of topics. The evidence to be provided and the threshold for each section to address will depend on the type of accreditation you are seeking. Our expert consultants will determine the level required, work through evidence provided and ensure the INZ thresholds can be met for the applicable category.

Our Accreditation Service

What are the requirements to get your company accredited?

In order to grant Accreditation, Immigration New Zealand must be satisfied that an employer has:

A sound financial position to determine if the employment is sustainable; and

• • Proving sustainability of current and future staff who you are seeking to employ
  • Evidence of good financial position
  • Trading history and business record

Human resource policies and recruitment processes which are of a high standard

• • Recruitment practices
  • Employment agreements and job descriptions compliant with NZ employment law
  • Health and safety
  • Employee well being
  • Training and Career progression
  • Demonstrable commitment to training and employing New Zealand citizens or residence class visa holders (to ensure they are engaged in training and up-skilling New Zealanders and that they make up a significant part of their workforce)

Good workplace practices, including a history of compliance with all immigration and employment New Zealand laws

• • Fair, equitable and safe workplace
  • Historical and current compliance with immigration and employment law

How long is employer accreditation valid for?

Once granted, the initial employer accreditation is valid for 12 months. Accreditation renewals are granted for 24 months (12 months for franchises and labour-hire companies). You will need to comply with immigration requirements throughout your accreditation period, and at renewal stage.

Once you are an accredited employer you can then support a migrant worker for an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) application.

What about subsidiary companies?

Subsidiary companies cannot be covered by the accreditation of a parent company. To be accredited, a subsidiary company must apply in their own right.

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What are the different accreditation levels?

We can help you determine the best employer accreditation level for your business. There are two main accreditation tiers, standard and high volume. There are additional requirements for labour hire/tripartite agreements.

Standard employer accreditation

The standard accreditation is for employers who employ or are looking to employ 1 to 5 migrant workers at any given time.

It is a streamlined process for low-risk, standard employers (including small businesses). The accreditation process will include checks to ensure that the business is compliant with minimum employment standards before being able to hire migrant workers.

Initial accreditation is granted for 12 months, with renewals every 24 months.

High volume employer accreditation

The premium accreditation is for companies recruiting six or more employer-assisted migrants in a year. While the process is similar to standard accreditation, there will be higher standards for attracting and retaining New Zealand workers (wages, skills and training) and additional checks to ensure compliance with employment standards.

You may upgrade from standard to high volume accreditation at any time, for a fee, which reflects the additional verification work to be done by Immigration New Zealand.

Initial accreditation is granted for 12 months, with 24 months renewals.

Labour hire/tripartite accreditation

There will be additional requirements for labour hire companies (tripartite agreements). These include higher standards to meet and more checks involved. These checks will typically be focused on recruitment practices, training New Zealanders, more detailed up-front verification checks and potentially include site visits.

Initial employer accreditation and renewals are granted for 12 months.

What are employer Accreditation fees?

Government fees as at 1st October 2024.

• Standard accreditation (up to 5 migrants at any one time) - NZD $775.
• High-volume (6+ migrants at any one time) - NZD $1280.
• Upgrade fee (upgrade from standard to high-volume accreditation) - NZD $505.
• Employers wanting to place migrants with controlling third parties (tripartite agreements) - NZD $4,060.
• Reconsideration (for declined employer accreditation application) - NZD $250.

FREE GUIDE TO ACCREDITATION 

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The employer accreditation process

How to get your company accredited? Below is a quick overview of the process.

Our step-by-step approach makes it hassle-free for your business.

Overview of the accreditation process

The immigration accreditation process does cover business-sensitive information and we completely understand there may be concerns throughout the process. We take a very practical approach to this and will only request information that is necessary for your application. Feel free to discuss directly with your adviser : we can advise on exactly what is required without having to provide too much (or too little) while also ensuring the INZ requirements are met.

It also goes without saying all the information you provide is highly secure and will not be viewed or shared with any party other than Immigration New Zealand for your application.

How long does it take to get accredited?

There are various stages to employer accreditation, including documentation, review, and processing. Getting the right documentation for your company's accreditation application is critical to the next steps. Our expert team will guide you through the process and carefully review the documentation you provide, highlighting gaps and compliance issues. This can take a few days or a few weeks depending on the size of your company, the documentation you have in place already and the changes required.

Once the application has been lodged, it will be placed in a queue to be processed, which can take a few weeks depending on the number of accreditation applications at that point in time. Immigration's online systems will conduct checks again a set of criteria, some of which are automated, while others will require a case officer's input.

All in all, an accreditation application may take one to three weeks from preparation to approval.

Preparing and Lodging your accreditation application

As Immigration advisers, we know what policy is relevant to your business, and the documentation that is required. Your dedicated consultant will help with:

HR documentation

Are your HR policies up to date, and particularly with relevance to the latest immigration requirements? Do you need to review your employment agreements? Your health & safety policies?

Areas that need improving

Our Immigration agents will identify and point to weak points in your documentation, and how these can be remedied. We can recommend HR advisors if you wish to have a full review of your policies and paperwork.

Documentation and application

Once we have captured all the information required for a successful accreditation application, your adviser will prepare the application by completing the forms, preparing and presenting the documentation in the required format and writing a comprehensive overview letter for Immigration NZ.

The application will then be lodged with INZ.

Management of your application with Immigration New Zealand

After lodgement of the application, it can take a few weeks before it is picked from the queue and assigned to an INZ Case Officer. The timeframes are purely determined by INZ as to how soon this will happen.

Once your application is assigned to a Case Officer, we will manage the interactions with the Case Officer and any questions they may have right through to the final decision.

Once you are accredited we can support you ongoing with any questions you may have.

Post-accreditation checks for AEWV employers

A number of accredited employers are selected for checks every year, at any time throughout the business' accreditation period. These checks may include information requests, or in some cases site visits. Immigration New Zealand will want to verify evidence that your business remains genuine and viable, that you hold the correct type of accreditation, that your key people remain compliant, and that you remain a responsible employer. The latter means ensuring your migrant workers have the right type of visa and visa conditions while in your employment, that employment modules have been completed, complaints managed appropriately, and correct recording of hours, wages, holidays, leave, and PAYE.