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.

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.

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.

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 

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.

Our accreditation services

Every company is different, we pride ourselves on understanding your business, applying expert immigration advice and finding practical outcomes to enable you to hire migrants.

The employer accreditation process brings about a range of additional requirements for your business to meet, some of which will be standard practice while there might also be some more complex areas to address. Small businesses in particular who do not have the luxury of full time Human Resources representatives will require some help with documentation requirements along the way.

FREE GUIDE TO ACCREDITATION 

Personalised consultancy

We take care of the whole process for you to get company accreditation. From the outset, you will be assigned a dedicated licensed immigration adviser who will be your main point of contact throughout the process, right to the final approval. You can engage in person, video conference, phone, online or email. Should they be unavailable for any reason we have a number of other fully licensed advisers who are always happy to help.

Pathway to employer accreditation

Upon capturing some initial information through our smart and secure online systems, your licensed adviser will review all the information and prepare instructions of exactly what will be required to obtain accreditation, specific to your business. These instructions will outline all the information, documentation and requirements to make your application successful.

Personalised assessment

As you work through the process to provide the required information, your adviser will be available to answer any questions you may have. Once the information is available, your adviser will

work through all the information and prepare your accreditation application. There will likely be quite a few interactions during this stage, we are very thorough yet also very practical to ensure applications are only submitted to INZ that we believe will be approved.

If you are unable to provide some of the requested information, we can introduce you to our proven HR partner who can provide a range of excellent and cost-effective advice and documentation.

We will then liaise with all parties to ensure the documentation addresses the exact requirements for your accreditation.

Don't wait, contact us now for more information and get the right staff for the job.

How to renew your employer accreditation?

Your initial employer accreditation with Immigration New Zealand is valid for 12 months. Following this period, you have the option to renew your accreditation or let it expire. You need to consider whether you need to renew your accreditation.

When you opt for renewal, you have the flexibility to change your accreditation type. For instance, you can transition from a high-volume accreditation to a standard one. The type of accreditation that you choose depends on your requirements and company structure, and impacts the accreditation duration.

The duration of your renewed accreditation may be:

• 24 months for standard accreditation
• 24 months for high-volume accreditation
• 12 months for franchisee accreditation or controlling third-party accreditation.

If you choose to renew any expired accreditation that elapsed more than 12 months ago, it will be valid for 12 months.

Note: If you applied for your initial employer accreditation before July 4, 2023, your accreditation period might have been automatically extended by 12 months.

Do I need to renew my company accreditation?

You should consider renewing your employer accreditation if you intend to:

• Employ new workers under an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV)
• Change accreditation types, such as transitioning from high volume to standard accreditation
• Assist an AEWV holder in applying for their AEWV balance (also referred to as maximum continuous stay)
• Support a migrant worker in applying for a different visa that requires your accreditation, such as a Work to Residence Visa or Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa.

You are not obligated to renew your accreditation if you don't plan to employ new migrants under AEWVs or support an AEWV holder with additional visa applications.

Note that if you opt not to renew your accreditation, your accreditation will automatically expire on the expiry date.

Can I still employ migrants if I don't renew my accreditation?

You can still employ any migrants already working for you for the duration of their visa, including AEWV or Partner of a Worker Work Visas holders, until their visas expire. However, to continue employing them on another AEWV or Partner of a Worker Work Visa, or for them to submit an AEWV extension, you must hold valid accreditation.

You won't be able to apply for another Job Check to hire new workers or support a worker in applying for their AEWV balance/extension.

Furthermore, you won't be able to assist a migrant worker in applying for various visas, such as Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa, Work to Residence Visa, Transport Work to Residence Visa, Care Workforce Work to Residence Visa, or Straight to Residence Visa.

Note that any Job Check tokens you have will expire when your accreditation expires.

Even after your accreditation expires, you'll still be able to access your employer dashboard in Immigration Online.

When should I renew my accreditation?

It is recommended that you get in touch with New Zealand Shores no later than 6-8 weeks before your accreditation is due to expire. This usually gives sufficient time to compile your evidence of compliance and prepare your application.

What do I need to renew my accreditation?

Supporting evidence may be required to support your accreditation renewal application. New Zealand Shores can assist you with compiling the right documentation to demonstrate that you have met accreditation requirements and commitments made during the initial accreditation application. This may include evidence of financial sustainability, settlement support, employer/employee modules, induction policies, etc. New Zealand Shores has a detailed compliance pack/plan which we provide as part of our (re)accreditation service.

If your accreditation renewal isn't approved by the time your current accreditation expires, you will receive an interim accreditation.

Interim Employer Accreditation

To be eligible, you must have submitted your renewal application before your current accreditation expires. Interim accreditation is granted under the following conditions:

• You applied for a subsequent accreditation before your current one expired.
• Your application is still pending.
• You applied for the appropriate type of accreditation for your business.
  You won't be granted interim accreditation if you applied for standard accreditation but have more than 5 associated jobs or if you applied for franchisee accreditation without currently holding franchisee accreditation.

What is the process for interim accreditation?

You cannot apply for interim accreditation directly. If you qualify for interim accreditation, you'll receive an email confirming its approval when your accreditation expires.

Types of interim accreditation granted

The type of interim accreditation you receive depends on your current accreditation type and the one you applied for:

• Standard accreditation if you held standard accreditation or applied to switch to it.
• High-volume accreditation if you held high-volume accreditation and applied for the same.
• High-volume accreditation if you held controlling third-party accreditation and applied for high-volume accreditation.
• High-volume accreditation if you held franchisee accreditation and applied for high-volume accreditation.
• High-volume accreditation if you held high-volume or franchisee accreditation and applied for controlling third-party accreditation.
• Controlling third-party accreditation if you held this type and applied for it again.
• Franchisee accreditation if you held franchisee accreditation and applied for it again. Note: Franchisee accreditation is phased out late 2024. Franchisee employers can apply for standard, high-volume, or controlling third-party employer accreditation. Further updates on franchisee accreditation changes will be provided soon.

What you can do while on interim accreditation

With interim employer accreditation, you can apply for a new Job Check, or use an existing job token to request a migrant to apply for an AEWV.