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Family
New Zealand offers several family-based visas designed to allow families to reunite, live together, and, in some cases, work or study in New Zealand. These visas are available to partners, children, parents, and other close family members of New Zealand citizens or residents. They also include partners and children of work or student visa holders
Partner Work visa
Partner work visas can either be supported by someone with an eligible work visa (some people on AEWVs for example) or by a New Zealand resident or citizen. They have slightly different names depending on who is supporting the application. Couples must be actively living together and in a genuine and stable relationship, that can be evidenced by supporting documents. Depending on the status of the supporting partner, you may have open work rights, or restricted rights, meaning you could either work for almost any employer, including self-employment, or be limited to working for accredited employers only.
There is no set amount of evidence required for these visas, but often I will submit hundreds of pages of evidence, particularly for a partner resident visa. It is not uncommon for INZ to request further supporting evidence, and this is the case more often than not. There are also restrictions on who can support a partner visa. A supporting partner with convictions for domestic violence, or sexual violence for example, will be unlikely to be able to sponsor a visa applicant. Similarly, if the sponsor has previous sponsored several other applicants in the past, there may be an indefinite ban in place from them supporting a further application.
dependent child visas
Like partner work visas above, dependent child visas are based on an eligible sponsor, a parent or adoptive parent usually, whether they are on a work visa, or a citizen. Dependent child visas are fairly straight forward, and don't require a lot of evidence, unless there is a medical issue or criminal conviction in the background. These visas can allow your child to study at school, or simply visit (if they are too young or too old for school).
parent category
Broadly, there are two main ways your parents can permanently join you in New Zealand. These are, the parent resident visa, and the parent retirement resident visa.
Parent Resident Visa: this category is based on your child's ability to financially support you. You will still need to meet relevant medical and character requirements. Given that elderly people tend to have more medical issues, this is why we see many parent resident visas declined, and appealed to the Immigration Protection Tribunal, usually over medical issues, and the cost they will impose on New Zealand. This is the most common and lower-cost way to bring your parents to New Zealand. This category is based on a lottery system, not everyone will be invited to apply.
Parent (Retirement) Resident Visa: despite the similar names, this category relies on the parent having substantial assets, in that they can support themselves without relying too much on their children. There is no lottery system with this visa, but the financial requirements are often too much for people. The specific financial requirements change often with inflationary pressure, and so I won't be listing them here, but you can follow the link above for up to date information.
More generally, there are parent an grandparent visitor visas too, or general visitor visas available through the INZ website. If you would like to discuss your eligibility for any of these visas, please send me a message below.