Immigration New Zealand announced today that they will resume processing visa applications in Alert level - 2

🛂 Immigration
#1

Immigration New Zealand announced today that they will resume processing visa applications in Alert level - 2 with enhanced efficiency.
Priorities in processing will be given to onshore applications as described below:
Skilled Migrant Category and Residence from Work Residence Visa Applications will be prioritized if the applicant meets any of the following conditions:

  1. the applicant has a job offer with an hourly rate equivalent to or higher than twice the median wage (currently $51.00 per hour or an annual salary of $106,080 or more)
  2. the applicant holds occupational registration required to undertake their skilled employment.
    All other Residence Visa Applications where the applicants are already in New Zealand will have the second priority.
    Temporary Visa Applications will be prioritized if the applicant meets any of the following conditions:
  3. Visas (and variations of condition requests) for critical workers to support the Government response to COVID-19;
  4. Visa applications where there is an urgent humanitarian need due to one of the following reasons:
    Visa applications for victims of domestic violence
    Visitor visas (and variations of conditions) for the following exceptions to the restriction on entry permission:
    humanitarian cases; Tongan and Samoan citizens making essential travel; immediate family of New Zealand citizens and residents travelling with their New Zealand citizen or resident family member; immediate family of temporary visa holders who normally live in New Zealand; Residence class visas for Australian citizens and permanent residents who normally live in NZ;
  5. Applications to travel under the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) travel card programme made by people who are not New Zealand citizens or residence class visa holders;
  6. Diplomatic visas;
  7. All other temporary entry class visa applications where the applicant is in New Zealand.
    All other temporary entry applications made by people living outside New Zealand will have the second priority.
    Please note that this does not mean that the offshore applications will not be assessed at all. It looks like they will be assessed but with considerable delays.
    Also note that everyone working in a business recognized as Essential Business will not considered as a Critical Worker to support the Government response to COVID-19. For example, a Police Officer and Healthcare worker is a critical worker, but a Supermarket worker is not despite working in an essential business.
#2

In what order are visa applications processed? Immigration New Zealand has changed its rules on this question.

:new_zealand: RESIDENCE

  1. Onshore applications will be prioritised over offshore, no matter what other factors are involved.
  2. Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) and Residence from Work (RfW) applications will be prioritised if applicants earn at or above $51 per hour, or $106,080 per year
  3. SMC and RfW applications will be prioritised for occupations that require registration (eg. nurses, electricians)

:new_zealand: TEMPORARY VISAS
Top to bottom priority is as follows:

:one: FIRST PRIORITY (temporary visas)

  1. Visas and Variation of Conditions (VOC) for workers in essential services
  2. Visas and VOC which involve urgent humanitarian circumstances (victims of domestic violence, exemptions to the border restriction)
  3. Other temporary visas where the applicant is in New Zealand

:two: SECOND PRIORITY (temporary visas)
All offshore temporary visas

We note that other than this, visa processing is handled in a “first come, first serve” manner. Therefore, we highly encourage all applicants - no matter what their circumstances - to get their place in the queue as early as possible. Don’t wait until the border reopens, or you could find yourself waiting many months after that to get a decision!