About NZ Visa Guide

Why this site exists

Immigration New Zealand publishes an enormous amount of material, and almost all of it is accurate. The problem is that it is written for people who already understand the system. It tells you a visa costs “from $441” without telling you what makes up that figure. It describes eligibility in the language of immigration instructions. It rarely tells you what happens when something goes wrong.

Meanwhile, a great deal of what is written about New Zealand immigration elsewhere online is out of date or simply wrong. At the time of writing, widely-read sites still describe a median-wage requirement for the Accredited Employer Work Visa that was removed in March 2025, still publish Green List counts that do not match the Operational Manual, and still quote an International Visitor Levy figure that was superseded years ago. People make expensive decisions on that information.

This site is 273 guides that try to sit in between: the accuracy of the official source, in language a person can actually act on.

What we are, and what we are not

We are an independent publisher. NZ Visa Guide is not Immigration New Zealand. We are not part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, not part of the New Zealand Government, and not endorsed by any of them. We have no ability to lodge, influence, expedite or check the status of anyone's application.

We are not licensed immigration advisers. This matters more in New Zealand than in most countries. Under the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, giving immigration advice without a licence is a criminal offence carrying penalties of up to $100,000 and seven years' imprisonment. Publishing general information about immigration is expressly exempt from that regime — and general information is precisely and only what this site publishes.

The practical difference: we will tell you what the partnership evidence rules require. We will not tell you whether your relationship will satisfy them. For that, you need a licensed immigration adviser or a New Zealand lawyer, and you can verify anyone's licence on the Immigration Advisers Authority public register.

How we are funded

We do not charge readers, we do not sell visa application services, and we do not take payment to place or rank an immigration adviser. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on this page and on the pages affected, before it changes.

We want to be direct about one thing, because it is the most common way people lose money in this niche: no third party can get you a New Zealand visa faster. There is no paid priority processing. An NZeTA is requested directly from Immigration New Zealand for a small fee, and sites charging many times that price for the same thing are selling you form-filling. See how to spot a visa scam.

Who writes this

Guides are researched and written by the NZ Visa Guide editorial team and reviewed against primary sources before publication. Every page carries the date it was published and the date it was last reviewed, at the top, where you can see it before you read the page rather than after.

Our sourcing rules, correction policy and the specific things we refuse to publish are set out in our editorial policy.

Telling us we got something wrong

Immigration rules change without much warning, and pages go stale. If you find something on this site that is out of date or incorrect, we want to know — particularly if it is a fee, a threshold or a date. Contact us with the page and what you believe the correct position is, and we will check it against the primary source and correct it.