How to Apply for a New Zealand Visa: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide
Almost every New Zealand visa is applied for through Immigration Online, the official Immigration New Zealand system, using a RealMe government login. You choose the visa, check its requirements, gather documents, complete the form, and pay the fee when you submit. The fee is paid at submission, not on approval. Figures as at August 2026.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail (as at August 2026) |
|---|---|
| Where you apply | Immigration Online — the current build is branded Enhanced Immigration Online |
| Login | A RealMe account (the New Zealand Government identity service) |
| Portal name | There is no INZ portal called "ADEPT". That name appears nowhere on immigration.govt.nz |
| When you pay | At submission. Not on approval, and not on decline |
| Refund if declined | No. A processed application is not refunded, even if it is refused |
| Fee structure | Application fee + immigration levy + the NZ$100 International Visitor Levy where it applies |
| Busiest period | INZ states it receives high numbers of applications between November and March |
| Faster option | None. There is no expedited or premium channel at any price |
| Outcome | All visas are issued as an eVisa. No sticker is needed for it to be valid |
Immigration New Zealand's five official steps — and what they leave out
INZ publishes a summary of the steps to apply for a visa. It has five:
- Choose your visa type.
- Review the visa requirements — health, character and identity, finances, skills and qualifications, and how long you want to stay.
- Gather and prepare your documents. INZ's own wording: "Allow enough time for you to get any official documents we ask for, and to get them translated into English if they are not already."
- Submit online or on paper, and pay the fee at submission.
- Wait for a decision.
That is accurate, and it is also thin. INZ's five steps say nothing about creating an account, nothing about medical examinations, nothing about police certificates and nothing about biometrics. Those sit in a different branch of the site called providing evidence and documents to support your visa application, which a first-time applicant has no particular reason to find.
The walkthrough below puts them back in order. It is the same process INZ describes, with the missing pieces restored to the point in the sequence where they actually bite.
Step 1: Work out which visa you are applying for
New Zealand has roughly 168 distinct visa products. They fall into three broad legal classes: temporary entry class visas (visitor, student, work, working holiday, interim), residence class visas (resident and permanent resident), and transit. Requirements, fees, evidence and processing all differ by product, so nothing else in this process can be decided until this is.
INZ publishes a visa comparison tool for this, and our own overview of all New Zealand visa types covers the same ground with the categories laid out side by side. If you are not sure which class you are in, which New Zealand visa do I need is the starting point.
Two things to settle here, because they change everything downstream:
- Are you inside or outside New Zealand when you apply? This sets your fee band and, for some visas, whether you can apply at all.
- How long do you intend to stay? A stay of 24 months or longer triggers the police certificate requirement, and length of stay is one of the four things INZ says drives whether you need a medical examination.
Step 2: Read the requirements for that specific visa
Every visa page on immigration.govt.nz carries its own requirements. Broadly, INZ assesses five strands:
| Strand | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Health | Whether you meet the acceptable standard of health, and what medical evidence is needed |
| Character and identity | Police certificates, declarations, and identity evidence including biometrics |
| Finances | Whether you can support yourself, or a sponsor can support you |
| Skills and qualifications | Job offers, registration, qualifications, English where required |
| Duration | How long you want to stay, and whether the visa allows it |
Two of these have long lead times and are the reason applications slip: health evidence and police certificates. Read those two now, not later.
Step 3: Create your RealMe login and Immigration Online account
Immigration Online is INZ's application system. To use it you need a RealMe login — the New Zealand Government identity service, operated by the Department of Internal Affairs rather than by INZ.
The order is: create the RealMe login first, then use it to create or access your Immigration Online account. Full detail is on setting up your RealMe login and how the Immigration Online account works.
A few things worth knowing before you start:
- One person, one RealMe. If you are applying for someone else — as an employer, an agent, an adviser or a family member — you need your own Immigration Online account and your own RealMe login. See applying on behalf of someone else.
- The current build is called Enhanced Immigration Online. It is the same system, not a separate product. Its forms are "smart" — they ask only the questions relevant to your answers and your visa type, so two people applying for the same visa can see different questions.
- Draft applications save. You do not have to finish in one sitting.
Step 4: Order the documents that take the longest
This is the step INZ compresses into a single line and the step that decides your timeline. Two items are outside your control and should be started before you touch the form.
Police certificates. If you plan to stay in New Zealand for 24 months or longer, you must provide a police certificate with your application, and it must be less than 6 months old when you submit. Issuing times vary enormously between countries. Since 2026 this has become far more serious: an application lodged without a required police certificate may be declined without INZ contacting you first. Only three jurisdictions — Fiji, Hong Kong and Israel — are named as accepting proof of application instead of the certificate itself. See police certificates and the upfront police certificate rule.
Medical evidence. Whether you need a chest x-ray, a full medical examination, both or neither depends on your visa type, how long you intend to stay, what country you are from, and whether you supplied a medical certificate with an earlier application. INZ does not publish a simple duration table for this, so check your own visa page. Medicals are done by INZ panel physicians through the eMedical system. See the medical examination guide and chest x-ray requirements.
Everything else — passport, evidence of funds, job offer, enrolment, relationship evidence — is gathered alongside. The full framework is on documents you need.
Step 5: Get non-English documents translated
Applications are lodged in English. Any document that is not already in English needs a translation supplied with it. INZ's own instruction is to allow enough time for this.
Applicants from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau have an additional rule: a translation plus the scanned original for every non-English document, and an extra form — INZ 1027 for mainland China, INZ 1220 for Hong Kong and Macau — mandatory for everyone aged 17 and over. See translation requirements and INZ 1027 and INZ 1220.
Using a translator is not immigration advice and does not require a licence, so there is no regulatory issue with paying someone to translate for you.
Step 6: Complete the application form
Inside Immigration Online, the form is generated from your answers. Work through it in order rather than jumping around — later sections often depend on earlier answers, and changing an early answer can add or remove whole sections.
Supporting documents are attached as you go. Uploading evidence covers what happens when a file will not attach and how evidence is added after lodgement.
Some visas cannot be applied for online, and a small group cannot be applied for online at all — the Business Investor Visa, opened in November 2025, is paper-only. The published split is on online or paper applications.
Step 7: Pay the fee and submit
The fee is paid at the moment you submit. Nothing is assessed before payment, and nothing is refunded once the application has been processed — including when it is declined.
A New Zealand visa charge is normally three separate things, not one:
| Component | What it is | Charged per |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | Covers the cost of deciding the application. Varies by fee band | Application |
| Immigration levy | Funds settlement programmes, research and system infrastructure | Application (per person for group visitor visas) |
| International Visitor Levy (IVL) | NZ$100, where it applies | Person |
The three fee bands are Band A (you are in New Zealand when you apply), Band B (outside New Zealand, citizens of specified Pacific countries) and Band C (outside New Zealand, rest of world). A single headline price is often wrong for a given reader, which is why every figure on this site carries its band. See how to pay New Zealand visa fees and levies.
There has been no general fee or levy increase in 2025 or 2026 — INZ's fees page still reads "as of 1 October 2024" — but confirm the current amount on INZ's fee finder before you pay, because the charge is calculated from your specific circumstances.
Step 8: Wait, and respond to anything INZ sends you
INZ's own position after lodgement is simple: "You do not need to do anything else once you submit your application. We will contact you if we need more information from you." Contact comes by phone, by email, or as a notification in your online account.
Two things can arrive and both need a response:
- A Request for Further Information (RFI) — INZ asking for something it does not yet have. See RFI letters explained.
- A PPI letter — INZ putting potentially prejudicial information to you for comment before it decides. That is a different letter with different consequences: see PPI letters.
The important qualification, new since 2026: you should not assume you will always be given a chance to fix an omission. A missing police certificate can result in a decline with no request at all.
If your current visa is going to expire while a new application is being assessed and you are in New Zealand, INZ will normally grant an interim visa so you stay lawful.
Step 9: Read the decision and check your conditions
All New Zealand visas are issued as an eVisa. There is no sticker to collect and none is needed for the visa to be valid. A physical label is optional and costs extra — see eVisas and visa labels.
Read the conditions on the grant carefully. They set what you may do, where, for whom, and for how long. If your circumstances change later — a new employer, a different location, a different job — you may need a variation of conditions rather than a new visa.
One last thing that catches people out: a visa lets you travel to New Zealand. Entry permission, granted by an officer at the border, is what lets you in. They are legally distinct, and entry permission is explained here.
How long does an NZ visa application take?
INZ publishes two figures per visa type, in working days, updated weekly: an average wait time, which is the point at which 50% of applications had been processed, and a most completed within figure, based on 80%. It does not publish a 90th percentile, and its wait-time pages carry no last-updated timestamp — each says only that the page is updated weekly.
Published figures as at 20 August 2026 include:
| Application | Average (50%) | Most completed within (80%) |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor Visa | 1 week | 2 weeks |
| NZeTA | 24 hours | allow 3 days |
| Working Holiday Visa | 4 days | 1.5 weeks |
| Accredited Employer Work Visa | 4 weeks | 8 weeks |
| Post Study Work Visa | 2 weeks | 3.5 weeks |
| Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa | 10 weeks | 4 months |
| Parent Resident Visa | 7 months | 10 months |
Applications take longer when information is missing, when INZ needs further information, or when third-party checks are required — and INZ states it has limited control over how long third-party checks take. Re-check the current figures on INZ's processing-time tool before you rely on them; the numbers above are a snapshot, not a promise. More on visa processing times.
There is no way to buy a faster decision
No expedited, premium or fast-track channel exists on the INZ site, and no such charge appears in the INZ 1028 Fees Guide. What does move faster is structural: Green List roles and health-sector roles are processed more quickly than other Accredited Employer Work Visa applications, because of what they are, not because anyone paid.
Anyone offering to accelerate your application for money is not offering an INZ service. See can you speed up a New Zealand visa application and immigration scams to avoid.
Applying for someone else, and when to get help
Submitting an application for another person using only the information they give you is expressly not immigration advice and needs no licence. Employers, education providers, travel agents, family members, licensed advisers and lawyers can all do it, each through their own account.
The moment the help becomes tailored — assessing whether someone meets a requirement, advising which visa to pursue, or shaping how a case is presented — it becomes regulated immigration advice under the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007. Giving that advice without a licence carries up to NZ$100,000 and seven years' imprisonment, and the Act applies whether or not the person is paid.
If you need someone to assess your own circumstances, that is a licensed immigration adviser or a New Zealand lawyer. You can check anyone's licence on the Immigration Advisers Authority public register, reachable from iaa.govt.nz. See how to check an adviser's licence.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I apply for a New Zealand visa online?
Create a RealMe login, use it to open an Immigration Online account, choose the visa you are applying for, complete the smart form, attach your supporting documents, and pay the fee when you submit. Immigration Online at immigration.govt.nz is the only official channel.
What is the New Zealand visa application form called?
There is no single form. Online applications generate the form from your answers inside Immigration Online, so its content depends on the visa and on what you tell it. Paper applications use numbered INZ forms specific to each visa.
Can I apply for a New Zealand visa online from anywhere?
Most visas can be applied for online from anywhere with an internet connection — Immigration Online is not restricted by country. A small group of visas must be applied for on paper regardless of where you are, including the Business Investor Visa and the refugee and humanitarian categories.
Do I pay before or after my visa is approved?
Before. The fee is paid at submission. If the application is then declined, the fee is not returned, because INZ charges for assessing the application rather than for granting it. See fee refunds.
How can I check my New Zealand visa status?
By logging into the Immigration Online account the application was lodged from. INZ also phones, emails or notifies you in the account. Commercial "status check" sites cannot see your application. See how to check your status.
What documents are needed for a New Zealand visa?
It depends on the visa, but INZ groups supporting evidence into eight branches: English translations, health requirements, genuine intentions for visit or work, genuine intentions for study, character requirements and police certificates, identity information including biometrics, English language requirements, and student fund requirements.
Is there an interview for a New Zealand visa?
INZ does not publish a general interview requirement or interview criteria for visa applications. If INZ wants to speak to you, it contacts you by phone, email or through your online account.
When is the busiest time to apply?
INZ states it receives high numbers of applications between November and March. That is the New Zealand summer and the peak of visitor demand, and it is the period in which published wait times are most likely to stretch.
Can I withdraw my application and get the money back?
Withdrawing after lodgement does not produce a refund. Refunds are available in a narrow set of situations — mainly where you paid a fee you did not need to pay, paid the wrong fee, or your application was not accepted and was returned to you.
This page explains published rules. It is general information, not immigration advice, and it does not assess any individual's circumstances. Anyone who needs their own situation assessed should speak to a licensed immigration adviser or a New Zealand lawyer.
