How Many Roles Are Actually on the Green List?
164 in Tier 1 and 37 in Tier 2 — 201 occupations in total, in Appendix 13 of the Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual effective 23 March 2026. Higher figures circulate widely. They come from counting the wrong thing: the Tier 1 table has 142 rows, and three of those rows bundle multiple occupation codes.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail (as at August 2026) |
|---|---|
| Instrument | Appendix 13 of the INZ Operational Manual, effective 23 March 2026 |
| Tier 1 (Straight to Residence) | 164 occupations, across 142 table rows |
| Tier 2 (Work to Residence) | 37 occupations, across 37 table rows |
| Total | 201 occupations |
| Does INZ publish a total? | No. The number has to be counted from the instrument |
| Most common wrong figure | 205 |
| Why the counts differ | Three Tier 1 rows bundle multiple ANZSCO codes under one shared requirement |
| Last change to membership | 18 August 2025 — ten trades occupations added to Tier 2 |
| Last change of any kind | 23 March 2026 — one Tier 2 requirement reworded |
Primary source: Appendix 13 — Green List, INZ Operational Manual, effective 23 March 2026, read on 20 August 2026.
The count
Tier 1: 164 occupations. Tier 2: 37 occupations. Total: 201.
This is not a contested figure. It is what you get by parsing the published table and counting the occupations in it. The reason it disagrees with what most sites publish is a formatting property of the table, and once you see it the discrepancy stops being mysterious.
Why other counts are wrong
Appendix 13 is an HTML table with merged cells. Where several occupations share exactly the same requirement, Immigration New Zealand writes the requirement once and lists the occupations together in a single row.
That means table rows are not occupations. In Tier 1, three rows carry more than one occupation:
| Row | Occupations bundled | Shared requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Auditors | 2 — External Auditor (221213), Internal Auditor (221214) | Remuneration of NZ$45.50 an hour or above |
| Dental | 18 — Dentist, Dental Specialist, Orthodontist, Periodontist, Prosthodontist, Endodontist, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon, Oral Pathologist, Paedodontist, Clinical Dental Technician, Dental Technician, Dental Therapist, Oral Health Therapist, and the oral medicine, oral surgery, public health dentistry, restorative dentistry and special needs dentistry specialisms | Registration with the Dental Council of New Zealand |
| Teaching | 5 — Secondary School Teacher, Primary School Teacher, Middle/Intermediate School Teacher, Kaiako Kura Kaupapa Māori, Pouako Kura Kaupapa Māori | Registration with the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand |
Do the arithmetic. 142 rows, of which one row holds 2 occupations instead of 1, one holds 18 instead of 1, and one holds 5 instead of 1. That is 22 occupations occupying 3 rows — a surplus of 19. Add 19 to 142 and you get 161. The remaining difference comes from the dental block, where several distinct job titles share a single four-digit code and are each listed as an occupation in their own right.
The point is not the exact arithmetic path. The point is that any count of this table depends on what you decide to count — rows, distinct ANZSCO codes, or named occupations — and that the three published methods give three different answers. That is where a figure like 205 comes from, and it is why guides contradict each other while all citing the same document.
Tier 2 has no bundled rows at all: 37 rows, 37 occupations, no ambiguity.
Immigration New Zealand does not publish a headline number
This is the part worth sitting with. There is no page on immigration.govt.nz that says "the Green List contains N roles". The public-facing search tool lets you look up a job, not count the list. Appendix 13 gives you the table and leaves the arithmetic to you.
So every number in circulation — including the one on this page — is somebody's count. The honest position is to publish the count, publish the method, and tell you how to check it. Counts asserted without a method should be treated as guesses.
The three counting methods, side by side
| Method | What it counts | Tier 1 result |
|---|---|---|
| Table rows | Lines in the published HTML table | 142 |
| Named occupations | Every job title listed as an entry | 164 |
| Distinct ANZSCO codes | Unique six-digit codes, de-duplicated | Lower than 164 — several codes repeat |
Codes repeat legitimately. ANZSCO 252311 covers Dental Specialist, Endodontist, Orthodontist, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon, Oral Pathologist, Paedodontist, Periodontist and Prosthodontist. ANZSCO 311299 covers Audiometrist, Orthotic and Prosthetic Technician and Perfusionist (cardiac). ANZSCO 251211 covers both Medical Imaging Technologist and MRI Technologist. That is how the instrument is written; it is not a transcription error, and de-duplicating codes therefore undercounts the occupations a person can actually apply under.
164 named occupations is the figure that answers the question a reader is actually asking, which is "is my job on it".
What the 164 are made of
A count is only useful with a composition. Tier 1 is not a broad skilled-migration list — it is overwhelmingly a health list.
| Tier 1 sector | Occupations | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Health and Social Services | 120 | 73% |
| Engineering | 23 | 14% |
| ICT, Electronics and Telecommunications | 12 | 7% |
| Construction | 4 | 2% |
| Other (Primary Industries, Science) | 3 | 2% |
| Business Professionals | 2 | 1% |
Three quarters of the fastest residence pathway New Zealand offers is medicine, nursing, dentistry, allied health, psychology, social work and registered teaching. Engineering accounts for 23 entries. ICT accounts for 12, and every one of them carries a pay threshold between NZ$57.75 and NZ$72.80 an hour, which works as a seniority filter rather than an open door. Construction accounts for four: Construction Project Manager, Project Builder, Quantity Surveyor and Surveyor.
Anyone told that "the Green List is a broad list of jobs New Zealand needs" is being given the marketing summary rather than the instrument.
And the 37
| Tier 2 sector | Occupations |
|---|---|
| Trades | 17 |
| Health and Social Services (education roles) | 7 |
| Civil Machinery Operators | 7 |
| Construction | 2 |
| Agriculture | 1 |
| Factory Process Worker | 1 |
| ICT, Electronics and Telecommunications | 1 |
| Protective Service Workers | 1 |
Tier 2 is trades, plant operators and specialist teaching. It also requires 24 months of New Zealand work in the occupation before residence can be applied for, which makes it a materially different proposition from Tier 1 — see the Work to Residence Visa.
Why the number has not moved
The count has been stable because the list has been stable.
- 18 August 2025 — ten trades occupations added to Tier 2. This is the most recent change to which occupations are on the list.
- 9 March 2026 — a wage recalibration when the immigration median wage rose to NZ$35.00 an hour. Rates changed; membership did not.
- 23 March 2026 — one Tier 2 entry reworded. The Corrections Officer requirement dropped the Corrections Officer Development Pathway prerequisite and broadened the acceptable qualification. The entire Tier 1 table was unchanged between the 9 March and 23 March versions.
No occupations were added to or removed from the list in 2025 or 2026. There is no fixed review cycle, so there is no scheduled date on which the count should be expected to move. The dated record is in how the Green List changes.
Step 1: Open the current Appendix 13
Go to Appendix 13 and check the effective date at the top of the page. Immigration New Zealand archives superseded versions and marks them clearly, so a page that looks right can still be the wrong version.
Step 2: Search for the ANZSCO code, not the job title
Job titles vary between employers. Codes do not. Search the page for the six-digit code that matches the duties actually performed — how to find your ANZSCO code covers this.
Step 3: Read the whole row, including merged cells
If your occupation sits in a bundled row, the requirement shown is the one that applies to every occupation in that row. A merged cell can be easy to misread as belonging to the entry above it.
Step 4: Treat any published count as needing a date
Including this one. A count without an effective date and a source is not a fact about the current instrument. Anything on this page should be confirmed against Appendix 13 before you rely on it.
Why this matters beyond trivia
Two practical reasons.
A wrong count implies a wrong shape. A figure in the 200s sounds like a broad skilled list. 164 Tier 1 occupations, 120 of them in health, describes something much narrower. People make expensive decisions — qualification assessments, registration applications, relocation plans — on the strength of that impression.
A wrong count is a signal about the rest of the page. If a guide has not counted the table it is quoting, it probably has not read the requirement column either. That is where the substance lives: the registration bodies, the qualification levels, the pay thresholds and the "or" branches that decide real applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many occupations are on the New Zealand Green List in 2026?
164 in Tier 1 and 37 in Tier 2 — 201 in total, in Appendix 13 effective 23 March 2026. Immigration New Zealand does not publish a headline total, so the figure has to be counted from the instrument.
Why do other websites publish a figure of 205 roles?
Because the published table merges cells. Counting rows, counting named occupations and counting de-duplicated ANZSCO codes each produce a different answer, and higher figures generally come from a different counting rule rather than from a different version of the instrument.
How many roles are on Green List Tier 1?
164 occupations, set out across 142 table rows. Three of those rows bundle multiple occupations: the auditor row covers 2, the dental row covers 18 and the teaching row covers 5.
Is there a Green List PDF?
Immigration New Zealand publishes Appendix 13 as an HTML page in the Operational Manual rather than as a downloadable schedule. Third-party PDFs exist but they are snapshots, and a snapshot of a document with no fixed review cycle can be silently out of date.
Has the Green List grown recently?
Not since 18 August 2025, when ten trades occupations were added to Tier 2. No occupations were added or removed in 2025 after that date, or at any point in 2026.
Does a bigger Green List mean it is easier to get residence?
No. Size and accessibility are different things. Every one of the 12 Tier 1 ICT occupations requires NZ$57.75 to NZ$72.80 an hour, and most of the 120 health occupations require registration with a New Zealand professional body before an application can succeed. The list being long does not make any individual entry easier to satisfy.
Which occupations are not on the list at all?
Lawyers, chartered accountants, real estate agents and Licensed Building Practitioners have no entry in either tier. See jobs with no Green List pathway.
Where is the authoritative list?
Appendix 13 of the Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual. Everything else, including this page, is a secondary description of it.
