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Skilled Migration

New Zealand Work Visas: Which One Fits Your Situation

Which New Zealand work visa fits depends first on whether an accredited employer has offered you a job. Here is each route by situation, from a job offer or a working holiday to a partner's visa or a business investment, with the gate that decides it and where it leads.

· 9 min read · By Katrin Maja O'Flynn
New Zealand Work Visas: Which One Fits Your Situation

Photo: Photo by Miguel Cuenca on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/cargo-ship-with-containers-on-deck-in-port-21241152/)

Which New Zealand work visa fits: start with the job offer

Which New Zealand work visa fits you turns first on one fact: whether an employer accredited by Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has offered you a job. With that offer, you are choosing between the Accredited Employer Work Visa and the two Green List routes to residence, and the job itself decides which. Without one, what remains depends on something other than your career: your age and passport, your partner’s visa, where you studied, or capital you can invest.

Find your situation below. Each answer names the visa, the gate that decides it, and where it leads.

”I have a job offer from a New Zealand employer”

Ask the employer one question first: are you accredited for the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV)? Every route in this section runs through an accredited employer. A past hire does not answer that question. An employer’s first accreditation is valid for 12 months, and a renewal for 24 months on standard or high-volume accreditation, so an employer who brought in a migrant two years ago may have let it lapse.

If yes, the next question is where the job sits on the Green List. Our skilled migration page covers both Green List routes in more depth.

The job is on Green List Tier 1

This is the Straight to Residence Visa: residence directly, with no temporary work phase. You must be 55 or younger. The job must be a full-time Tier 1 role with an accredited employer, and permanent, fixed-term for at least 12 months, or a contract of at least six months. It must pay at least the rate the Green List sets for that role, or the median wage where no rate is set. You also meet the role’s own Green List requirements, such as New Zealand registration, and show that you speak and understand English.

Where it leads: a resident visa to live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely, with your partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger included. After two years in a row on it you can apply for a Permanent Resident Visa, which adds the right to travel in and out indefinitely.

The job is on Green List Tier 2

This is the Work to Residence Visa. You work first, usually on an AEWV, and apply for residence once you have worked 24 months in a Tier 2 job within the 30 months before you apply.

Those 24 months do not have to be on an AEWV: INZ checks that you held one or more work visas throughout, so qualifying work on another work visa counts. The pay test is the rate in place when you started counting: the hourly rate set for the role, or the median wage at that time if none was set. Changing jobs keeps the count running if the new job is also on the Green List and meets its rate. When you apply you still need a full-time Tier 2 job or offer with an accredited employer, and the same age limit of 55 applies.

The job is not on the Green List

Then the AEWV is your visa. It rests on three approvals: the employer’s accreditation, a job check on the role, and your application. Your part asks for an offer of at least 30 hours a week, paid at least the market rate for the job, and either two years of relevant work experience or a qualification at level 4 or higher on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework, in the same field unless you hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. If the job is at skill level 3 to 5, you must also show that you speak and understand English.

The median wage is no longer an AEWV criterion; the market rate is. Our AEWV deep dive covers the job check and why the median wage still matters for residence.

Where it leads: up to five years in New Zealand, depending on the job, its skill level, the pay and when you applied, and possibly three years at skill level 4 or 5. If you later move to another accredited employer, that is normally a Job Change application rather than a new visa, provided the new employer holds a valid job check for the same type of visa you hold. Residence from an AEWV in a role off the Green List usually runs through the Skilled Migrant Category, which asks for a full-time job or job offer with an accredited employer and one of three pathways: the six-point system, skilled work experience, or trades and technicians.

”I have no job offer yet”

Then the routes above are closed to you for now, including the Skilled Migrant Category, which needs the same accredited employer job as well as points or experience.

Four situations open a work visa without an offer, and they follow below: your age and passport, your partner’s visa, a New Zealand qualification, or capital to invest. If none fits, the route is to find the accredited employer first, and most people start that search on a job board.

Why “visa sponsorship” job filters mislead you in New Zealand

Job boards let you tick “visa sponsorship”, and in New Zealand that filter answers a question the system does not ask. The AEWV does not work by an employer sponsoring you as a person. It works through two things the employer holds before you apply: accreditation, which belongs to the business, and a job check, which approves a specific job at a set pay and location. A job check stays valid for six months, or until the employer’s accreditation ends.

A tick box tracks none of that. An advert tagged for sponsorship can come from an employer that is not accredited, or whose accreditation has run out. An untagged advert can come from an accredited employer who never thought to tick the box. And until the job check exists, even an accredited employer has not cleared your job.

AI assistants add a related error: we regularly see chatbot answers about New Zealand that borrow Australian sponsorship language. Check two things instead: the employer on INZ’s accredited employer list, which is updated daily (some accredited employers choose not to be listed, so ask), and, once the conversation is serious, whether a job check for your role has been approved.

If you are unsure which situation is yours, our eligibility check asks a few questions and returns an indicative route.

”I am 35 or younger”

Then a working holiday visa may be open to you, and your passport decides it. These visas are normally for people aged 18 to 30, and 18 to 35 in a few countries, and each scheme sets its own length of stay:

  • United Kingdom: 18 to 35, for up to 12, 23 or 36 months, and you can apply to extend a 12 or 23 month visa to 36 months.
  • Ireland: 18 to 30, for up to 12 months.
  • Germany: 18 to 30, for up to 12 months.
  • Austria: 18 to 30, for up to six months.
  • Switzerland: not on INZ’s list of countries with a working holiday agreement, so Swiss citizens need a different visa.

You must be coming mainly to holiday, you cannot take a permanent job, and you can only get a working holiday visa once, even if you never use it.

Where it leads: nowhere by itself. INZ’s guidance is that anyone who wants to work longer term or accept a permanent job needs a different work visa, such as the AEWV. What it gives you is time in the country to meet accredited employers. Coming from Britain, see our guide to moving to New Zealand from the UK.

”My partner has the job”

Then look at the Partner of a Worker Work Visa. You need no job offer of your own, and the visa normally runs for the same length as your partner’s.

The gate is your partner’s visa. Not every work visa can support a partner: a working holiday visa cannot, nor can most visas of six months or less, and where your partner holds an AEWV, the skill level of the job and the pay decide whether it can. You must also be living together in a genuine and stable relationship when you apply.

Where it leads: work rights for as long as your partner’s visa lasts, and a place as the included partner if your partner later applies for Straight to Residence, Work to Residence or the Skilled Migrant Category. Other partner routes are on our partner visa page.

”I studied in New Zealand”

Then the Post-Study Work Visa is the usual next step. It lets you stay and work for up to three years, depending on your qualification and how long you studied for it. With a degree at level 7 or higher you can work for any employer; with an eligible non-degree qualification at level 7 or below, the job must relate to what you studied. You normally apply no later than three months after your student visa expires, and you can only have this visa once.

Where it leads: time to move into a skilled job with an accredited employer, and from there into the Skilled Migrant Category or a Green List route.

”My employer is sending me for a set project or secondment”

Then check the Specific Purpose Work Visa, a single visa for work on a specific purpose or event, which lasts as long as that purpose needs. INZ’s business examples are a senior or specialist business person on a short-term secondment to a substantial New Zealand company, for up to 12 months, and a senior manager or specialist transferred within a multinational, for up to three years. Its seasonal work purpose closed to new applications on 7 December 2025, and INZ now points seasonal workers to the Peak Seasonal Visa and the Global Workforce Seasonal Visa, both seasonal versions of the AEWV.

Where it leads: the end of the purpose. You must show you can leave New Zealand when your stay ends, so staying on means qualifying for a different visa. Our short-term work visa page covers related options.

”I want to invest in a business”

Then the route is the Business Investor Work Visa, which opened on 24 November 2025 after the Entrepreneur Work Visa closed to new applications. You invest at least NZD 1 million in an established New Zealand business that has traded for at least five years, employs at least five full-time equivalent staff and leaves you owning at least 25 per cent of it. You also need at least NZD 500,000 in reserve funds for yourself and any family included. You must be 55 or younger, meet a three-year business experience requirement and meet the English requirement.

Where it leads: the visa runs for up to four years, and you may become eligible for the Business Investor Resident Visa after three years of running the business at NZD 1 million, or after 12 months at NZD 2 million. On that fast track you still have to run the business for at least three years across both visas. Our business visa page covers the wider investor options.

Where to go from here

Many people fit more than one of these situations, and a working holiday can turn into an AEWV offer. Then the sequence is worth planning, because what counts towards residence depends on the visa, the job and the pay at each step. The requirements every applicant meets, such as health, character and English, are in our guide to emigrating to New Zealand, and the New Zealand hub links every route above.

Tell us which situation is yours in the eligibility check. You answer a few questions and see where they point; for advice on your own circumstances, book a paid consultation with an IAA-licensed adviser.

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