Smart Immigration

The next selection for the Parent Resident Visa Category expressions of interest (EOIs) will take place on 8 August 2023.

Selection of EOIs submitted before 12 October 2022

There will be 1100 EOIs selected on 8 August from the queued EOIs (those submitted before 12 October 2022). We select the oldest EOIs from the queue until we select enough to reach 2000 visa approvals each year. This will continue until there are no EOIs remaining in the queue. The number of EOIs selected each quarter will continue to be adjusted as more data about the rate at which EOIs turn into approved visas becomes available.

Please make sure EOIs meet the requirements of the category and are updated or withdrawn before selection.

Who can sponsor you?
You can be sponsored for the Parent Resident Visa by:

- your adult New Zealand citizen or resident child
- jointly by your adult child and their partner, or
- jointly by your adult child and another adult child of a parent included in the application.
- Your sponsors need to be New Zealand citizens or residents who have been resident here for at least 3 years.

If you are being sponsored by a child and their partner, they must have been living together for at least 12 months.

Your sponsors must earn enough.
They must have earned at least the minimum income we require for 2 years in the 3-year period before your expression of interest was selected.

The minimum income they need changes depending on if you have single or joint sponsors.

To calculate your sponsor or sponsor's minimum income
You need to know:

if you have 1 or 2 sponsors
- how many parents are being sponsored — this includes any parents they are also currently sponsoring.
- which two 12-month periods your sponsor will use to have their income assessed on
- what the New Zealand median income was on the last day of each 12-month period that your sponsor’s income will be assessed on.

EOI Submission

A person notifies that they are interested in being invited to apply for a resident visa under the Parent Category by submitting an EOI to Immigration New Zealand (INZ) in the prescribed manner. In order to submit an EOI in the prescribed manner, a person must submit to an immigration officer:

- a completed Parent Category EOI form; and
- the prescribed fee (if any).

By completing an EOI, a person provides a declaration about their and their partner’s:

- identity, health and character; and
- English language ability or an intention to agree to pre-purchase -- English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) tuition; and
- relationship to their sponsoring adult children and any other children the applicants have; and
- sponsor’s or joint sponsors’ eligibility to sponsor them for New Zealand residence under the Parent Category; and
- sponsor’s or joint sponsors’ income for the past three years.

At any time, a principal applicant and/or secondary applicant may have:
- only one EOI in the Queued Pool; and
- only one EOI in the Ballot Pool.

An EOI will be removed from the Ballot Pool if it includes a person already included in an EOI in the Ballot Pool.
It is the responsibility of the person submitting the EOI to ensure that the information given is correct in all material respects.

Contact [email protected] or +64 21 0811 5415 for more information.

Send a message to learn more

You will get an extension on your Current Visa if you apply for the 2021 Resident Visa.

Full details below:

If you apply for a 2021 Resident Visa and your current visa expires while you are waiting for the resident visa to be processed, you can get a 2021 Interim Visa so you can stay in New Zealand.

How to get a 2021 Interim Visa

If you have applied for a 2021 Resident Visa and your current visa expires in the next 7 days, we will process a 2021 Interim Visa for you which will come into effect the day after your current visa expires. You do not need to apply.

We will send you an E-Visa with the appropriate duration and conditions.

Conditions

If you have a work or visitor visa the 2021 Interim Visa will let you stay in New Zealand with your current visa conditions.

If you have a student visa you will get open student visa conditions, allowing you to study any programme at any educational institute at any location.

How long the visa lasts

The 2021 Interim Visa is valid for 12 months unless your 2021 Resident Visa application is declined or withdrawn within this 12 month period.

In this case the interim visa will expire 2 months from the date of the decision to decline or withdraw.

If you want to apply for a further temporary visa instead

If your current visa is about to expire you may want to apply for a further temporary visa, rather than getting a 2021 Interim Visa, because the temporary visa's conditions are more suitable for you. For example, you may want to move from work to study.

If you want to do this you must apply for a further temporary visa before your current visa expires.

ALERT
If you do not apply for another temporary visa before your current visa expires you will automatically get a 2021 Interim Visa and you will not be able to apply for a further visa.
If your resident visa is declined or you withdraw

If you withdraw your 2021 Resident Visa application or your visa is declined you will only be able to apply for further visas if you have applied for or hold a temporary visa (not an interim visa).

Contact 02108115415 or email for more details [email protected]

Borders are Opening for Fully Vaccinated Travellers 🎉🎉🎉

Fully vaccinated Kiwis and other eligible travellers can travel to NZ from Australia without staying in MIQ from 11.59pm Sunday, 16 January 2022

Fully vaccinated Kiwis and other eligible travellers can travel to NZ from all other countries from 11.59pm Sunday, 13 February 2022

All fully vaccinated individuals will be able to travel to NZ from 30 April 2022 onwards, with the re-opening staged over time

The Very High-Risk classification for Indonesia, Fiji, India, Pakistan and Brazil will be removed early next month

Fully vaccinated New Zealanders will find it easier to come home from January 2022, with foreign nationals to follow from April onwards, as the Government removes the requirement for MIQ for most travellers, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today.

“Closing our border was one of the first steps we took to keep our country safe from COVID-19 and it’ll be the last thing we open up, following our transition into the traffic light protection framework system and lifting of the Auckland boundary,” Chris Hipkins said.

“We have a clear, simple and safe plan, including a mandatory period of self-isolation. The border will open in three steps and all travellers not required to go into MIQ will still require:
a negative pre-departure test
proof of being fully vaccinated
a passenger declaration about travel history
a day 0/1 test on arrival
a requirement to self-isolate for seven days, and
a final negative test before entering the community

“We are making this announcement today to give families, businesses, visitors and airline and airport companies certainty and time to prepare. It’s very encouraging that as a country we are now in a position to move towards greater normality.

“We always said we’d open in a controlled way, and this started with halving the time spent in MIQ to seven days. Retaining a seven-day isolate at home period for fully vaccinated travellers is an important phase in the reconnecting strategy to provide continued safety assurance. These settings will continue to be reviewed against the risk posed by travellers entering New Zealand.

“For details around when travellers can enter New Zealand without going into MIQ:
Step 1 – opening to fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens and those residence-class visa holders and other travellers eligible under our current settings from Australia from 11.59 pm on 16 January 2022 (provided they have been in Australia or New Zealand for the past 14 days)
Step 2 – opening to fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens and those residence-class visa holders and other travellers eligible under our current border settings, from all but Very High-Risk countries, from 11.59pm Sunday 13 February.
Step 3 – opening to fully vaccinated foreign nationals (possibly staged by visa category), from 30 April onwards

“Some people and businesses want us to start to open up before Christmas, and that’s understandable, but others want us to be more cautious. We acknowledge it’s been tough but the end of heavily restricted travel is now in sight,” Chris Hipkins said.
“There continues to be a global pandemic with cases surging in Europe and other parts of the world, so we do need to be very careful when reopening the border.

“In the end, we’ve done what we’ve always done, and that is to follow expert advice – which continues to show us the border is our biggest risk for new cases. For example, our current outbreak which now has over 7000 cases associated with it, stems from a single traveller traveling from Australia to New Zealand.

“A phased approach to reconnecting with the world is the safest approach to ensure risk is carefully managed. This reduces any potential impacts on vulnerable communities and the New Zealand health system.”

“Our dates for opening of borders logically follows the bedding in of the traffic light system, the lifting of the Auckland border, time for regions to get their vaccination rates higher still and for booster shots to be rolled out.

“Further details on how self-isolation will be implemented will be made available in December, and include guidance on how people can travel from their arrival airport to their location of self-isolation and requirements for the places where they can self-isolate.

“This does not mean the end of MIQ as a system, which was always intended to be temporary at this scale and has served us incredibly well – with more than 190,000 people brought home since our borders closed in March 2020.

“There will continue to be role for it in the foreseeable future.”

More detail will be provided in December for people holding existing MIAS vouchers for MIQ dates after the steps commence and on self-isolation for groups.
For Step 1, agencies will work with airlines on implementing checks of passengers’ compliance with travel requirements, including vaccination status and pre-departure testing, ahead of a rollout of a digital Traveller Health Declaration System (THDS) towards the end of March.

The availability of both New Zealand’s and Australia’s international COVID-19 vaccination certificates will support compliance checks. Immigration New Zealand airline liaison officers will be deployed on the ground as support in Australia.
The three steps constitute a medium risk pathway. Those who don’t meet the requirements for medium-risk pathway, but are still permitted to enter New Zealand under current border settings, will continue to enter MIQ upon arrival under the new regime of seven days in managed isolation, followed by three days of home isolation.
This will include those who do not meet vaccination requirements (including unvaccinated New Zealand citizens) and those from Very High-Risk (VHR) countries.

The Very High-Risk classification for Indonesia, Fiji, India, Pakistan and Brazil is to be removed in early December and travellers from these countries will be able to enter New Zealand on the same basis as travellers from most other countries.
This allows New Zealand Citizens and those residence-class visa holders and other travellers eligible under our current border settings to travel directly into New Zealand.

Papua New Guinea will continue to be classified as Very High-Risk. Only New Zealand Citizens and dependants can travel directly to New Zealand.
All travellers from Papua New Guinea must spend 14 days in a non-VHR country before coming to New Zealand. Exemptions are provided for humanitarian reasons.

The COVID-19 situation in these countries will continue to be monitored as part of a regular surveillance and assessment process.