IMMIGRATION & ACCREDITATION FOR EMPLOYERS

Immigration that works for employers, not against them

If you employ, or want to employ, skilled migrant staff, you've got more rules to comply with than any other part of your business.

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Accreditation. Job Checks. Job Changes. Median-wage thresholds that change annually. ANZSCO skill levels, now transitioning to the National Occupation List. English language requirements that just extended to skill level 3 roles with six days' notice. Family visa applications that arrive at the worst possible time. Residence pathways with eligibility windows that close, or retrospective pay requirements.

You don't need to learn all of this. You need someone who already has.

Job Checks

A Job Check is the application that gets a specific role approved for hire on an Accredited Employer Work Visa. Most employers need more Job Checks than they realise — Accreditation lasts two years between renewals, but you need a new Job Check approval each time you want to hire a new migrant into a different role (or sometimes the same role with materially different conditions).

You can apply for multiple job tokens off a single Job Check, but you'll need to justify why you need more than one. We'll work out whether your hiring plan needs a single Job Check with multiple tokens or multiple Job Checks across roles — and we'll prepare the application so it gets approved first time.

What goes into a Job Check application depends on the role:

Green List roles and roles paying at least twice the median wage have streamlined Job Check requirements
ANZSCO/NOL skill level 1, 2 or 3 roles require two weeks of advertising
ANZSCO/NOL skill level 4 and 5 roles require three weeks of advertising plus engagement with MSD (Work and Income)
The majority of Job Checks need evidence that you genuinely tried to hire a New Zealander first

We'll tell you exactly what advertising you need to run, on which platforms, what records to keep, and how to write the role description so Immigration NZ sees what they need to see. At the same time, we aim to future-proof your staff and preserve their eligibility against future rule changes in how roles are assessed.

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Job Change applications

If you've already offered a job to a migrant on an AEWV they need a variation of conditions approved to allow them to change employers (or for your own staff to change roles in your company). This is called a Job Change application.

You must have Accreditation and a valid Job Check to support a Job Change application so they can be more complicated than you would expect. They're also a common entry point for employers who've inherited an AEWV staff member from a previous employer and don't yet know what their own immigration obligations look like.

If that's where you are — you've made an offer to someone on an AEWV with a different employer and you're not sure what comes next — start with the Job Change conversation. We'll be able to sort out exactly what you need to do when, and make sure it goes through quickly and smoothly.

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Employer Accreditation

You need to be an Accredited Employer to hire migrant staff on AEWVs. There are several types of Accreditation depending on how many migrant staff you employ, and several ways for an application to come unstuck.

We'll work out which Accreditation level fits your business, prepare the application, and put in place the HR systems and evidence that proves compliance — not just for the initial application but for renewal in two years' time.

We can help you with:

Standard Accreditation

For employers hiring up to five AEWV workers

High Volume Accreditation

For employers hiring six or more AEWV workers

Triangular Accreditation

For labour-hire businesses placing workers with other businesses and parent companies placing staff with subsidiaries

Accreditation renewals

Due every one-two years depending on type

Accreditation upgrades

When your hiring plans grow beyond your current level

100% Accreditation success rate to date.

Talk to us about Accreditation →

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Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV)

The AEWV is the main work visa for skilled migrants in New Zealand. Depending on the role's skill level, an AEWV is granted for three or five years. A limited number of three-year visa holders may be able to extend to a total of five years, but otherwise all staff need to leave New Zealand for twelve months before applying again.

That stand-down period matters enormously for workforce planning. Hire three staff on three-year AEWVs without thinking about residence pathways, and you'll have a staffing cliff at the end of year three. We'll help you avoid that.

Specific Purpose Work Visas

Sometimes you need a specialist in for a defined piece of work, an intracorporate transferee from your overseas parent company, a machinery installer for a shutdown, a specialist engineer, technician or medical professional, or a contractor with skills no one in New Zealand has. The Specific Purpose Work Visa is designed for these situations, and visa length can range from 3-72 months depending on the situation.

The rules around eligible length, pay and conditions and re-entry are fiddlier than they look. We work with companies needing Specific Purpose Work Visas across a range of industries for all types of roles, and we know where the application traps are.

Talk to us about a Specific Purpose visa →

Worker in a hard hat and high-vis inspecting industrial machinery

Visa options for your staff's families

If you want skilled migrants to stay long term, their families need to be settled with them. That means:

Partner of a Worker visas — Partnership Visitor Visas, Partnership Work Visas, and Partnership Residence applications, including cases involving culturally arranged marriages or relationships where the couple hasn't had long periods of cohabitation
Dependent Child visas — Visitor and Student visas for dependent children under the age limit while the parent is in New Zealand
Parent and grandparent visas — Parent/Grandparent Visitor Visas, Parent Boost, Parent Residence, and the Parent Retirement category

Government application fees for a family of four can easily exceed $4,000–$6,000.

Getting these applications right first time matters, both for cost and for keeping your skilled staff focused on their work rather than their visa worries.

In practice, most employers pay for the AEWV and the staff member pays for their family's visas and any subsequent residence application. We work both ways: you can engage us as the employer to handle the family piece on the staff member's behalf, or your staff can engage us directly. Either way, the work is the same and the team is the same.

For staff of our long-term employer clients, we offer flexible payment terms on family and residence work, so the costs spread over time rather than landing as one bill. That's a meaningful employer benefit you can offer without having to fund the work yourself. We can also help you figure out bonding options if you want to cover the visa application costs as a retention measure.

Residence pathways

Most skilled migrants on AEWVs eventually want a residence pathway, and most employers, if they want to keep them, want to help them get there. We work across all the main residence categories:

Green List Tier 1

Straight to Residence for roles on the high-skill Green List

Green List Tier 2

Work to Residence after two years in role

Skilled Migrant Category

Points-based residence pathway

Trades and Technicians

For specified skilled trade roles from 24 August 2026

Skilled Work Experience

For migrants with substantial NZ and overseas work experience from 24 August 2026

Care Workforce Work to Residence

For eligible care workers

Transport Sector Work to Residence

For eligible transport workers

Each pathway has different pay thresholds (often 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, or 2x the median wage), different qualification requirements, and different timeframes. Picking the wrong pathway costs your business time, and your staff member their settlement plans.

Religious worker reading from a book inside a church

Religious Worker visas

We also help organisations bringing religious workers to New Zealand under the Religious Worker Work Visa and Religious Worker Resident Visa categories.

Not sure where your business sits in all of this?

Whether it's one hire or a full workforce plan, we'll start with a conversation about what you actually need.

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A provincial restaurant had never employed a migrant before, but needed to hire a new Chef during a difficult trading period. Accreditation required proof of ongoing financial sustainability, a real challenge given uneven past profitability, so we worked with the employer and their accountant to present their financials properly, with context and alternative evidence of their current position.

Accreditation was approved, followed by a successful Job Check and AEWV application for their Chef. That freed the owner up to grow the business, they now run a healthy sideline in events and catering, and the new Chef has revamped the menu and helped train additional staff.

EMPLOYER IMMIGRATION

Frequently asked questions

What types of employer Accreditation are there, and which one do we need?

The main types are Standard (for employers hiring up to five migrant workers on Accredited Employer Work Visas) and High Volume (for six or more), plus Triangular Accreditation for labour-hire businesses that place workers with other companies and parent companies placing staff with subsidiaries. Which one fits depends on how many migrants you plan to employ and how you engage them. We’ll work that out with you before you apply, so you’re not paying for the wrong level.

We are buying a business with migrant staff, what do we need to know?

This is definitely the time to get some advice! You may need to apply for Accreditation and a Job Change if any of the staff are on AEWVs.

What is a Job Check?

A Job Check is the step where Immigration New Zealand approves a specific role you want to fill with a migrant worker. As an Accredited employer, you apply for a Job Check to confirm the job pays the market rate, has acceptable terms, and (for many roles) has been advertised to New Zealanders first. Once the Job Check is approved, you can offer that role to a migrant, who then uses it to apply for their Accredited Employer Work Visa.

What is a Job Token?

A Job Token is what an approved Job Check gives you — it's effectively a "slot" you can assign to a migrant worker so they can apply for their work visa. One approved Job Check can include more than one token if you're filling several identical roles, so you don't need a separate Job Check for each person doing the same job. Each token covers one worker for one role.

How many workers can we hire from one Job Check?

A single Job Check can cover more than one token, but you need to be able to justify why you genuinely need each position. We’ll help you decide whether your hiring plan calls for one Job Check with several tokens or separate Job Checks across different roles, and prepare it so Immigration New Zealand can see the need clearly.

How long do we have to advertise the role before hiring a migrant?

It depends on the skill level of the role. Higher-skilled roles, and roles paid at a high enough multiple of the median wage, can be exempt from advertising altogether; lower-skilled roles require a set advertising period and additional steps. The rules and thresholds here shift, so we’ll tell you exactly what advertising to run, where, and what records to keep for your specific role. (Thresholds and rules change regularly — talk to us for the figures that apply to your situation today.)

What if we need the person to work in multiple locations?

This is a case where you should talk to us – you may need to advertise in multiple locations depending on the nature of the work and how long they will be required to be in multiple areas

Who can our migrant worker bring with them?

In many cases a worker can bring their partner and dependent children, but whether the partner can also work (rather than just visit) depends on the worker’s role and pay. Because that’s connected to decisions made about the job itself, it’s worth looking at the whole family picture before you make an offer. Bringing your partner & family ➔

What’s the difference between ANZSCO and the NOL we keep hearing about?

The National Occupation List (NOL) is New Zealand’s newer job-classification system, which is gradually replacing the older ANZSCO codes for Accredited Employer Work Visa applications. How your role is classified affects advertising, visa length, English requirements, pay thresholds, and whether your worker can support family visas — so getting the classification right matters more than it might look. We keep across the transition so you don’t have to.

When does our Accreditation need renewing?

Accreditation runs for a set period and then needs renewing, and the renewal asks you to show you’ve kept your commitments as a compliant employer. We remind our clients 3 months before expiry so they have time to prepare financial and other evidence — leave it late and you risk a gap in your ability to hire or keep migrant staff.

What are some common problems in Accreditation applications?

Immigration will check if your business and any key persons and businesses associated with it have a clean record of compliance with Immigration and Employment law. The other main area of focus is the financial sustainability of the business looking at your last 2 years’ operation, last 6 months’ cashflow, external financial support or forward contracts. We can help make it easier for you to demonstrate you meet requirements.