Want to be in New Zealand while your child studies here?

A Guardian Visitor Visa lets one parent or legal guardian live in New Zealand to care for a child who is studying here on a student visa.

It is a visitor visa, so it carries a visitor’s conditions. You are not here to work. You are here to look after your child, and INZ treats that as the purpose of the visa rather than as a formality. The condition that you live with and care for your child is enforceable, and we come back to that below.

INZ used to call this the Guardian of a Student Visitor Visa. You will still see the old name on school websites, adviser pages and forum posts. It is the same visa.

What this visa is not

Three visas get confused with this one, and the mix-up costs people time.

This is not the Parent Boost Visitor Visa, which is for parents of adult New Zealand citizens and residents and has its own income, insurance and health settings. See the Parent Boost Visa Guide.

This is not the Parent Category Resident Visa, which is a residence pathway with an expression of interest process.

It is also not a visa for both parents. INZ grants one guardian visa at a time.

To apply you must:

• be the parent or legal guardian of a child who holds a current New Zealand student visa
• not intend to work in New Zealand, unless you are working remotely for an overseas business or your visa conditions allow part-time work
• be in good health
• be of good character
• have genuine reasons for coming to New Zealand
• have plans to leave at the end of your stay
• have at least NZD 1,000 a month to live on, or NZD 400 a month if your accommodation is already paid for.

You must also show that you are the child’s parent or legal guardian, and that you provided care for the child in your home country. The evidence INZ names is a birth certificate, adoption papers, court documents or other legal documents.

Who counts as a legal guardian

A grandparent, aunt, uncle or older sibling does not meet INZ’s definition of legal guardian unless that guardianship is legally recognised. An informal family arrangement, however long it has been in place and however sensible it is, is not enough on its own.

INZ’s own definition is wider than “parent”. A legal guardian is the person with the legal right and responsibility to provide for the child’s care, including their education and health, and who provided that care in the child’s home country. That covers a biological or adoptive parent, a testamentary guardian named in a parent’s will, and a court-appointed guardian.

Your child must hold a current student visa and must be either:

• aged 17 or younger, or
• enrolled in school years 1 to 13.

Those are alternatives, not a pair of conditions. A child who has turned 18 but is still enrolled in year 13 still qualifies, which several competing pages get wrong.

INZ checks the child’s age and visa status against its own records, so you do not need to supply the student visa itself.

A child studying outside school years 1 to 13 can still qualify while they are aged 17 or younger. However, if they turn 18 during the validity of their student visa, your Guardian Visitor Visa can only be granted until the day before their eighteenth birthday.

INZ issues this visa to one parent or legal guardian at any one time, even if you have more than one child studying in New Zealand.

If the other parent wants to come too, they need their own visa in their own right, and a general visitor visa is the usual route. The same applies to your other children: a sibling who is not the student cannot come on your guardian visa and needs a visa of their own.

You can stay while your child is studying, for as long as their student visa is valid. You must leave before your visa expires.

Once your visa is issued, you have 12 months to come to New Zealand. The visa runs from the date you enter if you are offshore when it is approved, or from the date it is granted if you are already here.

The visa is granted as a multiple-entry visitor visa for the same period as your child’s student visa, so it is not issued in fixed 12-month blocks. When your child’s student visa is renewed, you apply again, pay the fee again, and INZ looks at whether you lived with and cared for your child during the visa you already held.

There is one limit on the length. If your child is not enrolled in school years 1 to 13 and turns 18 during their student visa, your visa can only run until the day before their eighteenth birthday.

You must have at least NZD 1,000 for every month you plan to stay, or NZD 400 a month if you have already paid for your accommodation.

The evidence INZ names is proof of prepaid accommodation such as receipts or vouchers, bank or credit card statements, and bank drafts or traveller’s cheques.

Money for your ticket home has to be on top of that. INZ is explicit that the funds for your travel out of New Zealand must be in addition to what you have to live on, and that is the detail people get caught by. Showing exactly NZD 1,000 a month and nothing else is not enough.

You pay for your own health care here. INZ recommends full medical insurance for your whole stay. If you are pregnant there are additional requirements.

You cannot work in New Zealand on a visitor visa.

There are two ways around the edges of that, and both have limits.

You may be able to work remotely for an employer or client based outside New Zealand. This is allowed for visitor visa holders generally, so it is worth checking the current rules against your own arrangement rather than assuming.

You can also apply for a variation of conditions to allow part-time work. You need a genuine job offer, must be suitably qualified for the role and meet any applicable occupational-registration requirements, and the proposed employer must meet INZ’s compliance requirements. INZ may also require evidence that the pay is not below the New Zealand market rate. A labour market test is not required.

If the variation is approved, you may work only between 9.30am and 2.30pm, Monday to Friday. The variation is a separate application and is not granted automatically.

You can study for up to three months in any 12-month period. For longer part-time study, you can apply for a variation of conditions. Any approved part-time study must also take place between 9.30am and 2.30pm, Monday to Friday.

This is the condition that matters most, and it is the one that ends visas.

You must live with and care for your child while they are in New Zealand on their student visa. INZ states plainly that if you withdraw your support or move away from your child, it can make you leave New Zealand. That means liability for deportation, not a warning letter.

The practical reading is that this visa is not a way to be in New Zealand near your child. It is a visa to be in New Zealand with them.

There is a limited emergency procedure that allows some children to remain in New Zealand temporarily while their guardian returns to their home country.

This procedure is available only where the child is enrolled in school years 1 to 8, or is aged 13 or younger and enrolled with another education provider.

The application is made to vary the conditions of your child’s student visa, not your Guardian Visitor Visa. INZ must be satisfied that:

• an emergency requires you to return temporarily to your home country
• your child’s education provider has approved the alternative caregiving arrangements, and
• you have purchased a return ticket to New Zealand.

The variation can be granted for the period required, up to a maximum of four weeks.

You must not leave New Zealand before INZ approves the variation. Leaving before approval, or failing to return within the approved period, can put your child’s student visa at risk. It may also put your own visa at risk because you are required to live with and care for your child.

You must be in good health. INZ may ask for a chest X-ray, a medical examination, or both.

What is required depends on how long you are staying and where you have been.

• Staying less than six months: no chest X-ray needed, as a rule.
• Staying less than twelve months: no medical certificate needed, as a rule.
• Staying more than six months: a chest X-ray is required if you are a citizen of a country that does not have a low incidence of tuberculosis, or have spent more than three months in the last five years in such a country.

You need a fresh chest X-ray certificate, even if you have given INZ one before, if you have since spent six months in a row in a country without a low incidence of TB and are now coming here for more than six months. Time already spent in New Zealand counts towards that.

You answer health questions in the application and those answers decide whether evidence is needed. INZ can still ask for a chest X-ray or a medical examination while it processes your application. Any evidence must be less than three months old when INZ receives it.

You must be of good character, and you may need to provide police certificates.

Police certificates are required if you are aged 17 or older and your total time in New Zealand will be 24 months or longer, counting time you have already spent here on other visas. For a parent planning to be here through several years of secondary school, that will apply.

Where they are required, they must come from every country you are a citizen of, and every country you have spent more than five years in since you turned 17. They must be less than six months old when you apply.

You do not need to provide them again if you supplied them with an earlier application and they were issued in the last 24 months. INZ can ask for a new one at any point while your application is open.

A criminal conviction or a security concern can mean no visa.

You may be able to apply for another visa to stay longer, but holding this visa rules three out. You will not be eligible for:

• a Specific Purpose Work Visa
• a student visa
• an Accredited Employer Work Visa.

That is a short list with a long shadow. If your plan was to come as a guardian and then move onto a work visa once you were settled here, this visa closes the two most common routes. It is worth knowing before you choose it rather than after.

You apply online, through INZ’s enhanced Immigration Online system.

Two changes landed this year and both have already taken effect.

Paper applications for this visa are no longer accepted from 1 October 2026. INZ will consider a paper form only where exceptional circumstances apply, and you have to contact INZ to discuss that first.

The old online application form closes on 8 October 2026. From 24 September 2026 no new applications could be started in the old system, and when the form closes any draft application still sitting in it is deleted. If you started an application in the old system and have not submitted it, it will not survive, and you will need to start again in enhanced Immigration Online. Applications already submitted are not affected and stay accessible until they are decided.

What you need to provide:

• a copy of your passport or certificate of identity, valid for at least three months after you plan to leave New Zealand
• one acceptable photo
• documents showing you are the parent or legal guardian of the child
• a chest X-ray certificate, if required
• a medical certificate, if required
• police certificates, if required
• certified English translations of anything not in English.

INZ may come back after you apply and ask for medical evidence or police certificates it did not need at lodgement.

If you are already in New Zealand on a temporary visa that will expire while this application is being decided, INZ will normally grant an interim visa so you stay here lawfully.

INZ’s published fee for a Guardian Visitor Visa starts at NZD 441. Processing is 80 percent of applications decided within 7 weeks.

Both move. Check the current figure on INZ’s fees and processing times page before you book anything, and treat 7 weeks as the figure for 80 percent of applications rather than a commitment on yours. Visitor visa processing is busiest between September and March, which is exactly when families are organising for the New Zealand school year.

Five patterns come up again and again.

The funds are counted once. A parent shows NZD 1,000 a month and nothing more. The money for the flight home has to be separate from the money to live on.

Both parents apply. Only one guardian visa is granted at a time, however many children are studying here. The second parent needs their own visa on its own merits.

The child’s age is read as a hard cut-off at 18. A child who is 18 and enrolled in year 13 still qualifies, because the age test and the school years test are alternatives.

The guardian travels alone. The condition is to live with and care for the child, and leaving them here while you travel puts the visa at risk. The emergency route exists but it runs through a variation on the child’s visa.

The guardian plans to switch to a work visa later. This visa makes you ineligible for an Accredited Employer Work Visa, a Specific Purpose Work Visa and a student visa.

Is the Guardian Visitor Visa the same as the Guardian of a Student Visitor Visa?

Yes. INZ renamed it. The requirements described on this page are the current ones.

Can both parents come to New Zealand on a guardian visa?

No. INZ grants this visa to one parent or legal guardian at a time, even if you have more than one child studying here. The other parent can apply for a visitor visa in their own right if they meet the requirements.

Can I bring my other children?

Not on this visa. It covers you as the guardian of the child who holds the student visa. Your partner and any other children need their own visas.

How much money do I need to show?

At least NZD 1,000 for every month you plan to stay, or NZD 400 a month if you have already paid for your accommodation. You also need the money for your travel out of New Zealand, on top of that.

Can I work on a Guardian Visitor Visa?

Not in New Zealand, as a rule. You may be able to work remotely for an employer or client based outside New Zealand, and you can apply for a variation of conditions to allow part-time work. The variation is a separate application and is not automatic.

Can I study?

Up to three months in any 12-month period your visa is valid. For longer than that, you can apply for a variation of conditions for part-time study.

Does this visa lead to residence?

No. It is a visitor visa. It does not lead to residence, and while you hold it you are not eligible for a student visa, a Specific Purpose Work Visa or an Accredited Employer Work Visa.

What happens if my child turns 18 or goes to university?

Your child qualifies if they are aged 17 or younger, or enrolled in school years 1 to 13. This means a child studying at a university, polytechnic or private training establishment can still qualify while they are 17 or younger. If they are not enrolled in school years 1 to 13, your Guardian Visitor Visa can only run until the day before they turn 18. Once neither eligibility test is met, you would need another visa to stay.

Can I apply after my child is already in New Zealand?

Yes. Your child needs a current student visa before you can apply, so applying once theirs is approved is normal. If you are already here on another temporary visa, INZ will usually grant an interim visa if yours expires while this application is being decided.