Dispelling rumours about the 2021 Resident Visa

Ankur Sabharwal is the owner of immigration advisory Visa Matters. He is a licensed immigration adviser dealing with complex immigration matters.

OPINION: Let’s talk about some rumours that have been swirling around the 2021 Resident Visa.

For those who don’t know, about 165,000 people are expected to be eligible for the 2021 Resident Visa. Already more than 15,000 people have been approved residence since Phase 1 opened on 1 December 2021.

With so much at stake, rumours have been circulating.

Only some of them are true.

Rumour No 1: If you don’t apply on 1 March, you are going to be at the back of the queue.

Phase 2 of the 2021 Resident Visa opens on 1 March. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) expects 110,000 applications to be lodged between 1 March and 31 July.

INZ says that it will likely begin processing Phase 2 applications at the end of March. The ones it processes first will be people whose temporary visas are about to expire.

“Processing will be in order of the principal applicant’s current visa expiry date as at the time of their 2021 Resident Visa application,” INZ told me.

If your temporary visa expires in 2023, your application will be queued while INZ processes applications of people whose visas expire this year. So, it won’t help to lodge your application on 1 March.

Rumour No 2: INZ’s website is definitely going to crash on 1 March.

In Phase 1 last December, INZ’s website crashed and it took days for people to lodge their applications, after receiving dozens of error messages.

For Phase 2, INZ is using a different IT platform, and says it has been “working hard to prepare for 1 March and to ensure that its system is able to manage the large volume of applications that are expected within the first few weeks. This includes user testing.”

INZ’s website is definitely going to crash, though. User testing didn’t involve 110,000 people all applying at once….

Rumour No 3: There is a huge backlog of New Zealand police checks, which means that it will likely take INZ 2-4 years to complete processing of 2021 Resident Visa applications.

Not true. The New Zealand Police have received 20,000 vetting requests from INZ, of which 99 per cent have already been completed, according to figures provided to me by INZ. There is no backlog of requests at all.

Rumour No 4: Twenty per cent of all applicants – and 80 per cent of Chinese nationals – are being refused visas.

This is not true. At the time of writing, only one person has been declined a visa, INZ told me.

Rumour No 5: Applications of Chinese and Russian people are going to take forever, because they require security checks through the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS).

This one is true. Applications referred to the NZSIS will take longer.

INZ won’t reveal its criteria for referring resident visa applicants to the NZSIS – it’s a secret.

INZ expects 80 per cent of applications will be decided within 12 months of lodgement. It’s a safe bet that the ones which take longer will mainly be those which require security checks.

Rumour No 6: If you give up your job and/or leave New Zealand after lodging your 2021 Resident Visa application, your application will be declined.

It depends. If you are applying under the “Settled” criteria, there is no requirement to have a job in New Zealand. If you leave the country after lodging your application, INZ will keep processing it, and it can be approved.

However, if you are applying under the “Skilled” or “Scarce” criteria (based on earning at least $27/hour or because you work in a scarce occupation), it would be a good idea to stay in New Zealand and keep working until residence is approved.

While the policy doesn’t require you to keep working after you have lodged your application, INZ could still decide that your job was not genuine if you quit soon after lodging.

Rumour No 7: Your partner is overseas, you are not living together, so if you include him/her in your application, the application will be declined.

Not true. You don’t have to be living together (or even living in the same country) at the time you lodge your 2021 Resident Visa application.

But – and it is a big but – you will need to provide satisfactory evidence of living together with your partner previously. If you have only lived together 2-3 weeks, INZ is unlikely to accept that this is long enough to prove “living together in a genuine and stable relationship”.

If you’ve lived together at least 2-3 months and can actually prove that you’ve lived together, INZ is more likely to accept your relationship meets its definition of a partnership.

Once the border reopens, your partner can apply for and be approved a temporary visa to come to New Zealand.

Then, once you and your partner have completed 12 months’ living together, your partner can be approved residence as part of your application.

Finally, INZ isn’t going to decline your application just because you include your partner and INZ decides that you haven’t lived together in a genuine and stable relationship. In this situation, INZ is required to carry on processing your application and not grant residence to your partner.

DISCLAIMER: This article does not constitute immigration advice. Individuals need to seek personal advice from a New Zealand licensed immigration adviser or lawyer to assess their unique situation. Ankur can be contacted at info@visamatters.co.nz.