Want to apply for New Zealand residence without waiting two years?

The Straight to Residence Visa is a New Zealand Resident Visa for people who have a job, or a job offer, in a Tier 1 role on the Green List. The Green List is Immigration New Zealand’s list of occupations in long-term shortage. Tier 1 roles are the most acute shortages, and for those roles INZ lets you apply for residence immediately.

That is the whole point of the visa. On most skilled residence pathways you first hold a temporary work visa, build up New Zealand work experience, and then apply for residence. Straight to Residence skips that stage. If your role is on Tier 1 and you meet the requirements, you can lodge a residence application with the job offer in hand, whether you are already in New Zealand or still overseas.

It sits inside the Skilled Migrant Category family of visas, alongside the Work to Residence Visa and the Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa, but it has no points test of its own.

Both visas come from the Green List. The difference is the tier your role sits in, and that changes the timing completely.

• Tier 1 role: Straight to Residence Visa. Apply for residence now, with a job offer. No New Zealand work experience required first.
• Tier 2 role: Work to Residence Visa. Work in your role in New Zealand for 24 months on a work visa, then apply for residence. Read the Work to Residence Visa Guide if this is you.

Tier 1 is weighted towards health, engineering, ICT, construction management, science and experienced teaching roles. Tier 2 is weighted towards trades, technical and heavy machinery operator roles. Your job offer needs to match the tasks of one of the occupations on the Green List, not just the job title, so check your role on INZ’s Green List search before you decide which guide to follow.

If your role is not on the Green List at all, the Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa is the pathway to read next.

To be granted the visa you must meet all of the following.

• Age. You must be 55 or younger on the day you apply. INZ checks this against your passport or identity document.
• A Tier 1 Green List job or job offer. With an accredited employer, in a role listed on Tier 1, matched to the correct occupation code for the work you will actually do.
• The role’s own requirements. Each Green List role carries its own conditions. Some need New Zealand registration with a professional body (nursing, medicine, engineering, teaching), some need a specific qualification, some need years of experience, and some set a pay rate above the median wage.
• Pay. At least the rate INZ has set for your Green List role, or the current median wage if no rate is set. See the pay section below.
• Health. An INZ General Medical Certificate for everyone in your application, and an INZ Chest X-ray Certificate for everyone aged 11 or over, each less than three months old when INZ receives them.
• Character. Police certificates less than six months old from every country you are a citizen of, and every country you have spent 12 months or more in over the last 10 years, for everyone aged 17 or over.
• English. Shown through your citizenship, your qualifications and where you studied, or an English test result no more than two years old.

Your job offer alone does not get you the visa. INZ assesses every one of these requirements, and it may decline the application and keep the fee if the evidence is not there. That is why the evidence is worth getting right before you lodge, not after.

This is where most of the detail sits, and it is where applications are won or lost. Your job or job offer must be:

• With an accredited employer. Accreditation is held by the employer, and you can ask them for their accreditation reference.
• A Tier 1 Green List role, and the duties you perform must match that occupation code, not just the title on the contract.
• Full-time employment, that is, for at least 30 guaranteed hours each week.
• Permanent, or fixed-term for at least 12 months from the date you apply, or a contract, or continuous contracts, adding up to at least six months.
• Paid at or above the required rate for the role.

How the pay rule works
When you apply you must be paid at least the rate specified on the Green List for your occupation. If no rate is specified for your occupation, the floor is the current median wage, which is NZD 35.00 an hour (the 2025 median wage, in force from 9 March 2026), or the current market rate for your occupation, whichever is higher. Many Tier 1 occupations do carry their own rate, and some carry a higher one, so always check the rate for your specific occupation on INZ’s wage rates page rather than assuming the median applies.

For a full explanation of how the median wage is set, which rate applies to which visa, and what changed in 2026, read the Immigration Median Wage Guide.

Contractors
You can qualify on a contract for services rather than an employment agreement. The contract, or a run of contracts without breaks, must add up to at least six months. Some ICT roles on the Green List set a separate, higher pay threshold for contractors, and if your role does, you must show 10 years of relevant experience and pay at or above that contractor threshold. Check your role’s Green List entry for any contractor conditions.

Overseas qualifications
If your role’s requirement is a qualification and yours was gained outside New Zealand, you may need an International Qualification Assessment from NZQA, and the result has to be in your application when you lodge. Not every qualification needs one. Engineering degrees under the Washington and Sydney Accords, for example, are exempt. INZ’s IQA checker tells you whether yours does.

A note for teachers
Primary, intermediate and secondary teaching roles sit on Tier 1, and the pay requirement for these roles is the median wage or above. In practice that rules out most newly graduated teachers on starting salaries, and INZ’s own guidance points them to the Post Study Work Visa or the Accredited Employer Work Visa first, with Straight to Residence available once their pay meets the requirement.

The current Green List (Appendix 13 of INZ’s Operational Manual, effective 9 March 2026) has around 146 Tier 1 occupations. They fall into a few broad groups:

• Health: general practitioners and most medical specialists, registered nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, dentists, pharmacists and other allied health roles.
• Engineering: civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, chemical, environmental and other engineering disciplines.
• ICT: software engineers, ICT security specialists, database and systems administrators, telecommunications network engineers.
• Construction: construction project managers, project builders, quantity surveyors, surveyors.
• Education: secondary teachers, and primary and intermediate teachers (moved to Tier 1 in March 2025).
• Business and science: external and internal auditors, environmental research scientists, food technologists.

This is illustrative, not the list. Roles move between tiers and on and off the list, and each one has its own conditions attached. The only reliable source is INZ’s Green List search, and you should check it on the day you apply. The Skilled Migrant Category changes on 24 August 2026 did not add or remove any Green List roles.

Yes. Your partner and your dependent children aged 24 or younger can be included in the one application. Everyone included must meet the health and character requirements, and you must show a genuine relationship with each of them, usually through marriage and birth certificates and evidence of living together.

• Partner: receives residence with you and can work in any job for any employer.
• Dependent children: aged 24 or younger, single, with no children of their own, and financially dependent on you (if they are aged 21 to 24). Children who are married, in a relationship or have their own children do not qualify as dependants and would need their own pathway.
• English for family: your partner and children aged 16 or over must prove their English ability, or you can pay for English language lessons for them in New Zealand.

One rule catches people out. If your partner or children already hold, or have applied for, a work, student or visitor visa based on their relationship to you, INZ requires you to include them in your residence application. You cannot leave them out and add them later.

You are a New Zealand resident from the day the visa is granted. You can live here indefinitely, work in any role for any employer, and study anywhere for any length of time. You are not tied to the employer or the role in your application, and changing jobs, leaving that employer, or leaving the workforce does not affect your residence.

If you applied from outside New Zealand, you must arrive within 12 months of the visa being issued.

Travel conditions
A Resident Visa comes with travel conditions. You can leave and return as often as you like for two years from the date you first arrive as a resident, or from the date the visa is granted if you were already in New Zealand. After that the travel conditions expire, and if you are outside New Zealand when they do, the visa expires with them.

The way to remove that risk is the Permanent Resident Visa, which you can apply for once you have held the Straight to Residence Visa for two years in a row. It lets you travel in and out indefinitely. The Permanent Resident Visa Guide explains the commitment requirements and how to apply. Citizenship is usually available after five years living in New Zealand as a resident, and you do not need a Permanent Resident Visa first.

On paper this is one of the simplest residence visas. In practice the applications that get declined or delayed tend to fail on the same few points.

• The role does not match the occupation code. The job title says one thing, the duties say another. INZ assesses what you actually do against the occupation’s definition. A mismatch is the most common reason a Green List application stalls.
• A role condition is not met at the time of application. Registration not yet granted, a qualification that needed an assessment, or a contractor threshold missed. The requirements have to be met when you lodge, not promised for later.
• Pay below the role’s rate. Applicants check the median wage and stop there, when their role carries a higher specified rate. Or the employment agreement does not clearly show hours, pay and duration, so INZ cannot confirm the rate.
• Weak or dated evidence. Police certificates over six months old, medicals over three months old, translations not certified, family relationship documents missing. INZ may decline without a refund if the evidence is insufficient.
• Your temporary visa expires while you wait. If you are in New Zealand, you must stay lawfully here during processing. If your current visa will run out, you need to apply for a temporary visa before your current visa expires.

When INZ has concerns it will usually write to you first with a request for information or a letter setting out potential prejudicial information. Our PPI and RFI Letters Guide explains what those letters mean and how much time you have. The strongest applications avoid them by getting the evidence right the first time, and this is where a licensed adviser earns their fee.

The application fee is NZD 6,450, and it is a flat fee regardless of how many family members are included. Fees change from time to time, so check the current figure on INZ’s Straight to Residence Visa page before you budget.

On top of the fee, allow for medical examinations, police certificates, certified translations, any English test, an International Qualification Assessment if you need one, and professional registration fees. For a family, these can add several thousand dollars.

INZ publishes a rolling processing time for this visa, and it changes without notice as volumes move. Check the current figure on INZ’s Straight to Residence Visa page rather than planning around a number you have seen elsewhere, and allow longer if your application is complex or incomplete.

Can I apply from outside New Zealand?
Yes. You can apply from your home country with a qualifying job offer. You do not need to hold a New Zealand visa first. Many applicants come on an Accredited Employer Work Visa and apply from inside New Zealand instead, which lets them start work while the residence application is processed. Both routes are valid.

Do I need a job offer, or can I look for work after I arrive?
You need the job or job offer before you apply. There is no version of this visa for people intending to find a Tier 1 role after arrival.

What is the minimum wage for the Straight to Residence Visa?
The rate set for your role on the Green List, or NZD 35.00 an hour if no rate is set, or the market rate for your occupation, whichever is higher. Check your occupation on the INZ wage rates page, because the role rate is often higher than the median.

Can I change jobs after my visa is granted?
Yes. Once residence is granted you can work for any employer in any role. Your residence is not conditional on staying in the job in your application.

How long does the Straight to Residence Visa take to process?
INZ publishes a rolling processing time that changes without notice, so check the current figure on INZ’s website. Gathering documents, medicals, police certificates and registration usually takes longer than the processing itself, so start those early.

What is the difference between this visa and a Permanent Resident Visa?
This is a Resident Visa. It gives you residence indefinitely but with travel conditions that expire after two years. A Permanent Resident Visa has no travel conditions. You can apply for one after holding this visa for two continuous years.

Is the Straight to Residence Visa the same as the Skilled Migrant Category?
It is part of the same family, but it is a different visa. The Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa may be points-based (its Skilled Work Experience and Trades and Technician pathways are not) and is open to skilled workers in any occupation. Straight to Residence is for Tier 1 Green List roles only, with no points test. If your role is not on the Green List, read the Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa Guide.