How to get New Zealand Permanent Residency & Citizenship

The purpose of this guide is to detail immigrants of New Zealand on how to get New Zealand permanent residency, New Zealand citizenship or New Zealand resident visa.

If you’re looking for a place to reside, New Zealand is a very great choice. It’s known to be one of the most peaceful countries in the world with great development. You can easily obtain a New Zealand permanent residency, New Zealand permanent resident visa or New Zealand citizenship if you’ve been a resident visa holder for at least 2 years.

Once you’re granted a New Zealand permanent residency or New Zealand permanent resident visa, you can live and work in New Zealand indefinitely and also come and go from New Zealand without travel conditions.

Benefits of New Zealand Permanent Residency

There are so many benefits attached after obtaining the New Zealand permanent residency and too mention a few, they includes;

• You can now enjoy the benefit of a citizen as it gives you rights to New Zealand citizenship
• In education, when paying for study fees, you pay only domestic fees just like every New Zealand citizens and no international fee would be added
• You’ll also be given unrestricted rights to live and also work in New Zealand
• You also get medical and social related benefits
• If you eventually born in New Zealand, your child or children are rewarded New Zealand citizenship by birth.

There are lot more other benefits.

Paths to obtaining New Zealand Permanent Residency

There are various paths to follow before you can be eligible and apply for New Zealand permanent residency. Remember, I already said, you’ve to be a resident of New Zealand for at least 2 years before you can apply. However, there are different paths to become a resident of New Zealand.

Below are the categories of New Zealand resident visa available;

1. Skilled Migrant Resident visa: The resident visa is directed to those with specialized skill and education which enables them work in New Zealand
2. Partner of a New Zealander resident visa: If you’ve a spouse of dating a New Zealander, then this visa enables you to also live with them in New Zealand
3. Long Term Skill shortage List Resident Visa: This resident visa allows those who does hard-fill jobs to live in New Zealand
4. Parent Retirement resident visa: This allows retired parents with New Zealand citizenship or New Zealand permanent resident visa to join their children with them in New Zealand
5. Work Resident visa: This is a type of New Zealand work visa given to a foreign individual
6. Dependent child resident visa: This resident visa is given to children of New Zealand
7. Investor 2 resident visa: This type of visa is given to experienced business individual who has a NZ net assets of at least $3million
8. Entrepreneur Resident visa: This type of visa is given to immigrants who’ve operated a business in New Zealand for at least 6months
9. Samoan Quota Resident Visa: This resident visa is obtained by Samoan residents who’ve entered drawing to live in New Zealand
10. Pacific Assess Category Resident visa: This type of resident visa is obtained by pacific islanders who won lottery to live in New Zealand
11. Subsequent Resident visa: This is also known as second resident visa. It allows you to live and stay in New Zealand after your initial resident visa is passed
12. Religious worker resident visa: This type of visa is obtained by religious workers to enable them live in New Zealand
13. Investor 1 resident visa: This allows investors who’re investing $10 million in New Zealand in next 3 years to be able to live in New Zealand
14. Talent Resident visa: Individuals skilled in sports, art, culture or any talent related activities can easily obtain the talent resident visa
15. Australian Resident visa: This type of resident visa is only available for Australian citizen to enable them live in New Zealand
16. Community sponsored refugee resident visa
17. Inter-country adoption resident visa
18. Pitcairn islander resident visa
19. South islander contribution resident visa
20. Refugee family support resident visa

With the above resident visas, after 2years, you can easily apply for New Zealand permanent residency, New Zealand permanent resident visa or New Zealand citizenship.

There are people who were directly affected by the Christchurch terrorist attacks on 15 March 2019. The New Zealand-based families of those individual can easily apply for a permanent residency in New Zealand using a different process.

If you’re a new comer and you’re looking forward to migrate to New Zealand, to either live, work or study there, you can go through the previous guide on New Zealand immigration process.

You can easily apply for New Zealand citizenship or New Zealand permanent residency from their official immigration website. After that, as long as you’re eligible and have the required documents, you’ll be granted a New Zealand permanent resident visa. If you’ve got any related question, please do let me know via comment section.