It depends on which visa you are applying for, and the range is wide. Nobody can tell you the day your own application will be decided, not us and not an adviser. What you can see is what recently happened to other people: Immigration New Zealand (INZ, the government department that decides visas) publishes how long recent applications actually took, visa by visa, and updates those pages every week. This post explains how to read those figures, where to find them, and what makes one application slower than another. The figures move, so this post does not copy them out: each one sits on the INZ page it comes from, and that is the page to check before you plan around it.

Who this is for

Anyone planning a move to New Zealand who wants a realistic sense of the wait: skilled workers looking at residence or at a work visa, partners of New Zealanders or of work visa holders, students, and visitors. If you have already applied and yours is taking longer than the number you read somewhere, the section on what decides the time is the one to read.

How does INZ measure a wait time?

INZ publishes two figures for each visa, and they mean different things. The columns are labelled "Average wait time", which INZ explains as how long it took for 50% of applications to be processed, and "Most completed within", which is based on 80% of applications processed. Both are counted in working days, which exclude Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Two things follow from that. The figures cover applications INZ processed in the last four weeks and the pages are updated weekly, so they describe recent history rather than promising your future. And because the second figure is built on 80%, one application in five took longer than it.

How to read INZ's wait-time pages

INZ splits its wait times across four pages, one for each broad reason to come to New Zealand. Each page shows the same two figures for every visa on it, the average wait time and the "most completed within" figure explained above, both counted in working days and refreshed every week. Read whatever you find there as a record of what recently happened to other people's applications, not as a promise about yours. That is also why this post does not copy the numbers out: they would be out of date before you got here.

If you are applying for residence, the figures are on INZ's resident visa wait times page, which covers the Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa among others. The Skilled Migrant Category is New Zealand's points-based route to residence for skilled workers, explained in our post on how the Skilled Migrant Category works. Partner visas sit further down the same page, and they take longer: confirming that a relationship is genuine is part of what INZ checks, and that check takes longer than reading a qualification or a job title. Our post on New Zealand partner visas explains which partner visa fits which situation.

If you are applying for a work visa, the figures are on INZ's work visa wait times page. That page carries the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), which is the main work visa for someone with a job offer from a New Zealand employer that INZ has approved, or "accredited", and our post on the Accredited Employer Work Visa explains the steps.

The AEWV figure on that page covers your own visa application only. Your employer's accreditation and its job check are separate applications with their own queues, and INZ publishes those wait times separately in its section on how long applications take.

If you are applying to study, INZ's student visa wait times page groups its figures by the kind of place you will study at rather than by visa name: universities, schools, polytechnics and institutes of technology, and private training establishments. INZ adds a caveat on that page worth quoting: "These timeframes can vary and may be different at the time you submit your visa application, especially during the student peak season." The same page asks applicants to apply three months before they intend to travel, and says so particularly for people applying from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan, because of the volume of applications from those countries.

If you are visiting, the figures are on INZ's visitor visa and NZeTA wait times page, which covers the visitor visas and also the NZeTA, the electronic travel authority that citizens of visa-waiver countries request instead of a visa.

What decides how long yours takes?

INZ's page on why some applications are processed faster than others answers this directly, and it is short enough to read in full.

A straightforward application, in INZ's words, "includes all required evidence", "has no mistakes or typos within the application", and shows that you have genuine intentions to visit, study or work in New Zealand.

An application takes longer when it is complex. INZ's list includes applying to come to New Zealand for the first time, having a medical issue or history, being part of a group application, having a travel history that needs a closer look, having breached a visa condition before, or having a character concern to consider. Character and health are proven with police certificates and a medical examination, both explained in our post on police certificates and medical exams.

It also takes longer when INZ is waiting on somebody else. Its page names organisations that provide international qualification information, and the police forces that issue certificates, as two it commonly waits on. Both are worth starting early for exactly that reason.

Season matters too. INZ says visitor visa applications peak from October to February, and student visa applications from November to March.

What can you do, and what can nobody do?

Send everything INZ asked for, and nothing it did not. That second half surprises people, and INZ states it plainly: "Only include evidence that we ask for in your application. If you include additional evidence that we have not asked for this can slow down the processing time." The same page warns about evidence that is in the wrong format, out of date, or not in English, so translate what needs translating and check each document is current before you attach it. Then answer quickly when INZ writes to you, because until you reply your application is not moving.

What nobody can do is move you up the queue. No adviser can shorten a processing time, promise a decision date, or make a check on your health or character finish faster, and anyone charging for that is selling something that does not exist. Our post on how to spot immigration scams covers the warning signs.

What this means for your report

Our report states no processing times, because they change every month and only INZ can publish them. What it does is read the answers you gave our questionnaire and show which New Zealand routes those answers fit, and what each of those routes still needs from you, such as a qualification assessment, a language result inside its validity period, or a job offer from an accredited employer, as checklist steps. How long INZ then takes to decide is INZ's to publish, and the pages linked above are where it does. The report never tells you whether you qualify.

That division is the useful one here. The wait you can see published is the short part of the story; the months before it, spent getting the right documents in the right order for the right visa, are the part a reader usually spends alone across a dozen government pages.

Next step

A processing time only means something once you know which visa you would be waiting on. Our New Zealand page lists the routes we assess. To see where you stand, take our free questionnaire: the questionnaire is free, the summary of your results at the end of it is free, and unlocking the full report with its checklists is then your choice.