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If you are afraid to go back to your own country, New Zealand has a way to ask for protection. Asking for it is called claiming asylum, or claiming refugee or protected person status. This page explains, in plain words, the three ways a person can be protected in New Zealand: by making a claim from inside the country, by being resettled under the Refugee Quota Programme, and by being sponsored by a family member who came to New Zealand as a refugee. Help with all three is free. Our report does not assess any of them.
This page is for someone who is in New Zealand, or thinking about New Zealand, and is frightened of what would happen if they went home. It is also for a person already living in New Zealand as a refugee who wants to bring family, and for anyone trying to help either of them. Nothing on this page requires you to pay anyone.
Immigration New Zealand (INZ, the government department that decides visas and protection claims) charges nothing to make a claim. INZ's page on claiming refugee or protected person status says you have the right to contact a lawyer, that you may be eligible for legal aid (government money that pays for a lawyer when you cannot), and that an interpreter is provided for your interview. Community Law Centres give free legal help across the country.
You do not need to pay an agent to ask New Zealand for protection. Anyone who says you must, or who promises a result for a fee, is a warning sign; our guide to spotting immigration scams explains what to watch for.
New Zealand recognises two kinds of people. A refugee is someone outside their home country who faces, in INZ's words, "a real chance of being harmed if returned to that country" because of their race or ethnicity, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group. A protected person is someone whose deportation would break the Convention against Torture, or who faces torture, arbitrary deprivation of life, or cruel treatment if sent back (INZ: claiming refugee or protected person status). One claim covers both, and the officer deciding it looks at both.
You must be in New Zealand to claim. INZ's page says a claim can be made to a New Zealand police officer, to an immigration officer, or to a refugee and protection officer (RPO for short: the INZ official trained to decide these claims). You can claim when you arrive at the airport or port, or later. You then confirm it in writing on the form INZ calls the Confirmation of Claim to Refugee and Protection Status in New Zealand (INZ 1071), with a written statement of what happened to you and what you fear.
INZ's Refugee Status Unit, the team of RPOs based in Auckland, can be reached at rsu@mbie.govt.nz or on +64 9 928 2236 (the details are on the same INZ page). INZ says temporary visas are available while a claim is processed, so a claimant is not left without a visa, and that it covers the cost of the chest X-ray for qualifying claimants.
INZ's page describes six steps: completing the form, giving your written statement, an interview with an RPO, receiving the RPO's report, making final comments on that report, and receiving the decision. The interview is where you tell your story in your own words, with an interpreter. Take a lawyer or a free adviser with you if you can, and tell the truth even where it is painful.
INZ publishes a guide to the whole process, "Claiming Refugee and Protection Status", in English, Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Hindi, Punjabi, Russian and Spanish (INZ: guides and resources for asylum seekers). Read it before your interview.
A declined claim can be appealed to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, an independent body administered by the Ministry of Justice, not by INZ. The Tribunal's forms and fees page says the appeal is made on Form 2, Refugee and Protected Person Appeal, that there is no fee, and that it can be lodged online, by email, by post or in person. The Tribunal's overview page says legal aid may be available. Your decision letter tells you the time limit for appealing. Act on it the day you receive the letter.
Recognition means New Zealand has accepted that you cannot safely be sent back to the country you fear. What follows, including the steps to stay in New Zealand permanently, is set out in INZ's guide "Information for Convention Refugees", listed on the guides page above. If the words visa, residence and citizenship are new to you, our post on what visa, permanent residence and citizenship mean explains them.
This is the part that surprises people. The Refugee Quota Programme is New Zealand's resettlement programme: each year it takes refugees who are already outside their home country and living somewhere that cannot protect them for long. INZ's Refugee Quota Programme page says people "must usually be recognised as mandated refugees and referred to New Zealand by UNHCR", the United Nations refugee agency. "Mandated" means UNHCR has already recognised them as refugees. There is no form on INZ's website to apply for the quota, and nobody can put you on it for a fee.
That is also exactly why no self-assessment tool, ours included, can assess this route: the decision starts with a referral from UNHCR, not with anything a person types into a questionnaire.
INZ's page says New Zealand takes 1,500 refugees a year, with places allocated by region; the figures are INZ's to change, so check the page rather than relying on this one. Refugees who arrive under the quota are granted permanent residence. They spend their first five weeks at Te Āhuru Mōwai o Aotearoa, the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland, in a programme of health assessments, settlement planning, employment assessment and English language classes. After that, INZ says they receive help for up to two years to settle into their new community.
A person who came to New Zealand as a refugee and wants to bring family uses the Refugee Family Support Category. INZ's Refugee Family Support Resident Visa page says the sponsor must be a New Zealand citizen or resident who was granted residence "on the basis of being a refugee or protected person, or as an Afghan interpreter, or evacuee who supported the New Zealand Defence Force or other New Zealand agencies in Afghanistan". The visa page lists 600 places a year and a fee of NZD $0. INZ's sponsorship page adds that a sponsor cannot have previously sponsored someone who was granted a resident visa under this category.
INZ manages sponsor registrations in a two-tier queue. Its sponsorship page says: "Tier one sponsors, who have no other family in New Zealand, are given first access to available places," and "registrations are selected from the tier one queue in the order they are entered." Only if places remain are registrations taken from the tier two queue. On the day we checked, the same page said INZ is "currently only accepting tier one sponsor registrations", and the visa page said tier two registrations will be returned. In plain words: if you already have other family in New Zealand, you cannot register right now. INZ's check if you can sponsor page has an online tool that asks the sponsor a few questions and says which tier applies.
The sponsor goes first. INZ's visa page says the sponsor completes the Refugee Family Support Category Sponsor Registration Form, provides evidence of their own immigration status, and attaches photocopies of the family members' birth certificates. When the registration is selected from the queue, the family members apply for the visa itself.
The visa lets the family live, work and study in New Zealand, with travel conditions (the right to leave and return) lasting two years from first arrival as a resident. Applicants must be in good health and of good character, and anyone aged 17 or over provides police certificates from each country they are a citizen of or have lived in for 12 months or more in the last 10 years. A partner and dependent children aged 24 and younger can be included only if they were named in the sponsor's registration.
Our questionnaire and report assess New Zealand's skilled, work, family, study and business routes. They do not assess claims for refugee or protected person status, the Refugee Quota Programme, or the Refugee Family Support Category, and no online tool should: a protection claim is decided on your own account of what you fear, the quota begins with a UNHCR referral, and family support depends on a sponsor's place in a queue that INZ manages. If the danger you face is from a partner or an employer inside New Zealand rather than from your home country, our post on New Zealand's family violence and exploitation visas covers a different set of visas. If you are looking at Canada instead, see Canada's refugee and humanitarian routes.
Immigration New Zealand's refugee and protection unit, Community Law Centres and legal aid through the Ministry of Justice can help you with this at no cost. You do not need to pay anyone to ask for the protections on this page.
Before you pay anyone for immigration advice, ask for their licence or registration number and check it with the regulator for the country you are applying to. Immigration New Zealand explains who is allowed to give immigration advice.
Our free questionnaire and our full report do not assess the routes on this page. We wrote it because people arrive asking about them, and everything here is free to read.