The Japan Working Holiday Visa lets a Japanese citizen within its age range try life in New Zealand without a job offer: it allows temporary work and some study, but not a permanent job. New Zealand also has a work visa only for people from Japan, the Japanese Interpreters Work Visa, for qualified Japanese and English interpreters with a full-time job offer in a tourism-related industry; the employer must promise in writing to cover their wages, accommodation and trip home, among other costs. Staying for good means applying for residence, for example under the Skilled Migrant Category, a residence visa for skilled workers that requires a job or job offer from an employer Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has accredited.

Plan the Japanese police certificate early. From New Zealand, you book a fingerprinting appointment at the Embassy of Japan or a consular office; the certificate then comes from Japan, which the embassy says can take months, and for a resident or long-term visa you need no document explaining why you want it. In Japan, INZ directs you to the Prefectural Police Headquarters where you live, and INZ takes a certificate only if it is recent when you apply. For the Interpreters visa, gather proof of your Japanese and English interpreting skills and letters about any tourism work, which INZ counts in your favour.

The mistake to avoid is treating New Zealand citizenship as a formality. New Zealand allows dual citizenship, but Japan's Ministry of Justice states that a Japanese citizen who acquires another nationality by choice, for example through naturalisation, loses Japanese nationality automatically. A Permanent Resident Visa already lets you live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely without citizenship. The Ministry adds a rule for children: a child born abroad who also gains another nationality at birth keeps Japanese nationality only if a parent states the wish to keep it on the birth notification, within the legal time limit.