Eligibility criteria for the straight to residence, work to residence and highly paid skilled and care workforce residence visas.
The topic this post will be about is exciting and to some extent confusing for some people. Green list visa?! You’ve probably heard this phrase before.
What is green list?
A green list is a list of hard-to-fill, high-skill roles that provides a fast track to residency and a work to residence pathway for migrants. That means, if you job is on the green list, you can come to New Zealand on a work visa and directly apply for residence if you meet the criteria. You can even apply for this residence from offshore. or you can come to New Zealand, still on a work visa and apply for residency after two years of working in New Zealand.
This is part of the skilled residence category. The green list replaces the skill shortage lists, which before you could use to apply for visas like Long Term Skill Shortage List Work Visa and Essential Skills Work Visa. These visas have now been replaced by accredited employer work visa since July 2022.
A range of jobs are on this list including health workers, trades people, vets, engineers and ICT specialists, construction roles (NZ is big on construction). Some of these roles will need to be paid a minimum salary, which will be tied to the median wage, while some roles will need to have higher pay.
The fun fact about this list is that, if your role is on the green list, an accredited employer does not need to do the labour market test before applying for a job check. What this means is that the employer can complete the job check without proof of advertising.
These are the benefits of the green list. If your role is on the skill shortage list but not on the green list, that role won’t be exempt from labour test unless the pay for the role is twice the median wage.
What occupations are on the green list.
There are currently 205 occupations on the green list.These roles are grouped into two categories namely, tier 1 and tier 2 . New roles are being progressively added to these lists. Depending on the role you have secured, you can come to New Zealand on a work visa and directly apply for residence or you can come to New Zealand, still on a work visa and apply for residency after two years of working in New Zealand. An explanation of green list and the different roles are on my youtube channel.
If you are employed or have an offer of employment in tier 1 role, you can directly apply for residence. This is called straight to residence because it is a direct pathway to residence. If you are employed in a tier 2 role, you can submit application for residence after working in that role for 2 years in New Zealand. This is called work to residence because it is a work pathway to residence.
Visa details
If your role is listed, and you have the qualifications, registration or experience required, you can apply for the
A. Straight to residence Visa
You can apply for this visa if you work for or you have a job offer from an accredited employer, and that your role is on Tier 1 of the Green List. You can either come to New Zealand on a work visa now and apply for the Straight to Residence Visa, or apply from outside New Zealand. With this visa you can:
- Live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely
- Include your partner and dependent children aged 24 and under in your residence application.
For Requirements, cost, process and conditions, watch this video
B. Work to Residence visa
It is similar to a straight to residence visa in the sense that it is a type of green list visa and many of the requirement for straight to residence visa applies here. However, you can only apply for this visa if you currently work for an accredited employer, and you have worked in a Tier 2 Green List role for 24 months.
What that means is that:
- At the time you apply you must be working for, or have a job offer from, an accredited employer.
- Your employment must be permanent and full-time (at least 30 hours a week), or fixed-term for at least 12 months.
- For 24 months, you must have worked in a Green List Tier 2 role and met your role’s Green List requirements.
With the work to residence visa, you can:
- Live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely
- Include your partner and dependent children aged 24 and under in your residence application.
All visas are open for application and the process will be completely online.
Eligibility
To qualify to work visa under the green list, all green list applicants must:
- Have a job (or employment offer) that matches the green list role.
- The job or employment offer should be from an Immigration New Zealand (INZ) accredited employer.
- Must be genuine and for a minimum of 30 hours per week, should be a permanent role of fixed term of at least 12 months
- Depending on the role, you must meet a certain threshold in terms of qualification, registration, or work experience or salary. You may have to prove that your overseas qualification meets the comparable NZ qualifications standard for that role and/or that you have the necessary registrations.
- All the qualifications are based on New Zealand qualifications framework.
- So, you can either get your qualification assessed by New Zealand Qualification authority (NZQA) or have a qualification that is on the list of qualifications exempt from assessment.
- You must also be aged 55 or younger at the time the residence application is made.
- You can include your partner and any dependent children up to the age of 24 in your application.
- You and your partner, and dependent children in your application must meet health and character requirements for residence.
- You, and if applicable your partner, and dependent children aged 16 or over, must meet the English language requirements. so, you and the fam may need English language test
How much does it cost?
The application fee depends on where you are applying from. These fees do not include the international visitor conservation and tourism levy which is $35 as of today.
CARE WORK FORCE WORK TO RESIDENCE VISA
This one is for those who currently work for an accredited employer and have worked in a care workforce sector role for 24 months. It is very similar to work to residence visa, the only difference is that Your role does not have to be on the green list.
For work requirement: you must have worked for 24 months in a care workforce sector role in New Zealand that paid you the level 4 support workers’ minimum wage per hour rate or more. The amount is $28.25 per hour and these are the care work force role
Highly paid residence visa
To be eligible for this residence visa you must have:
- employment or an offer of employment in a role that is paid at least twice the median wage, currently NZD $59.32 an hour
- been working for 24 months in New Zealand in a role that paid at least twice the median wage.
- Your employer must also be accredited when you apply for this visa.
- Acceptable work in New Zealand can be counted towards this visa if you hold or held an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV)
How do you find an accredited employer and a green list jobs?
Since accredited employers are the only ones that can hire migrants’ workers from abroad, how can you find them?I
It was difficult to find a list of accredited employers in the early days of the scheme and the green list is progressively updated. There was no requirement that these employers should register on a public list so there wasn’t any way you could find accredited employers except on the ACC website. Even so, one couldn’t tell if the employers accreditation had lapsed or not.
Then late 2023, INZ finally shared their database of accredited employer which I must say has saved many. The searchable tool will help check if an employer is accredited or not. This tool is called Check if an employer is accredited. It’s great starting point which I think will save you time and efforts.
I would suggest, usings the tips I gave on my 8 ways to find a job video to search for these jobs.
Things to note
- If you work in a role on the Green List, or you are paid at least twice the median wage your partner will have open work rights.
- If you are not eligible for a green list visa, you can still apply to work in New Zealand visa other visas like AEWV or via other skilled residence routes which I will talk about in another video.
