Partnership Work Visa NZ: Partner of a New Zealander

It depends on your relationship stage and immigration goal. If you've lived together less than 12 months, you usually start with a Visitor or Work visa to build cohabitation evidence. Once you've evidenced 12 months of genuine and stable living together, the Resident Visa becomes available. Choosing the right variant for your situation is a strategic decision; talk to a licensed adviser before lodging.

Living as a couple in a shared home. Flat-mate arrangements, holidays together, and maintaining separate homes while spending time at each other's places do NOT count. INZ expects evidence covering the cohabitation period: joint tenancy, joint utilities, joint mail dated through the period.

No. A marriage or civil union certificate establishes the legal status of the relationship but doesn't by itself satisfy the genuine and stable test. INZ wants supporting evidence: joint finances, cohabitation history, communication records, public acknowledgement, shared future commitment. Marriages of convenience are exactly what the genuine-and-stable assessment is designed to screen.

Document them. INZ asks for the reasons for separation, the duration, how you maintained communication, and how the relationship was sustained. They assess whether the reasons are 'genuine and compelling.' Don't hide periods of separation in your timeline; contradictions between applicant statements, supporting partner statements, and documentary evidence are one of the most damaging issues in a partnership case.

Subject to the sponsorship caps. Maximum 1 previous partner in the last 5 years. Maximum 2 partners total in lifetime. If your supporting partner has supported a previous resident visa application, or been included themselves in a previous residence application, this affects whether they can support you now. Talk to a licensed adviser about your specific situation.

Usually no; partnership-based residence typically requires evidence of having lived together for 12 months at the time you apply. A narrow special case exists: when you apply for the Resident Visa, INZ may instead grant a Permanent Resident Visa if your supporting partner is a NZ citizen, you have lived together for 5 years or more, and your partner has also lived outside New Zealand for 5 years or more (less than 3 months a year in NZ). It is discretionary and narrow; talk to a licensed adviser if you think it applies.

INZ publishes processing times that change over time. As at 28 October 2026, INZ processes 80% of Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa applications within 7 months, Work Visa applications within 6.5 weeks, and Visitor Visa applications within 7 weeks. Check immigration.govt.nz for the latest times. A complete, well-evidenced application is the biggest factor in avoiding delay.

It depends on the variant. The Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa lets you work for almost any employer in New Zealand. The Resident Visa lets you live, work, and study. The Visitor Visa does not allow work; it is for shorter stays while you build your relationship evidence.

INZ fees start from around NZD $5,360 for the Resident Visa, NZD $1,630 for the Work Visa, and NZD $341 for the Visitor Visa. These are 'from' figures that include the immigration levy, vary by where you apply, and change over time, so confirm the current fee on immigration.govt.nz. ProVisas advisory fees are separate and disclosed in your engagement letter.

A Partner of a New Zealander visa is for partners of New Zealand citizens or residents. If your partner is not a New Zealander but holds a work visa such as the AEWV, you would instead look at a partner of a worker visa, which has different requirements tied to your partner's visa and occupation. Confirming which pathway applies is the first step.

Effectively yes. The Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa lets you work for almost any employer in New Zealand, so it is not tied to a single employer or job like the AEWV. It is granted for 1 year if you have lived together for less than 12 months, and for up to 3 years once you have lived together for 12 months or more.

If you apply online, you complete the application itself in your INZ account. Your New Zealand partner completes the Form for Partners Supporting Partnership-Based Temporary Entry Applications (INZ 1146), and you upload a copy. If you have a sponsor, they complete the Sponsorship Form for Temporary Entry (INZ 1025). INZ's paper form is the Partnership-based Temporary Visa Application (INZ 1198).

Your supporting partner must be a New Zealand citizen or resident (or an Australian citizen or permanent resident living in NZ on residence), and you must evidence a genuine and stable relationship that includes living together in a shared home. INZ assesses the relationship across dimensions such as how long you have been together, commitment, living arrangements, shared finances and tasks, children and their care, and public recognition. Living-together evidence (joint tenancy, joint utilities, joint mail) sits at the core of every case, alongside genuine-and-stable evidence such as a marriage or civil union certificate or shared finances and assets.

It depends on which application is in the queue. If you applied for a further temporary visa (such as the partnership Work or Visitor visa) before your current visa expired, INZ normally grants an interim visa automatically so you remain lawful for up to 6 months while the application is decided; the interim visa conditions, including work rights, depend on the visa you held and the one you applied for, and a standard interim visa expires if you leave New Zealand. A pending Resident Visa application does not do the same job: you need to hold a valid temporary visa for the whole processing period, so plan a further temporary application before expiry. See INZ's interim visa guidance or talk to a licensed adviser about sequencing.

Living together evidence can come from more than tenancy papers. INZ assesses the totality: joint bank statements, official mail addressed to each of you at the same address across the period, declarations from a landlord or flatmates confirming you lived there as a couple, and travel and communication records covering time apart. Explain gaps rather than leaving them silent; an unexplained hole in the timeline draws more scrutiny than a documented one. A thin evidence stack is exactly the case to have an adviser review before you lodge.

It needs to be addressed head-on. INZ compares declarations across applications, and an unexplained inconsistency becomes a credibility issue that can see a partnership visa declined. There is frequently an innocent explanation: the relationship had not started, or was not yet a live-in partnership, when the earlier form was filed. Set out an honest timeline that accounts for the earlier answer. If the history is complicated, talk to a licensed adviser before lodging rather than after INZ raises it.

Sometimes. INZ can interview either or both partners, usually by phone. Interview questions typically test consistency: how you met, daily living arrangements, finances, and future plans. Interviews are more likely where the paper evidence is thin or contradictory. Answer factually and consistently with your documents; a rehearsed script that clashes with the paperwork does far more damage than an honest 'I don't remember'.

Yes. Since 25 September 2026, you and your supporting partner must both be 18 or older when you apply for any Partner of a New Zealander visa, and INZ only counts relationship evidence from after you both turned 18. For residence, the 12 months of living together also starts at 18, so the earliest either of you can qualify is 19. Resident applications lodged before 25 September 2026 are not affected.

It is a common route, but do it transparently. The Partner of a New Zealander Visitor Visa exists precisely for partners who have not yet built 12 months of living together, and time in New Zealand on it builds cohabitation evidence. What causes trouble is concealment: applying for a general visitor visa while hiding the relationship or the intention to stay can fail the bona fide test, and a decline on those grounds follows you into every later application. Declare the relationship and choose the visa that matches the plan.