[COVID-19] New Zealand visa related policy update

As New Zealand has moved to STAGE 2 recently, a lot of furture working holiday visa applicants and holders will be quite concerned about the visa policy now.

I am sure you guys have a lot of questions to ask, let’s try to help you figure them out one by one.

When will New Zealand open the working holiday visa applications for my country?

As we mentioned before, they already suspend 19 countries working holiday visa application for 6 months, and there is no promise that they will open it 6 months later, which is around Oct. However, as New Zealand already controlled the virus, and when summer comes, they will need quite a lot workers, so we should be opmisitic that the visa application will be opened within the year 2020. So if you plan to apply it this year, still have a chance.

What if I already in New Zealand with working holiday visa, but will not be able to fly back to my Country?

You are lucky, they just release this notice days ago:

Visa extensions

Holders of a work, student, visitor, limited or interim visa with an expiry date of 2 April to 9 July 2020 inclusive who were in New Zealand on 2 April 2020 will have their visas automatically extended to 25 September 2020. Confirmation of extensions will be emailed to all visa holders.

Which means your visa will be automatically extended if your visa originally expire between 2020.04.02-2020.07.09, you will recieve an email about that. Your latest visa expire date will be 2020.09.25.

What if I already got the working holiday visa, but will not be able to enter NZ before it expired?

I am sorry, for now, there is no policy released about this area, We already sent emails to immigration office for further information.

However, according to the information we have now, we can know this:

• When you granted the visa, your visa notice letter will have a condition which indicate you must not enter New Zealand after that day, if you are not managed to enter New Zealand before that day, you visa will be expired, and you will need to apply for another visa to enter New Zealand. We do not know whether they will give an extension for this condition or not, we will wait, and keep people updated about this siutation
• Some people will ask, if the working holiday visa expired, and I have not used it, can I apply for another one? I am sorry, under the legistation now, the answer is no.

Conclusion

For people already enter New Zealand, this is good news here. However, for visa holders and applicants, these are bad news for them.

But remember, no matter where you are, stay home, and stay safe, let’s get through this together.