New Zealand Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) Residence Visa Processing Time

The time frame varies depending on several factors such as completeness of the application, your and the processing staff's response time during verification, etc.  Ours took approximately 1 year and 9 months from the time we submitted our Expression of Interest (EOI) until we got our Job Search Visa (JSV) or Work to Residence (WTR) visa.

I have listed below the dates and turnaround time for each step taken during the process:

March 17, 2012  -  Submitted EOI application online

March 21, 2012  -  EOI Selected (4 days after submission of EOI)

April 12, 2012  -  Invitation to Apply (ITA) received via email which would expire after 4 months, that would be August 13

June 29, 2012  -   Submitted ITA form and all requirements (took us almost 3 months)

September 6, 2012   -  Allocated to CO (after 2 months & several days)

June 13, 2013  -     Interview via phone (after around 9 months)

September 18, 2013  - Received ITA for SMC JSV; expiration after 3 months, that would be December 18

November 19, 2013  -  Submitted requirements & passports for visa labelling (took us 2 months)

November 28, 2013  -  Granted JSV; visa date reflects on passport (after 9 days)

If you have all the resources and can shorten the time to complete all documents or if your  application requirements are already complete prior to submitting an EOI online (which is possible) and there will be no need for further verification whatsoever, processing time can be reduced to 1 or 1.5 years. Following up with the processing staff also helps.

Since we got JSV instead of Resident Visa (RV), we decided that my husband would go first to NZ while my son and I would stay with my parents until he'd get settled in NZ.

February 24, 2014  -  My husband flew and arrived NZ

April 10, 2014  -  He signed a job offer; job based in Wellington; sent documents to INZ Auckland branch for RV
                          approval (after 1.5 months); made follow up with INZ Auckland & Wellington

May 9, 2014 - Got RV approval (after 29 days) after making follow up with our case officer 

May 15, 2014 - Submitted our passports for visa labelling and paid Migrant Levy fee

May 19, 2014 - Got our RV stamp on our passports

June 8, 2014 - Our son and I flew to NZ….And we lived happily ever after :-)

Will do my best to discuss each step in detail, the challenges we faced, and how we got them resolved in the process.

Hope these help.