Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) New Zealand: the three approvals in order

AEWV at a glance

How does an AEWV application start?

An AEWV application starts only after the employer’s accreditation and job check are both approved and an application link has been issued. The applicant cannot lodge one independently. Immigration New Zealand approves the employer twice before the applicant is included at all, and that order runs start to finish across the whole process.

1. Step 1

   Employer accreditation

   Who lodges itThe employer

   What Immigration New Zealand checksWhether the business is genuine, solvent and meets its employment obligations

2. Step 2

   Job check

   Who lodges itThe employer

   What Immigration New Zealand checksThe specific role, its pay range and how it was advertised

3. Step 3

   AEWV application

   Who lodges itThe applicant, once the link arrives

   What Immigration New Zealand checksExperience or qualification, English where it applies, health and character

Stage	Who lodges it	What Immigration New Zealand checks
Employer accreditation	The employer	Whether the business is genuine, solvent and meets its employment obligations
Job check	The employer	The specific role, its pay range and how it was advertised
AEWV application	The applicant, once the link arrives	Experience or qualification, English where it applies, health and character

What must the employer complete first?

The employer holds accreditation, then gets an approved job check for the specific role, before any applicant is named on it.

Accreditation comes in three types, set by how many migrants the business plans to hire, with fees set out on INZ’s payment page:

• Standard accreditation covers up to 5 migrant workers, and costs NZD $775, as set out on INZ’s payment page
• High-volume accreditation covers 6 or more, and costs NZD $1,280, as set out on INZ’s payment page
• Triangular accreditation covers businesses placing migrants with a controlling third party, and costs NZD $4,060, as set out on INZ’s payment page

A job check costs NZD $735 to lodge, as set out on INZ’s payment page.

Two deadlines sit inside this stage, both belonging to the employer: a job check must be lodged within 90 days of the job advertisement closing, and an approved job check stays valid for 6 months, or until accreditation ends.

Before lodging, the employer checks whether suitable and available New Zealanders could do the role. Immigration New Zealand sets that test out in practical terms: qualified or trainable, living close enough or able to move, with a workable way of getting to work, and free for the hours on offer.

What pay does the role need?

The role pays the market rate, which Immigration New Zealand treats as a range rather than one fixed figure.

INZ’s wage rate guidance gives an example: a market rate pay range for a role could run between NZD $27 and NZD $30 an hour.

The median wage still appears on this visa, but as a skill-evidence threshold covered further down, separate from this pay rule.

Which jobs are excluded?

Three kinds of work sit outside the AEWV entirely: field work in horticulture and viticulture, foreign crew on fishing vessels, and self-employment.

Other visa categories cover those roles instead. Seasonal horticulture and viticulture work runs through the Global Workforce Seasonal Visa and the Peak Seasonal Visa, which carry their own job lists and time limits. The employer still needs accreditation and a job check for those roles, and a job check approved for one visa type cannot be used for another.

What does the employment agreement need?

Immigration New Zealand publishes both what an AEWV employment agreement must contain and what it cannot, and a missing element is grounds for decline.

Must include: the employer’s name, address and phone number, the applicant’s name and address, the job title, the work address, the nature of the work, any qualifications or registration required, the hours, how long the job runs, how long the offer stays open, and pay and conditions that comply with employment law.

Cannot include: a trial period, unlawful deductions, or bonding clauses that demand repayment if the applicant leaves early.

What has to be proven?

Two years of relevant work experience, or a qualification at level 4 or higher on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework, in the same field as the role offered. A bachelor’s degree or higher counts from any field.

The two years does not have to be consecutive or full time, but it has to total two years of full-time equivalent hours, with evidence of those hours behind it.

A qualification below a bachelor’s degree, earned outside New Zealand, also needs an International Qualification Assessment. NZQA’s assessment service evaluates overseas qualifications to see where they would be on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework, and that assessment is what stands in for the missing evidence.

When is the evidence requirement waived?

Four situations remove the experience or qualification requirement:

• The role is on the Green List and its own requirements are evidenced instead
• Occupational registration was granted on the strength of the same experience or qualifications
• The role pays at or above the wage threshold Immigration New Zealand sets for this waiver, a multiple of the median wage reset each year
• The same evidence was already accepted on an earlier application

Is English required?

Only where the role sits at ANZSCO or NOL skill level 3 to 5. Skill levels 1 and 2 carry no English requirement at all.

Where it applies, English can be shown through citizenship, through where the applicant studied and what they gained, or through a test result no more than two years old that meets the minimum score. Health, character and a genuine reason for coming to New Zealand are assessed alongside it.

How long can the visa run?

Five years for most roles, three years where the role sits at skill level 4 or 5, and the number that applies is not simple.

How long an AEWV runs depends on three things: when the applicant first held an AEWV, the skill level of the role on the ANZSCO or National Occupation List, and the pay attached to it. Immigration New Zealand sets the maximum continuous stay at five years for a role at skill level 1 to 3, and three years for a role at skill level 4 or 5, with that maximum acting as a ceiling on time in the country rather than the length printed on any single visa. A visa can be granted for less than the maximum, and where that happens the applicant can apply for a further AEWV before the current one expires and continue working without leaving New Zealand. Once the maximum has been used in full, the standard requirement is twelve months in a row outside the country before another AEWV becomes available, and Immigration New Zealand publishes an online calculator that works the figure out from an applicant’s own dates.

Why are there two occupation lists?

The National Occupation List is replacing ANZSCO. Both grade roles from skill level 1 to 5, with 1 the most skilled, and that grade is what decides the English requirement and the stay length set out above.

Can family join the applicant?

Family members cannot be included in the applicant’s own AEWV application. Each person applies separately.

An AEWV holder may be able to support a visitor or work visa for a partner, and a visitor or student visa for dependent children. Which of those is open depends on the applicant’s job and its pay, so two AEWV holders can end up with different answers for their own families. INZ sets the conditions out separately.

Is paying for a job legal?

No. Immigration New Zealand carries a specific warning on its AEWV page that job offer scams are common in India and South Asia, and the consequence for the applicant is published beside it.

An AEWV application is declined where Immigration New Zealand considers the applicant or their agent offered or promised money to the employer, or the employer’s agent, in exchange for the job offer.

Where does Jumpstart fit in?

Jumpstart publishes general information about Immigration New Zealand’s published rules and coordinates the moving parts of an AEWV case: tracking which of the three approvals a case is waiting on, and working with the employer so accreditation and the job check are settled before an application is filed.

Jumpstart is not a licensed immigration adviser, and this page is not immigration advice. Advice on an individual case, and the application itself, sits with the network of licensed immigration advisers Jumpstart connects applicants to. A first conversation about the process costs nothing.

Where do these rules come from?

Every requirement on this page is Immigration New Zealand’s, or the named publisher’s, not Jumpstart’s. Each entry below names the page it came from, the claim it supports, and the date it was last checked.