NZ Citizenship
Hello all,
It has been a while since posting here but thought I would share our experiences with getting our NZ citizenship. We hit our 5 year mark here in NZ mid-September this year and then were eligible to apply for citizenship. The forms were very easy to fill out and understand so no issues there. You can either post off your your applications with the required original documents such as your birth certificates and passports or you can make an appointment at a Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) office and apply in person. I was going to be in Christchurch near an office so we did the apply via appointment route.
The appointment was only about 20 minutes. All they did was look over our applications to make sure they were filled out correctly, checked on their computer system to ensure we met the time-in-NZ requirements, and made copies of the required original documents. There was no interview or questions as to why we wanted to be citizens or anything - just the formal admin stuff related to the application forms. The person I met with said that it would be a 3-10 week wait for the background checks to be completed by various NZ agencies before our applications were approved. Exactly 4 weeks later, we got letters in the post informing us that we were approved and now would have to attend a citizenship ceremony at our local council. DIA apparently forwards your names to your council to let them know you need to attend one.
The length of time you have to wait for the ceremony is entirely dependent on when you local council decides to have one. I called up our council and found out the next ceremony in our area is on 12 Dec so our wait is not too far off.
Overall, it was a completely easy process (much easier than residency).
If you have any questions or comments about your personal experience with getting NZ citizenship please post them.
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Originally Posted by TJH
