What visa do we apply for?

[lovelaos]

Hi all, great forum. This is my first post please be gentle with me..
I have been offered a job in Queenstown, I have done the points test and seem to be able to get enough points for a working visa. I am a British citizen but have lived in Laos for the past 11 years. My wife is Laotian and we have 2 kids 6 and 1 years old. My wife seems to be able to qualify for an entrepreneur visa once we have sold all our assets in Laos. My question is this. Should I
1: apply for my visa, if successful, move to NZ alone and start work then apply for my wife's visa from NZ.
2: Apply for both visas from here in Laos then make the move out there together (if successful)

I have a thousand and 1 questions I need to ask and will be searching the forum in the next few weeks/ months to find some answers.
Thanks for any advice anyone may have.

[JandM]

I presume that the employer is offering to sponsor you for a work visa. It may be an essential skills visa, or it may be WTR. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra.../requirements/
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra.../caniworkinnz/ Along with either of those, you have the right to sponsor your wife for a partner-sponsored temporary work visa http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...milystream.htm, and your children for a student visa (for the 6-year-old) and a visitor's visa (for the 1-year-old), to match yours for length of time. You can send those applications in all together, linking them with a covering letter, and they will be worked as one case, with the CO supplying anything you don't know to begin with, e.g. your visa number, as it becomes available. Then you can all travel at once.

At the same time as all this, if you wish, or shortly afterwards, you can apply for a Residence visa under the Skilled Migrant Category, when you put all the family on the one application. I expect this is what you have been looking at when you mentioned looking at points. This is what will give you the right to live and work in NZ long term, for any employer, but the processing takes longer than for the temporary work visas, so most people with a job offer go for the work visa first, so they can get to NZ and start working as soon as possible, then the Residence visa can get on in the background, taking as long as it takes.

Your wife's visa under partner sponsorship will be an open visa - that means she has the right to take any job offered, or start a business, if she wishes. Once you have Residence, that applies to both of you, but your work visa will be limited to working for the employer who has given you the job offer. You would be allowed to change jobs, but not without checking that the new job is equally skilled, and changing your visa.

I hope that gives you something to start on. If you have more questions, please give a link to any web pages you are looking at, so that anyone trying to help can see the context.

[Meltdown]

Have you got enough points to become a resident?