Visitor Visa for Fiancée

[isswhoiss]

Hi there,

I have a bit of a confusion here and i was wondering if someone could help me please?

So i recently got engaged to my girlfriend who lives in India and I am a resident here in New Zealand. She is about to finish her degree in India and we are planning to spend sometime together here in NZ in September 2018. I have been discussing this with my friends and as per some of their experiences, getting a visitor visa for a girl can be a bit tricky. According to what i have been told, INZ tends to reject such applications by saying that the visitors might not be genuine tourists and they might have the intention to settle down here with little intention to go back. Which can be slightly true in our case because my fiancée will eventually be moving here but for now she genuinely wants to come here as a tourist.

Since our relationship is kind of arranged as our parents introduced us, we dont have a awful lot of evidence to prove it apart from some pictures and messages. Anyways, we dont want to go down that track as yet because she just wants to come here for a month to have a look around and go back.

What should i do? Just sponsor her as a girlfriend or fiancée or just a friend? What are the chances that INZ might decline the application by saying that she is coming with an intention of stay permanently.

P.S. My fiancée is about to complete her dental degree and she has to complete her apprenticeship (about a year) before she will be moving here. So she has strong intentions to go back and complete her studies.

Thanks in advance

[JandM]

Yes, it can be difficult to get a visa with a partner sponsoring, for the reasons you have been told. Is there any reason your fiancée couldn't make the visit simply as a tourist, without your intervention?

[raleigh119]

Check: Partner of a New Zealander Visitor Visa

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...s-visitor-visa

- No requirement to prove living together, but you need to prove that your relationship is genuine

Be honest with INZ. INZ is multicultural and they are aware that marriages in some cultures are arranged by parents. Specifically in my culture, it is shunned that partners before marriage live together (due to the Catholic influence), but with strong proof of actual stable and genuine relationship, partner's are still being approved. That being said, it wouldn't hurt if you visit India first and meet her face to face for a short time then come together here.

Also, if the intention is for her to come back to India, state in her cover letter 1) the length of time that she would like to stay in NZ (1 month?); and 2) that she is applying for a LIMITED VISA as this type rarely gets disapproved.

[JandM]

Excuse me, but you DO have to prove you are living together - see the Criteria tab https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-visa#criteria, and hit to show Evidence for Your relationship with your partner. This is what makes the majority of the difficulties in cases where there is a long-distance relationship, or a new, arranged, relationship. The criteria for a partner-sponsored visitor's visa are just about the same as for a partner-sponsored work visa.

[isswhoiss]

Excuse me, but you DO have to prove you are living together - see the Criteria tab https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-visa#criteria, and hit to show Evidence for Your relationship with your partner. This is what makes the majority of the difficulties in cases where there is a long-distance relationship, or a new, arranged, relationship. The criteria for a partner-sponsored visitor's visa are just about the same as for a partner-sponsored work visa.

Thanks JandM for your input, much appreciated. I think my fiancee is better off applying as a tourist without my intervention as you suggested earlier. We cannot prove our relationship because we haven't lived together.

Thanks again for your help!

[isswhoiss]

Check: Partner of a New Zealander Visitor Visa

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...s-visitor-visa

- No requirement to prove living together, but you need to prove that your relationship is genuine

Be honest with INZ. INZ is multicultural and they are aware that marriages in some cultures are arranged by parents. Specifically in my culture, it is shunned that partners before marriage live together (due to the Catholic influence), but with strong proof of actual stable and genuine relationship, partner's are still being approved. That being said, it wouldn't hurt if you visit India first and meet her face to face for a short time then come together here.

Also, if the intention is for her to come back to India, state in her cover letter 1) the length of time that she would like to stay in NZ (1 month?); and 2) that she is applying for a LIMITED VISA as this type rarely gets disapproved.

Thanks for your suggestion!

Its not that I dont know my fiancee or I havent met her at all. We have been together(long distance) for a while now and we recently decided to get engaged but we haven't lived together under one roof.

I think the easiest way out for the moment is to apply for a normal visitor without me sponsoring her.