Applying for permanent residency overseas

[nadenamtrac]

Hi everyone

My partner is 3 months away from meeting the 2 year requirement to apply for permanent residency, however she wants to move back to Thailand for a 6-12 month stint before moving back to New Zealand

I read that you can apply for permanent residency overseas up till three months after your residence visa expires. Is this as simple as applying from within New Zealand? Will being based overseas make the application harder?

[ChrisMwn]

No, So long as the application is made within 3 months of the date of expiry of the current visa.

[sameer456]

Hello everyone, can anyone tell me the processing time for permanent resident visa if applied from overseas. If applied in new zealand then its 5 working days. I think i will be out of the country when i need to apply for my permanant resideny so planning on doing it within 3 months of travel expire date. Thanks everyone.

[JandM]

If applied in new zealand then its 5 working days.

I assume you found this on the website? I'm afraid it's a misleading statement - any timing given on an INZ web page or by one of the officials is never a promise, only their best guess based on how things had been going just before whenever it was written. In reality, as with all visa processing, it takes as long as it takes, there are managed date-order queues, and it's not possible to prediect how many were in the queue before your passport arrived, or other factors like staff absence or training. Sorry to be pessimistic, but it's true. All applications, wherever submitted, are treated the same. Recently, some people applying to change their residence visas to PR have had to wait several weeks till their passports came back.

[NZdreaming]

The few parts I can remember from going from Resident to Permanent Resident was going into the Manukau branch, talking with an Immigration Officer and coming out with the PR visa on my passport but that was back in 2014. They are definitely much busier these days.