Why apply using Skilled Migrant Category? Discussion of paths to permanent residence

[Juniper]

We are close to getting a job offer, maybe even two to choose from, and I need to solidify our plans for which visas we'll apply for.

We have, for many years, been focused on qualifying for the Skilled Migrant Category. But is it in fact the best and/or easiest path to permanent residence? What are the advantages and drawbacks?
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-resident-visa
(Fee for EOI stage: $530 for USA, fee for ITA stage: $3085, processing time about 10 months. Never expires)

Some possible benefits:
- You can apply as a family, perhaps reducing the need to exhaustively prove your relationship?
- Once you're approved, it never expires (although you still need to be careful about travel conditions)
-....anything else?

The main, obvious drawback is that it takes so long to process, currently about 10 months, and from this forum I've seen 18 months is not unusual (maybe partly because it takes so long to get a case officer in the first place?). So, many people use Essential Skills (which typically processes in 3 months or less) in order to start work as soon as possible. Depending on the skill level of the work, your partner and dependent children can apply for work or student visas for the same length of time as your Essential Skills visa.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...ills-work-visa
(Fee: free for US, about 67 days to process. Duration: up to 5 years depending on skill level)

But, if you have to apply for all those quicker visas, doesn't that somewhat eliminate the benefit of applying as a family for Skilled Migrant? I imagine we'll have to undergo relationship proofs in order to get these two visas:
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...k-visa-holders
(Fee: free for US, currently about 73 days to process. Duration: same as partner's work visa)
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...d-student-visa
(Fee: free for US, about 55 days to process. Duration: same as parent's work visa)

(Note that the dependent child student visa is for kids 19 and under, while Skilled Migrant allows kids 24 and under.)

Is it correct that Essential Skills can't lead to permanent residence, you just keep getting new Essential Skills visas? I think this is why people also apply for Skilled Migrant at the same time.

But, what are the other pathways to permanent residence?

What about the Long Term Skilled Shortage List Work Visa, for those eligible? Family must still apply separately, just like Essential Skills.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...list-work-visa
(fee: free for US, up to 3 months to process. Duration: 30 months)
After two years working in that occupation, you can apply for residence using the Long Term Skilled Shortage List Residence Visa. The family can be processed together for this one.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...dent-work-visa
(fee: $1550 for US, about 10 months to process. Duration: never expires)
Am I correct in thinking that the LTSSL Residence Visa is for permanent residence? Actually, as I look more at it, it seems to be similar to Skilled Migrant Category, i.e. not the same as permanent residence, although it never expires.

The disadvantage with the LTSSL visa that is immediately apparent to me is that you need to prove you've worked in your occupation for 2 years, instead of only 3 or 12 months for Skilled Migrant (3 months for Auckland, 12 months for everywhere else in NZ). So that's a little extra red tape. But...it is a lot cheaper, for one thing, especially if your passports are from a country that allows free processing for partner/kids visas.

Does anyone have any anecdotes on which pathway to permanent residence is less hassle? Is the documentation similar? Can you skip the LTSSL Residence Visa and just apply for PR? I'm guessing not, since this visa exists - and who would apply if you could just get PR after 2 years on the LTSSL Work Visa? That would push the timeframe for citizenship...

My understanding is that after 2 years on a residence visa (and demonstrating commitment to NZ in certain ways) you can then apply for a Permanent Resident Visa. The big difference between residence and permanent residence is that you have no travel conditions, correct? So even though Skilled Migrant Category visas never expire, you can't come and go as you please until you are granted permanent residence. Family can be included in the Permanent Resident application, including dependent children up to age 24:
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-resident-visa
(fee: $190, 14 days to process.)

Essentially, what I don't have figured out is which work visas will lead to PR, and which are not considered "good enough" to count towards the 2 year requirement. Is it simply a matter of "Resident" being part of the title of the visa, as opposed to "Work"?

Are these the two main pathways to permanent residence and eventual citizenship for a skilled worker and family on the LTSSL list? Am I missing anything major? Which would you prefer to use, if you could choose?

[JandM]

Whatever path anyone takes to getting Residence (SMC, LTSSL or partner-sponsored), once they HAVE residence, it's the same residence for everyone. It comes with two years' travel conditions, and once it has been held for two years and the other conditions are met, the applicant can go on to getting PR. (Travel conditions aren't conditions at all, but permission to enter NZ as many times as you like for two years.)

It's not right that residents don't have travel conditions - they do, for two years. And two years is the time you have to have held residence in order to qualify (one of the conditions) for PR. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...anent-resident So if you make sure you meet the conditions during those two years, there need not ever be a time when you can't travel out of NZ and return. Actually, it's the main applicant that has to meet all the conditions - the other people on the application get PR when s/he does, regardless of what they've been doing in the meantime, as long as they at least once entered NZ as a resident to activate their visa.

Essential Skills Work visas are not a pathway to residence. Every time anyone's visa comes to expiry and has to be renewed, INZ could refuse to renew. The point of these visas is signalled in the name. They are granted to foreigners for jobs considered necessary for NZ society and economy, but for which not enough NZ nationals or residents are available. So if, at the end of your visa, when you ask for another, INZ says, 'Thanks very much, there are now enough NZers trained up to do this, so we don't need you any more and you can go home,' even if this is YOUR job and you and your employer are happy with the situation, there is absolutely no way to challenge that. An Essential Skills work visa is TEMPORARY, and there is no long-term security on which to base a future in the country.

If the main applicant is offered a job by an accredited employer, s/he can be supported for a work to residence visa, that is, a work visa which is a recognized pathway to residence. Work to residence visas are https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...list-work-visa, https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...residence-visa and https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...residence-visa (this last is rare). On each of those visas, if the person satisfies the conditions after two years, they can move on to the equivalent residence visa. A minimum of a further two years later, they could qualify for permanent residence.

However, if someone on a work to residence visa finds that they qualify to apply for residence under SMC straight away, they don't have to wait - they could branch off to get residence sooner.

The reason you see so many people mention getting a work visa when they are first offered a job in NZ, even though the job qualifies them to apply for residence, is speed of processing. A work visa can be processed in a shorter time than SMC requires, so the applicant can be in NZ, getting established and working, while the SMC application they put in at the same time is still ticking along, taking the time it takes. There used to be a more marked difference in processing times between work visas and residence - until eighteen months or a couple of years ago, it was common for a work visa to come through within a month or six weeks. Around that time, two things changed - INZ started a big reorganization of their structure, beginning to bring all the processing of applications onshore instead of maintaining branch offices abroad, and the political situations in the USA and UK caused a huge spike in applications for NZ visas from those countries. That has caused a considerable slowing up of processing which is still continuing. There was official reassurance that they were working on clearing the backlogs and meeting the demand, but the new government have a platform of limiting immigration more tightly, so it's possible that speeding things up at INZ no longer has as much priority as it did.

I don't think most people wanting to make their future in NZ base their decisions about which path to choose on the total charged for the various fees. My feeling is that they are aiming for security, by whatever means they can most conveniently get it. (When I say 'whatever means' and 'conveniently', I'm thinking that some people may opt for one of the work to residence visas for two years rather than going straight for SMC, even though it takes longer to get to residence then PR, if their qualifications and experience are not the kind readily demonstrable and approvable on the SMC route.)

[diallta]

A partnership visa is not an option for your situation, but I did document all of my actual costs here, if that's something you're thinking about.

(Also, I am enjoying reading your well-documented journey!)

[newarrival]

Well said, JandM, as usual!

Just wanted to add- unless that has changed in the last decade, you need to proof your relationship in exactly the same way when you apply for residence. We had been married for 18 years, came to New Zealand with four children and a container full of our live, and still had to show INZ that we had been in a stable relationship for the last 12 months (which, at the time we applied, we had spent here in New Zealand).
So that is definitely not a reason, as far as I can see.

[JandM]

Thanks for that thought, Renate, and yes, it's still true that you have to prove partnership by showing that you have been living together over the previous 12 months. When planning for this, don't forget to keep collecting evidence after your application has gone in, because INZ often ask for more partnership evidence just before the visa is granted, covering the processing period.

[jawnbc]

I was offered a role from an accredited employer for a job on the LTSSL in May 2012. I knew an offer was coming, so had 95% of the EOI complete. I added the offer info and submitted the EOI a couple of days before the cut-off for that fortnight's draw/pull/review. Around 3 weeks later I got my ITA; in the interim I started gathering things: medical, police certificates, documentation for work experience, etc. There was a one month delay because of an 11th request for ANOTHER police certificate. I still had my approval in principle in early August. Was in NZ in early September.

Going work-to-residence would have saved perhaps one month, but I still would have had to do the EOI/ITA for residence eventually anyway.

[Juniper]

Thanks JandM, I had been thinking Essential Skills/Skilled Migrant simultaneous processing based on what I'd seen other people doing on the forum, but wanted to make sure I'd completely thought it through :-)

It hadn't occurred to me until writing this post that "resident" visas are not the same as "work" visas. I had been a bit confused about which ones led to PR. I see that the three "work to residence" visas you listed have that condition listed right on the factsheet, "with this visa you can[...]apply for residence after two years."

This also certainly affects the whole house-buying situation, if the proposed changes become law later this year (2018) as has been rumored. That means we couldn't buy a house until after we're approved for Skilled Migrant or another residence visa, unless we can do it before (and IF) the changes happen:
https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/defau...-who-dec17.pdf

All in all, Essential Skills and simultaneously Skilled Migrant Category applications look like they're still the quickest path to residence for us. The work-to-residence LTSSL visas would take too long - 3 months to process, then 2 years before we can apply for residence, then it looks like another 10 months to process that application? Yeah...nah!

Thanks!

[Juniper]

Well said, JandM, as usual!

Just wanted to add- unless that has changed in the last decade, you need to proof your relationship in exactly the same way when you apply for residence. We had been married for 18 years, came to New Zealand with four children and a container full of our live, and still had to show INZ that we had been in a stable relationship for the last 12 months (which, at the time we applied, we had spent here in New Zealand).
So that is definitely not a reason, as far as I can see.

Ok, so for Skilled Migrant, we still need to provide all kinds of relationship proofs, just like when you apply for a partnership-based visa? I guess the marriage certificate isn't enough? :-P

[Juniper]

Going work-to-residence would have saved perhaps one month, but I still would have had to do the EOI/ITA for residence eventually anyway.

I thought EOI/ITA was only for Skilled Migrant? Although I think you're right that any time difference does not seem to favor work-to-residence. :-)

[JandM]

There is no such thing as a Skilled Migrant Visa. You apply for residence under the Skilled Migrant Category, that is, the visa you get if you are successful in your application under SMC is a Resident visa. (As mentioned above, there are other routes to residence, but once residence is granted for whichever reason, it's the same residence.)

I guess the marriage certificate isn't enough?

No. All a marriage certificate proves is that the two people went along to the same place on one particular day and followed a certain ritual. Likewise, all that the existence of a child parented by those two people proves is that they spent an intense number of minutes together, somewhere, sometime. Better study these old threads that have discussion and examples of evidence of partnership. https://www.google.co.uk/search?sour....0.zub3CtWTTeU