LTSSL Visa - application queries

[AlexKiwi2019]

Hello all, thanks in advance for any valuable input.

I have recently been offered a job in New Zealand, with a requested start date of 08/04/2019. The job falls under the role of IT Project Manager and is therefore on the Long Term Skills Shortage List. I am currently residing in the UK.

(Cutting a long story short) After looking at my visa options, I got all my supporting documentation in order and applied for the "Long Term Skills Shortage List - Work to Residency" visa last week on 14/02/2019. Automated email acknowledgement of my visa application was received straight away and my visa application costs were taken from my bank account. In the automated email it advised that I can expect my visa application to be processed by an Immigration Officer by 06/05/2019.

The expected visa processing times therefore realistically won't allow me to start work on my requested start date on 08/04/2019, and I will discuss this as required with my employer. However I am keen to go to New Zealand in early April to prepare myself and get ready to start work. My question is, am I allowed to enter New Zealand on a Tourist Visa and then 'switch' to the LTSSL Visa upon it being granted? As my passport wasn't required upon applying for the visa, I assume I will be granted an 'e-visa'?

Thank you for your response.

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

Every NZ employer who makes a job offer to a foreigner is well aware that it has to be subject to INZ checking out the job and the applicant, and then granting a visa, so the expected delay shouldn't be something your employer is totally unprepared for. (It would be just as illegal for the boss to have you working without yet having a visa as it would be for you to go and do it, i.e. he can't afford to break the law any more than you can.)

I'm afraid that you are very unlikely to be admitted to NZ before your work visa comes through. Although as a UK citizen, you would, if arriving on holiday, be eligible for visa-waiver entry (that is, being granted a visitor visa after filling in the card as the aeroplane nears New Zealand), you have now applied for a work visa, and this application would show up on the INZ computer at the airport of arrival as soon as your passport was scanned. A visitor visa is meant for people who are making a short trip to the country, going back to a life, home, job and other responsibilities in their home country elsewhere when they leave, and it's not a catch-all for other situations that aren't tidily covered by a particular visa (unless INZ, in full knowledge of what is happening, decide to use it like that, but that is rare). To arrive asking for a visitor's visa, when your work application demonstrates that, actually, you are NOT intending to leave after a short visit, but want to stay long-term to live and work, shows that this is not a bona fide application. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...tity/bona-fide It looks as though you are trying to pre-empt the result of the work visa application, and this situation is the classic scenario when someone will try to disappear into the black economy of overstayers if they don't get the work visa. Many people trying for visa waiver entry with another application already in have been put straight onto the next plane out. About the only chance of doing what you would like to do is to apply for a visitor's visa before making any plans to leave the UK, explaining your reasons, just to see if INZ will agree - but this hardly ever works. At least, doing it that way, you would avoid wasting a return trip and the unpleasant experience of being pulled aside at the NZ airport for a tough interview.

[EGoodhue]

Agree with JandM - the intent of a Visitor Visa is for someone to be in NZ to visit for a short time and then leave. With a work visa application in process, this clearly isnt' your intent and you would risk being turned around at the border.

You could try to apply for a Visitor visa from offshore, and give the explanation of wanting to be in NZ ahead of your work start date to find somewhere to live, get used to NZ, etc. but again, INZ may decline it based on the fact that you don't technically meet the definition of a bona fide visitor in that you don't intend to leave after your Visitor visa, even though you'll still be lawful on your new visa once it's granted.

[AlexKiwi2019]

Hi JandM and EGoodhue, thank you for your replies. I acknowledge where you are coming from in regards to the points you make.

Perhaps it best upon being allocated an Immigration Officer that I refer this query to them directly. I am due back in the UK in July anyway for a holiday visit, so perhaps if I evidence that I have a return plane ticket then this would appease INZ. Though I understand that sometimes you are not notified that you have had an Immigration Officer allocated, unless they need to ask something of you?

I'm hoping that my visa application won't take until May. I have had a couple of other New Zealand visas previously and I have had medical checks and police checks etc. completed with these applications. I'm hopeful that my application is a relatively straight-forward one, however I appreciate such matters can take their time regardless.

Thank you.

[JandM]

Any IO/CO working your application for the LTSSL work to residence visa would have no jurisdiction over your admission as a visitor before their work was complete.

Your getting a visitor's visa (or not), if you applied for it from the UK in advance (by this route https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-visa#criteria, explaining yourself, not visa waiver), would come under a totally different department for consideration.

And if you arrived at a NZ airport trying for visa waiver entry, the matter would be under the discretion of immigration officials on duty there on the day. You can sometimes get a glimpse of this procedure in action on this programme. https://w.uktv.co.uk/shows/border-patrol/episodes/