Hello I have asked a question on these forums a few years ago and found the answers very helpful so I am trying again.
I am a New Zealand citizen who has been married to a US citizen for over three years, we have been living together for over five years.
In 2015 my partner travelled with me to New Zealand and got a work visa based on partnership, he stayed in NZ for eight months. We then returned to the USA until July 2019 when we returned, with him on a visitor visa and then applied for work visa for him based on marriage/partnership once we arrived. We planned to only stay in NZ until Christmas and has flights back to USA at this point. At the end of October his work visa was approved but instead of for 12 months it was until 31st March 2020. Three days before the flights to USA my father had a stroke and we remained in NZ, we plan to remain in NZ until about September-October this year but as his visa expires in March we need to apply for another one.
We were planning on applying for NZ residence visa based on partnership, but this takes up to 10 months to be processed and I realise that interim visas are not given for residence visa. THe immigration NZ site suggests that you also apply for a NZ work visa while waiting for the residence to process, but at the same time it says the maximum time you can have this visa is for 2 years. As my husband has now spent in total 1 year and 7 months in NZ, would we be paying $600 just for a visa for 5 months (maximum 2 years) and then $1500 on top of that for the NZ residence just for the last two months of our stay?
Thank you so much in advance,
Katie