Hi all!
I'm a New Zealander living in the States with my American wife, and we are looking to move to NZ. We have a few questions about the best way to go about it. Currently, we're trying to decide between applying for the Partner Resident visa right away (i.e. from the US), or getting the Partner Work visa first and then applying for the Resident visa once living in NZ.
The Immigration website suggests a processing timeframe of up to 13 months for the Resident visa, and up to 7 months for the Work visa. There's no fee for the Work visa, while it costs $2K+ to apply for the Resident visa. So our thoughts are that it may be quicker and more short-term cost effective to apply for the Work visa, then the Resident one when in New Zealand. I've also seen a post on here suggesting that Resident applications from within NZ are processed faster than overseas.
Is there anything we're failing to consider here? Would it be better to just apply for the Partner Resident visa straight-off, from here in the US? Or is moving to NZ with the Partner Work visa and then applying for the Resident visa a good idea? Any potential risks to this? (The only we've thought of is if the Resident visa isn't granted before the Work visa expires—but if we apply promptly, that seems unlikely given current processing times.) Are there any limits on how soon after applying for the first visa we can apply for the second?
Finally: we've see some confusing information about this, but we can apply for these from overseas, correct? (This INZ webpage suggests so.)
We'd greatly appreciate any feedback about all this!
Thanks,
Gabriel