Partnership Visa

[rbc0411]

Hi Guys! hope all is well. Just a question, do you have any idea if I could be able to apply partnership visa with my Fiance. He is still in the Philippines. I am PR. We did not live in together but we were in a 9 year relationship. Or do you think I would need an immigration lawyer to help me with this? :

[Kelerei]

It is a minimum requirement for any partnership-based visa that the applicant and sponsoring partner have lived together. For a residence class visa, this must be for a minimum of 12 months (F2.5(a)); for a temporary entry class visa, the minimum period is not defined (see the entirety of WF2 for the relevant Work Visa instructions, for example), but previous people posting their experiences here seem to indicate that a minimum of 2-3 months is required for INZ to take the application seriously.

It makes no difference if you are separated now, so long as some evidence of living together exists, but then you must be prepared to demonstrate how you have maintained your relationship throughout the period of separation; see F2.30.1. Naturally, the longer the period of separation, the more difficult this will be.

If you and your partner have never lived together, an application for a partnership-based visa can not, and will never succeed. In such a case, you will need to explore alternative visa streams, though there have been people on this forum that have gone to live with their partner in their partner's home country for a while in order to satisfy the requirements for a temporary entry class visa, then continued to live together in New Zealand to build up enough evidence for a successful residence class visa application.

[jptrockerz]

Ya, don't even think about it if you haven't lived together at all. The visa officer will change your application to a visitors visa and you will have to wait until the border is open.

The same situation with me as well, in a relationship for more than 6 years, marriage certificate, have bank statement supporting my wife, phone conversation logs and messages but didn't meet the living together requirement. Application placed in consideration for a patner-based visitor visa and that was when all this COVID thing started (2019).