Citizenship application 5 year requirment

[David12345]

Hi all,

My wife will have been living in nz as a resident for 5 years at the end of October and will be eligible to apply for NZ citizenship so we have been looking into the process now and setting her up a realme account so she can apply online.

My question is regarding the 5 year requirement, I know that you have to have been living in NZ for 5 years on a visa which allows you to stay in NZ permanently but I was wondering as citizenship can take so long to process can you apply about a month early?

I know that in applying for residence under partnership the requirement is 12 months of living with your partner, but its widely known you can apply a month or so early of this as by the time it is processed it will have been 12 months and the CO may just ask for some up to date evidence to cover from when the application was submitted to the current day. I can not find this on the immigration NZ site, although it did seem to be widely known this was fine to do.

With this in mind I was wondering if it is the same for applying for citizenship? there is no mention on their website and I have emailed them asking but could not get a straight answer (they basically kept referring me to there website).

My wife will have meet the 5 year requirement in about 6-7 weeks and we were wondering if we could submit the application now, or are they really strict on the 5 year requirement at time of submitting?

Thanks!

[l00k]

It depends on her travel movement.

Generally one can apply after 4 years and 8 months. You don't necessarily have to wait until the full 5 years.

Counting back from the lodgement date, 5 years Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5.

In each of these Y: you need to be in NZ, as a resident (or permanent resident) for 240 days or more.

So Y1 > 240, Y2 > 240, Y3 > 240, Y4 > 240, Y5 > 240 (1)

AND Y1 + Y2 + Y3 + Y4 + Y5 > 1,350 (2)

If your wife meets both conditions (1) and (2) => ok to apply.

[Dank]

It depends on her travel movement.

Generally one can apply after 4 years and 8 months. You don't necessarily have to wait until the full 5 years.

Counting back from the lodgement date, 5 years Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5.

In each of these Y: you need to be in NZ, as a resident (or permanent resident) for 240 days or more.

So Y1 > 240, Y2 > 240, Y3 > 240, Y4 > 240, Y5 > 240 (1)

AND Y1 + Y2 + Y3 + Y4 + Y5 > 1,350 (2)

If your wife meets both conditions (1) and (2) => ok to apply.

This is so well explained. Just to add, for one to apply by 4 years 8 months on the dot, the assumption is that in the fifth year you haven’t traveled at all in the first 8 months of that year to make 240 days ie 30*8=240.

[TheNewKiwi]

If you want to double check that you meet the presence requirement for citizenship, the Department of Internal Affairs has a presence calculator. Just enter your information, and it will check if you have spent enough time in NZ.

https://dia.services.govt.nz/presence-calculator/

[cheeryking]

Not sure this have been asked before. I have only lived in NZ for 203 days in the first year of the residency. Year 2 onward has been more than 300+ days in each year block.

Will my option is to forgot the first year block and apply in 6th year? Interested to see if any other options I might have.

Residency grant on 31 March 2017
Year 1: 31 Mar 2017 - 29 Oct 2017 (203 day in NZ)
Away from NZ 29 Oct 2017 - 10 Apr 2018 (163 days away)
Year 2: 10 April 2018 - 31 March 2019 (330 days in NZ)
Year 3: 31 March 2019 - 31 March 2020 (330 days in NZ)
Year 4: 31 March 2020 - 31 March 2021 (365 days in NZ)
Year 5: 31 March 2021 - 31 March 2022 (365 days in NZ with no planned int'l trips)

[JandM]

I know that in applying for residence under partnership the requirement is 12 months of living with your partner, but its widely known you can apply a month or so early of this as by the time it is processed it will have been 12 months and the CO may just ask for some up to date evidence to cover from when the application was submitted to the current day. I can not find this on the immigration NZ site, although it did seem to be widely known this was fine to do.

This rumour you've heard is NOT correct. Any application you put in to INZ is a legal document, and by signing and submitting it, you are warranting that all information on it is true, right then that minute. It's not all right that you honestly hope and intend that it WILL be true and you'll meet the conditions at the future point when a CO looks at it - all kinds of things can happen to mess up human plans, so it doesn't get to be true. Also, the CO is not the first person who checks applications at INZ; a clerk does a preliminary check before the application is lodged into the system, seeing if, without verifying anything (which is the CO's job), the facts you're stating and the evidence you say you have got APPEAR to satisfy the conditions for whichever visa, and if it doesn't, the application will be refused. Everyone should also remember that stating anything that is false to INZ can be interpreted as fraud, which counts heavily against fulfilling the Character requirements. See A5.25 i, here. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/#35058.htm

[JandM]

Cheeryking, don't forget that INZ count BACKWARDS from the date of application, as in 100k's explanation just above. (In that, Y1 is the year running up to right now, Y2 is the year before that, and so on.) Therefore, you don't need to wait till 6 full years after your grant of Residence, but will qualify when your Y5 (the block of time longest ago) counts the required 240 days.

[Eckard]

I went through the same process a few days ago: With the help of an Excel sheet, I figured that 13.09. would be the very first day to apply, but already on 11.09., the presence calculator told me that I was eligible, and so I applied.

The most tricky bit was indeed year 5 (the first year after I got residence). I traveled for around three months during that first year, and instead of applying in early June, I had to wait until now to fulfill the requirement of 240 days "resident" and "present" in NZ, still 6 weeks earlier than the full 5 years.

Back then, the replies to my post here were rather thin, so I called INZ and also sent them a few questions, and they did actually reply. The answers were that the first day of my residence visa counts and that, when traveling overseas, departure and arrival days do not count. INZ also told me that, when the presence calculator gives a green light, then you are definitely ready to go. When not, you might still be ok to apply.

The presence calculator giving me a green light two days earlier than expected might be due to one of these factors: 1) either arrival or departure day counts as presence in NZ, 2) the leap year day gets counted (or not), 3) you can already apply on day 240 of the current year.

I understand that, when someone applies a bit too early, they will get the reply possibly 10 months later and are told that they did not qualify to apply and had to re-apply ... Hopefully, the presence calculator is something to rely on (the "ready to apply screen" did not include my personal data). In hindsight, I would prefer to have waited two more days until my own calculations said that I was ok to apply.

[LemonAndPaeroa]

When you say departure and arrival dates do not count, do you mean for the 240 days or for days out of the country?

My understanding is: if I leave NZ on 10 February at 2 PM and return on 17 February at 2 PM, I have been out of the country for 6 days.

[David12345]

Thanks for all the replies, I understand that you must meet the 240 days in the country each year for the last 5 years, something she has done, but the thing that I wanted clarified is that along with this requirement it is also a requirement to have held a visa which allows you to stay in NZ indefinitely for at least 5 years. Something my wife does not yet meet the requirement of, she got her residence visa at the end of october 2016 meaning she will meet the 5 year residence visa at the end of October this year. So I think we must wait until then to apply even though she has been in the country all of this year?

I have used the calculator which says she is ok to apply, but I suspect this may just check the amount of days in the country for each of the last 5 years and not when she first got her residence visa?

It seems to be safe we might just be better to wait until the end of October which will be 5 years since she got her residence?