One Job. Two Visas. Different Outcomes.
We are receiving a growing number of requests from applicants already in New Zealand, holding Work Visas (usually Accredited Employer Work Visas) who are now approaching their timeline to apply for residence. Many of these are people with degrees, looking to apply under the points system, having accumulated three years of experience or those, gearing up to apply under the new work experience pathway being introduced in August 2026.
These applicants are moving ahead, based on the assumption that the role they hold, as it was assessed for their Work Visa is sufficiently skilled to qualify for residence. That is a pretty logical assumption for most applicants to make. If the position was assessed at a particular skill level for the Work Visa, which in turn enabled them to bring their family and to secure five year long visas, then surely that same assessment of skill will apply when they submit their application for residence.
The problem that some of these applicants might face, particularly those who have employment at skill levels three or two, is that the assessment of that skill level for the Work Visa is completely separate to the assessment undertaken for their potential Resident Visa application. They are of course based on the same underlying criteria, however one does not always equal the other. There is no obligation for an officer processing a Resident Visa request to uphold the assessment undertaken at the Work Visa stage.
How and why this is possible and what potential Resident Visa applicants can do to avoid being caught out by this gap between the two sets of policies, is the focus of this weeks article from the Turner Hopkins team.
Work Visa Assessments
Under current policy settings Work Visas issued under the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme are assessed against two possible skill measures - the Australia New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) and the newer National Occupations List (NOL). The NOL is being drip-fed in to the system, with only a limited number of occupations from the NOL, qualifying for assessment - ANZSCO remains the key assessment tool for INZ, although eventually the NOL will replace ANZSCO entirely.
Both of these frameworks however work in a similar way. They provide a description for a particular occupation, key tasks associated with that occupation and then the required qualifications and/or experience to undertake that occupation (this might also include licensing or registration).
Skill Levels
Work Visas are assessed against a particular skill level, to determine the length of the visa and also whether family members can accompany you.
For Work Visas that skill level assessment is pretty important because it determines a) how long the visa will be issued for (three or five years) and b) whether or not family can secure associated visas to accompany the main Work Visa holder.
However along with this INZ also uses the ANZSCO or NOL definitions for the job on offer to assess whether the role was advertised correctly. For example a role might be advertised as relatively low skilled and yet the employer has indicated a higher skill in the accompanying job check request. Add to this, that most employers are not all that familiar with how ANZSCO or the NOL work, meaning that they often select occupations from those lists that are a “close” match but not an exact fit.
Given the volumes of job checks being applied for, and the nature of the checks involved (primarily around what the employer has advertised for, versus the job description and claims in the form), these skill level assessments are often quite “brisk” and not overly detailed. Some employers have also embellished roles, potentially aiming to secure that longer-term visa for the applicant as well.
Alongside this, and particularly in the immediate period following our borders reopening, INZ took a very relaxed approach to job check requests, essentially basing their decisions on the claims made in the application forms, without looking too closely at the actual documents provided. This has changed in more recent times, but that initial period saw a lot of people entering NZ on visas with higher skill level classifications than they were necessarily deserving of.
All of this adds up to the potential for some applicants to be heading towards a residence application completely unaware that what they believe is skilled employment (because of the code assigned during the Work Visa) may be assessed very differently by the next officer to take a look.
Resident Visa Assessments
When an application for residence is submitted, INZ is tasked with undertaking a separate and new assessment of the skill level of the job being claimed. In some cases this is pretty easy to do - teachers, engineers, IT professionals, doctors and so forth. For some roles the assessment of skill is obvious and straight-forward. Alternatively the role may be paid a salary that eliminates the need for that skill level assessment (1.5 times the median wage or higher).
However for many roles, particularly those at skill level 3 and 2, which include a lot of retail, hospitality and middle management related positions, there is a lot more “grey area” to contend with. What might have been sold to INZ in the Work Visa process as a skilled position, could be viewed very differently by an officer considering a residence application.
Greater Scrutiny
Skills assessments for residence are given considerably more weight and a lot more time is spent on them, because there is more at stake.
At this point in time, the NOL is not used for the skilled migrant category (it will eventually become the only source for those applications, so the main assessment tool is ANZSCO.
Officers are tasked with looking at how an applicants job offer measures up to the corresponding ANZSCO description, including what is referred to as a “substantial match” assessment.
This basically requires an officer to look at the tasks being performed in the role and how they line up to the tasks that ANZSCO states are ordinarily undertaken in that type of occupation. If your role sounds like the corresponding ANZSCO title or has the same name, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be considered a substantial match. If the role has been slightly oversold for the purposes of a Work Visa application (to give you the time and ability to bring family) or the employer has simply made a mistake and INZ haven’t noticed, then your application for residence could easily fail.
What is really important to understand is that residence instructions do not require or even encourage officers to consider the ANZSCO code applied at the Work Visa stage. I had this discussion with a potential applicant this week, who was somewhat adamant that because of the Work Visa being classified at skill level 3, she was safe for residence. Having reviewed the job description, I am not so sure.
Understanding this difference is really important, particularly for those applicants who are in those roles that skim along the surface of being at skill level 2 or 3.
Why The Difference Counts
Pretty simple really…when you have spent the time working towards the goal of residence and then spend the money to apply (and its not a small amount of money to make that application), basing all of that on an assumption that your role is skilled, because you hold a Work Visa granted under a specific skill level, only to then find the Resident Visa sees it all differently - can be devastating.
The fact that one assessment doesn’t carry over to the other is problematic, because if you are using the same tools to assess skill, then logic would suggest that the first assessment should be honoured at the second stage. The issue however is that the policy doesn’t create that connection and it essentially gives INZ a second chance to consider whether the job you do is in fact skilled - some might argue that this happens too late in the process.
Don’t Assume
Never assume that because your Work Visa was approved at one skill level, the officer assessing your Resident Visa application will come to the same conclusion.
For many people this won’t be an issue as their jobs are clearly skilled, however there will also be a good number of applicants who are working their way towards that residence goal, blissfully unaware that they might never get there.
Admittedly, the assessment of skill levels at the Work Visa stage has been tightened up more recently and so while this issue will still appear, it potentially will reduce over time. The NOL, and once that becomes used across both temporary and residence visas, will also remove some of the confusion - however in the meantime there will be a pool of people who need to very carefully consider whether the job they do, is going to live up to the skills assessment that will take place at the residence stage.
It does however raise a question as to whether this gap between the two visas and two assessments should be bridged. The issue however is that takes away INZ’s ability to double-dip on checking whether some of these more marginally skilled roles are indeed skilled at all. What it does however mean is that applicants applying for Work Visas need to be very mindful of how that job might stack up at the residence assessment stage - something we are very quick to do, when considering an applicants longer term plans.
Don’t Guess…
For those considering an application for residence and taking that next step, the message is really simple - never assume that just because your Work Visa was approved at one skill level, that same decision will be carried over to your residence application. Treat the residence application as basically an entirely separate process (because it is) and then ask yourself whether or not your role will stand up to a greater level of scrutiny.
Even for those in clearly skilled jobs, it never hurts to ensure that how that skill is presented will measure up and then also whether you meet all of the other requirements to undertake that job, including being suitably qualified for that position.
We regularly advise clients on whether or not the path they are on is the right one, not just in terms of the categories they are applying for, but also how the individual parts of their situation will measure up. We never assume that just because a job was considered skilled at one stage, it will be considered skilled at the most important part of the process.
If you are in New Zealand, working your way towards that long-term residence goal, and you want some certainty as to whether it is all going to work the way you think it might - then get in touch with us today.
Until next week!
