It’s almost time to turn off the screens, pack up the keyboard and head home for the holidays - which for most of us in NZ means some time at the beach after time with family over a good Christmas lunch. New Zealand does tend to pretty much shut down over the break, although in more recent years plenty of people are heading back to the daily grind a little sooner.

For us, we will be closing down on 23 December, and heading back to the office on 12 January. INZ will be closed from 24 December and then slowly opening back up from 05 January, although not with a full staff complement from day one.

Migrating with children, particularly when you have a blended family or even if you are a single parent can be complex, not only because of all the logistics involved, but because there are very specific legalities tied to the visa process, for you and those children. INZ has a fairly complicated set of rules when it comes the evidence and information required for children, whose parents are divorced, separated, never married or even where one parent is simply not migrating (yes it happens).

Those requirements can become very onerous, if you haven’t worked them out at the start of the process and even if you have, INZ can still make things challenging depending on the country you are coming from and the variety of information that might be available. We deal with this regularly and INZ’s requirements, while logical, in terms of protecting the rights of children and parents, can often be archaic or out of step with how the world operates.

Every few weeks (or even days), another global headline reminds us how unpredictable the world has become. The latest example comes from the U.S., where a tragic shooting involving National Guard members immediately ignited calls for sweeping immigration crackdowns.

This sits alongside already heavy crackdowns on migration across the U.S., including the deployment of ICE raids, raising fees for skilled work visa applicants and an increased focus on slowing down border movements. The U.S. has also recently banned visa applications from various high risk countries.

It was inevitable that AI and tools like ChatGPT or Co-Pilot would start to become the “go to” sources for many people considering a move to another country - after all if you can find out what to make for dinner, with the five things you have left in your fridge, using AI, why couldn’t it also tell you whether or not you might qualify for a visa and then by extension how to get it.

There is also a proliferation of companies now trying to sell the “AI Visa” solution, attempting to give people access to a platform that will tell them if they qualify, what visa they might qualify for and then how to go about applying for that visa - again an inevitable consequence of our sudden need to do everything with AI.

At some point in the last few years (and probably due to the pandemic that we dare not speak the name of), our Government became fixated on giving everything a colour coding system, based on traffic lights. I guess its a pretty familiar concept and if the light is green, its all go, if its amber, exercise caution and if its red forget about it.

The same colour scheme we use to direct traffic or previously used to determine if we could leave the house, has also been adopted in to our immigration system, starting with the “Green List” and soon to be complimented by the “Amber” and “Red” lists to make the complete set.

If you read the headline and wondered if the actual country of New Zealand was getting smaller, I apologise - what I was really referring to was our population growth (or rather lack thereof), which seems to be a bit of a recurring topic amongst mainstream media outlets.

To be fair they are right, in that New Zealand’s population, which was already pretty small to begin with, has been plagued by declining growth and then compounded by the number of Kiwis heading offshore.

A short post this week, as I pack my bags to leave Las Vegas and make the slightly arduous journey back home to New Zealand - and I will admit, I am looking forward to it. Myself and two other colleagues have been in the US as part of the Andersen Global conference, which has been a pretty well organised event. Legal, accounting, tax and other professionals have gathered together over four days at the Bellagio Hotel in the city that literally never sleeps - Las Vegas.

It almost feels wrong to be talking about Christmas and the holiday season already, but with only 55 days left until the big day arrives, there will be plenty of people thinking about travelling this way for the summer (or to escape their winter. For a lot of families in New Zealand, the Christmas holidays are a great opportunity to invite their extended family members here - with most of us taking at least two weeks off, over late December, and through to mid-January.

As I write this, I have a song swirling around in my head, one written and performed by the Rolling Stones…you can probably guess what it might be. When it comes to the visa process, it is often about being able to satisfy an individual immigration officer that the claims you are making are credible and that you meet the requirements for the visa you are applying for.

If you aren’t familiar with it, there is a great show called “MythBusters”, presented by two ex-Hollywood special effects artists, who take viewer submitted myths and put them to the test. The process usually consists of multiple explosions or physical injury and makes for some great entertainment (the injuries are never that bad).

However myths also creep in to the visa process, perpetuated by a myriad of social media commentators, and well-intentioned people who simply have no idea what they are talking about.

For most people considering a move to New Zealand, securing a job offer is an absolutely vital part of that process. Having skilled employment has become the glue that binds the rest of an application together, and while that wasn’t always the case, I don’t see the current need for a job offer, changing any time soon.

It does make sense, because claiming you are skilled is one thing, but proving it, through having a job offer in the country you plan to move to is quite another.

The new SMC changes (coming August 2026) have had some polish added over the last week, as the Government has drip-fed the details out in to the market, and it has caused quite a stir.

Alongside the two new pathways that were announced as the key part of the changes, further updates have been released on how the new points system will work in the next 12 months.

It has been talked about for quite some time, but this week, the New Zealand Government finally announced its biggest change to the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC), since the system was rolled out two years ago in October 2023. But before you start packing your bags and ordering your aisle seat on the next flight over, these changes wont come in to effect until mid-2026.

It’s spring and for some love may be in the air…although for some that love might consist of quite a bit of air, given they could be living in two completely different countries. This time of the year tends to bring about a bit of a surge in potential partnership applications as Kiwis overseas who have found the love of their life in a different country, consider moving back to start the new year in New Zealand.

Timely then, that we present an article dedicated to those folks, the ones looking to bring their significant other to the land of the long white cloud and of course needing to sort out a visa to make sure that significant other is here lawfully.