As you may have heard by now, by the 21st of November it will become mandatory for all South Africans travelling to New Zealand on a visit to apply for their visitor visas beforehand.
It was not the case previously as South Africa and New Zealand shared a visa-waiver agreement (meaning that whilst South Africans still had to get a visa to facilitate their entry into New Zealand, such visas were issued upon arrival in New Zealand.
This will no longer be the case from 21st November 2016.
Suffice to say, it would seem to point to more people considering using licensed advisers to help facilitate a successful visitor visa application to travel to New Zealand, be it on a holiday or to go over and conduct job search and attend interviews for potential work in New Zealand. This is a crucial step in a person’s migration process because the majority of South Africans do require a job offer first before they can apply for residency (under the Skilled Migrant Category).
Our policy on this is that as we have already prepped our clients in terms of travelling to New Zealand (that is, gathering their relevant documentation and ensuring they have sufficient funds before they travel), we would then be able to still prepare and submit their visitor visa applications accordingly (it’s just an extra step in the service we provide for our clients).
As a company though our responsibility lies with servicing our existing clients as best as we can and we do (and will continue to have) quite a lot of clients who are going to require Visitor Visas for their initial travel to New Zealand.
With that in mind, should any member of the public be interested in applying for a Visitor Visa from the 21st of November 2016. we would only be able to help if we are confident that we could take such a person all the way to permanent residency in New Zealand.
To find out if you qualify, you would need to complete our free online assessment at www.newzealand.co.za and that will then enable us to assess your options for New Zealand.
We have a responsibility to anyone we take on as a client to ensure you are not ‘left in the lurch’ when onshore in New Zealand. Hence the reason we will only prepare and submit Visitor Visa applications for existing clients or clients who agree to have us help them start their process (from visitor to resident) to settle in one of the best countries in the world.