Employer accreditation in New Zealand: how to hire and support migrant workers

The three approvals behind every AEWV hire

To hire a migrant worker on an Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), you need three connected approvals, in this order. INZ decides each one.

1. Employer accreditation: INZ approves your business as a viable, genuinely operating employer that meets its immigration and employment standards.
2. The job check: INZ approves the specific job, including the pay, location and, where needed, the local advertising. An approved job check comes with a job token.
3. The worker's visa: the migrant worker applies for their own AEWV using the job token.

How the approvals depend on each other

A job check needs accreditation that is current and not suspended. If your accreditation lapses, your approved job checks and unused job tokens lapse with it. If INZ suspends your accreditation, job tokens cannot be used and INZ postpones job check decisions until the suspension ends. If INZ revokes your accreditation, unused job tokens are cancelled.

Step 1: Accreditation, the basics, viability and character

Before you apply, check the basic set-up, the financial test and the character requirements for the business and its key people (such as directors, partners, trustees and anyone else with real influence over the business).

The basics

• An NZBN: your business needs a New Zealand Business Number to apply. Only foreign diplomatic or consular missions are exempt.
• IRD employer registration: your business must be registered as an employer with Inland Revenue. Without it, INZ will not treat it as a viable, genuinely operating business.

Four ways to show your business is viable

You need to meet at least one of these:

1. No loss: no loss (before depreciation and tax) over the last 24 months.
2. Cash flow: positive cash flow in each of the last 6 months.
3. Capital: enough capital or outside investment (for example from a founder, parent company or trust) to keep the business viable and ongoing.
4. A credible plan: a credible plan for at least the next two years (for example, backed by contracts for work) that shows the business will stay viable.

The credible plan is the route I treat most carefully. In my experience, a plan that forecasts growth the bank statements cannot support raises more questions than an honest loss with capital behind it.

What INZ looks for, and problems that can stop accreditation

When INZ assesses an accreditation application, or checks an accredited employer, it looks at your records and at the history of the business and its key people. These are the problems that can stop an application or put existing accreditation at risk. The sections below explain the main ones.

• no NZBN, or no IRD employer registration;
• none of the four viability routes met;
• false or misleading information given to INZ, or relevant information withheld;
• letting someone work without the right to work, or outside the work conditions of their visa;
• being on one of MBIE's lists of non-compliant employers, or convictions for specific immigration, exploitation or people-trafficking offences;
• passing recruitment, training, equipment, or accreditation and job check costs on to workers, in New Zealand or overseas;
• unlawful charges to workers overseas, such as payments for a job, unlawful bonds or unreasonable deductions;
• trying to fill more than 5 jobs on standard accreditation (you need high-volume accreditation for more);
• placing workers with another business without the right accreditation.

Integrity and character requirements

• False or misleading information: accreditation can be declined if the business or any of its key people have given INZ false or misleading information, or withheld relevant information, in any application or INZ check.
• Employing people unlawfully: if the business let someone work who was not allowed to, or let a worker breach the work conditions of their visa (for example working for a different employer, in a different job or in a different location than the visa allows), accreditation can be declined unless the problem has been fixed, the business has taken enough steps to stop it happening again, and INZ is satisfied it will comply in future.
• Stand-downs and convictions: the business and its key people must not currently be on MBIE's lists of employers who have breached employment standards or immigration law (often called the stand-down lists). Convictions for specific offences, including exploiting migrant workers and people-trafficking, rule out accreditation. Key people must also not be banned from managing a company.

Before an application, I check each key person's record in other companies they have run, because INZ can look at non-compliance there too, not only in this business.

No costs passed on to workers, in New Zealand or overseas

You must not pass recruitment, training or equipment costs on to AEWV holders or applicants, whether in New Zealand or overseas. These include:

• advertising costs and recruitment agency fees;
• employer accreditation and job check fees, and costs connected with them, such as immigration adviser fees;
• compulsory training and induction costs, including on-the-job training;
• health and safety equipment, branded uniforms, trade testing, and tools the employer keeps.

You also must not charge workers or applicants overseas anything that would be unlawful in New Zealand, including:

• any payment to get or keep a job;
• bonding agreements for an unlawful purpose;
• deductions for accommodation, travel or food that are unreasonable, or that the worker has not agreed to in writing and that are not in the employment agreement.

From my practice. The rule on costs applies wherever the money changes hands. INZ's guidance says that if you use a recruiter, you are responsible for paying all recruitment costs in and outside New Zealand. If an agent recruiting for your business overseas charges a worker a fee to get the job, or your business makes deductions overseas that would be unlawful in New Zealand, your accreditation is at risk. Before you use an overseas recruiter, ask them in writing what, if anything, they charge candidates. Recruitment, training, equipment, testing, and accreditation and job check costs belong with the employer.

Step 2: The job check, and stopping "contract drift"

Once you are accredited, you need an approved job check for each migrant role you want to fill. An approved job check lasts 6 months, or less if your accreditation lapses or is revoked first.

Caps and accreditation types

• Standard accreditation: up to 5 jobs linked to your business at any one time. A job counts from when INZ approves its job check and grants a job token, so an unused token still counts. For more, you need high-volume accreditation.
• Triangular arrangements (including labour hire): if you place AEWV workers with another business that controls or supervises their work, you need high-volume accreditation for triangular employment. You cannot do this under standard accreditation. Extra rules apply, including having employed staff (other than key people) in New Zealand for the 12 months before you apply. Another entity's history can count if at least 66% of the ownership is the same and both are in the same sector, providing the same goods or services.

Advertising the job (the labour market test)

You must advertise the job and show you could not find suitable New Zealand workers, unless the job pays NZ$70 an hour or more (or the annual equivalent), is a Green List role where the job's requirements include what the Green List requires for that occupation, or is for a Global Workforce Seasonal Visa job token. INZ mainly uses ANZSCO (the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) to classify jobs, and each occupation has a skill level from 1 (most skilled) to 5. Some roles are treated at a higher skill level than their ANZSCO listing. Where advertising applies:

• ANZSCO skill level 1 to 3 roles: advertise nationally for at least 14 days.
• ANZSCO skill level 4 and 5 roles: advertise nationally for at least 21 days, and engage in good faith with Work and Income. Work and Income needs its own contact person for your business. An immigration adviser, an immigration lawyer or anyone helping you with the job check application cannot be that contact person.

An advert does not need exact years of experience. I make sure what it asks for matches the job check and the employment agreement, because a mismatch invites questions.

From my practice. When I review a job check, I put the advert, the job check and the employment agreement side by side. The document that drifts is usually the employment agreement. It is often drafted weeks later from an old template, and ends up with a different site address, a different pay range or fewer guaranteed hours than INZ approved. All three documents must describe the same job, within the ranges INZ approved.

Step 3: Before the worker applies, and after they start

Before you ask a candidate to use a job token to apply for an AEWV, check that they meet the minimum skills threshold and any requirements you set in the job check. For a regular AEWV, the threshold is two years or more of relevant work experience, or a relevant qualification at Level 4 or higher on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework (NZQCF). Green List roles and roles paying NZ$70 an hour or more are treated differently.

• See third-party evidence: a CV on its own is not enough. You must see documents the candidate did not write, such as a reference from a former employer, a certificate of employment, payslips, a tax certificate or a qualification certificate. When I help an employer with this check, I look for evidence that could be checked independently later. That is my test, not an INZ checklist.
• No 90-day trial periods: employment agreements offered to AEWV workers or applicants must not include a trial period.
• Settlement information: within the worker's first month, give them information about accommodation, transport (including driver licences), cost of living, healthcare, Citizens Advice Bureau services, relevant community groups, how to get an IRD number, industry training and qualifications, and the specific hazards of the job or industry.

When the business changes: restructures, new entities and relocations

Accreditation belongs to the legal entity (and NZBN) that was granted it. It cannot be transferred to another entity, and a business does not gain accreditation by merging or amalgamating with an accredited one.

Changes you must tell INZ about within 10 working days

1. Any change to your key people or business structure.
2. A worker on a regular AEWV or a Peak Seasonal Visa leaving their job more than a month before their visa expires (the rule for Global Workforce Seasonal Visa holders is slightly different).

Restructures and new NZBNs

From my practice. One of the most common traps in an acquisition, merger or restructure is assuming that migrant workers and accreditation move across automatically to the new company. They do not. The new legal entity needs its own accreditation, and it must hold or have applied for accreditation before the workers' visas can be changed to the new employer through a Job Change (the worker's application to change the employer, job or location on their visa).

Renewing before your accreditation expires

Your first accreditation lasts 12 months. A renewal of standard or high-volume accreditation lasts 24 months; triangular accreditation lasts 12 months. A long lapse can shorten the next grant period, so if yours has already expired, read INZ's renewal guidance before you apply.

INZ recommends allowing at least 5 weeks to renew. That is advice on when to start, not a processing time. I start renewal work about three months before expiry, so the accounts, key-person details and any changed roles line up with what INZ already holds before the application goes in.

If INZ accepts your renewal application before your accreditation expires, you may get interim accreditation. It has conditions, is not automatic, and lasts up to three months or until the decision, whichever comes first.

If your accreditation expires, migrants already working for you can keep working until their visas expire, within their existing visa conditions. But you cannot apply for new job checks, support another AEWV application, or support the residence applications that need accreditation.

INZ checks, official letters and suspensions

INZ can check at any time that you are meeting your obligations while you are accredited. It may ask for documents and, where necessary and with your permission, visit your premises.

RFI or PPI: what the letter means

• Request for information (RFI): INZ asks you to provide missing or updated evidence.
• Potentially prejudicial information (PPI): INZ tells you about information that could lead to a decline, and gives you a chance to respond before it decides.

Both come with a deadline. Note it first, and keep working to it. How to respond to a PPI letter depends on your facts and the evidence INZ holds, and that is advice I give only after we agree the scope in writing.

When a letter arrives, I first match INZ's concern to the approval it is about. A question about whether the business can pay its debts is an accreditation question, even when it comes up during a job check.

If your accreditation is suspended

INZ can suspend accreditation while it investigates, for up to 3 months at a time, and must suspend it while a prosecution is under way. During a suspension, job tokens cannot be used for a new AEWV or a Job Change, and INZ postpones any decision on a job check until the suspension ends. AEWV workers you already employ in New Zealand can keep working for you, within their existing visa conditions.

From my practice. I treat a suspension as a period to manage actively, not one to wait out. In my practice, that means answering INZ fully and on time, keeping current workers strictly within their visa conditions, and planning hiring around the delay.

How I help employers

Employer accreditation works best when your HR practice, commercial agreements and immigration filings tell the same story. My part is the immigration side, and making sure it matches the rest.

I help New Zealand businesses with first accreditation and renewals, high-volume and triangular accreditation, job checks, the immigration side of restructures, and responses to INZ checks, PPI letters and suspensions.

Tell me the hiring stage, when your accreditation expires and any INZ deadline. I'll ask a few questions to work out whether I can help. That first conversation is free. It isn't advice on your case, and it doesn't commit either of us. If you need licensed advice, we agree on the scope and fee in writing before I advise.

Tell me what is happening

If an INZ deadline is close, put the date at the top of your message. Sending me an enquiry does not stop or extend an INZ deadline. If INZ has given you one, keep working to it while you wait to hear from me.

Related: AEWV for workers · Job checks · Employer compliance · Residence pathways

Information checked 11 October 2026.

This page draws on Immigration New Zealand's guidance for accredited employers and the Immigration Instructions.

INZ decides every application. This page is general information, not advice on your situation.