The four routes to New Zealand: why everything here starts with a job

Whoever has looked into Canada or Australia recognises the pattern: you collect points, you go into a pool, and you wait to see whether your turn comes. New Zealand works differently, and the difference cuts both ways.

Not a contest, but a threshold

For the Skilled Migrant Category you need six points. Not more than someone else, not more than last month — six. Immigration New Zealand says plainly about the expression of interest that they let you know straight away after submitting whether you meet the requirements, and that you can then go directly on to the application form.

That is a fundamentally different mechanism from the Canadian CRS ranking, where the cut-off score jumps from round to round and you sit in a pool for months. Here there is no cut-off score to speculate about and no competition with other candidates. You know today whether you can get through.

The price you pay for that is in the next paragraph.

Almost every door starts with an employer

The points alone get you nowhere. For the Skilled Migrant Category you also need a suitable job or job offer with an employer that is accredited by Immigration New Zealand — and the same applies to the two Green List routes. Without that employer your application simply doesn't exist.

That reverses the order compared with Canada. There you build a file first and look for work afterwards; here you look for work first, and the file follows. Count on months for that first step, and ask in the first conversation whether the employer is accredited. If they aren't, they first have to get accredited and do a job check before they can give you an application link.

The four routes in a row

1. Straight to Residence (Green List, tier 1). If your occupation is on tier 1 and you have a job offer from an accredited employer that meets the requirements, you apply for residence straight away. No waiting time, no intermediate step. After two consecutive years on this visa you can move on to permanent residence. The application starts at NZ$ 6,450 and 80% are decided within three months.

2. Work to Residence (Green List, tier 2). Same principle, different pace. You first work 24 months full-time in that occupation in New Zealand — within a period of 30 months — and then apply for residence.

3. Skilled Migrant Category. The route for whoever is not on the Green List. Six points from education, professional registration, income or New Zealand work experience, plus that suitable job. A professional registration can bring three to six points in one go, depending on how much education and experience is needed for it — for Dutch citizens that is often the fastest way to six.

4. Working Holiday. For Dutch citizens aged 18 to 30 inclusive: twelve months of working and travelling, without an employer in advance. You have to be able to show NZ$ 4,200 in funds and hold full medical insurance for the entire duration; the application starts at NZ$ 770. Whoever works three months in certain sectors can extend by three months.

That last one is more than a detour. You are there, you build a network, and you find on the spot the accredited employer who helps you further — precisely the step that is hardest from the Netherlands.

Three limits that are hard

Age. For the residence routes you are 55 or younger at the time of application. There is no exemption.

English. Dutch citizens are not exempt. The principal applicant for a skilled residence visa achieves IELTS 6.5 overall or an equivalent score on TOEFL iBT, PTE Academic, B2 First or — for health professions — the OET. Results may not be older than two years at the time of submission, and a test taken at home doesn't count. Partner and children from 16 have a lighter requirement: speak English, or prepay lessons in New Zealand.

Health and character. Everyone from 15 has a medical examination including a chest X-ray with a doctor designated by Immigration New Zealand. Everyone from 17 submits police certificates, from every country of which you are a citizen and from every country where you lived for twelve months or longer in the past ten years. Those certificates may be no older than six months at the time of submission — so apply for them late, not early.

What changes on 24 August 2026

On that date the points route is being revised. Two routes are added — the Skilled Work Experience Pathway and the Trades and Technician Pathway — New Zealand qualifications will earn one point more than foreign ones, and the wage threshold that counts becomes the one from the moment you started the work experience instead of today's. Good news too: with a recognised professional registration your language test becomes valid for five years instead of two.

Two practical consequences if you are in the middle of it now. If you still want to be assessed under the current rules, your expression of interest has to be submitted before 24 August. And draft EOIs lapse on that day — if you have one half-completed, finish it or assume you start again with the new form.

Beyond that, distrust any guide that describes the points rules without mentioning this date: around the end of August 2026 half of what is online becomes outdated.

And if you want to retire?

Then New Zealand is, frankly, a difficult country. There is no ordinary retirement route. The Temporary Retirement Visitor Visa requires that you are 66 or older, invest NZ$ 750,000 for two years, have a further NZ$ 500,000 to live on and an annual income of NZ$ 60,000 — and it is temporary: two years, with no route to permanent residence, and without children accompanying you.

The other road runs through an adult child who already lives there, with the Parent Resident Visa. That has its own income requirement for the sponsor and a queue that works partly in order of submission and partly by ballot. Whoever thinks of New Zealand for the first time at sixty without family there can, in practice, no longer get in — that is unpleasant to read, but it is better than discovering it afterwards.