Religious Workers Resident Visa — Support a candidate's visa application
If you are a religious organisation that has a long-term need for a religious worker and you can offer them religious work and your sponsorship for 5 years. You can only employ people already living in New Zealand who have been doing religious work here on a valid Religious Workers Visa for at least 3 years.
What an employer needs to do
Sponsorship
You must sponsor your religious worker for a period of 5 years from the first day they are granted residence.
To sponsor a religious worker’s resident visa application, you must be a representative of a religious organisation:
- that is registered as a charity with Charities Services
- that can meet the requirements for acceptable sponsors for a period of 5 years after your religious worker’s resident visa is granted, including providing them with accommodation and financial support if they need it
- that’s main purpose is to advance religion
- that has a genuine need for the sponsored religious worker to do religious work for them.
You must complete a Sponsorship Form for Religious Workers, as evidence of your sponsorship.
Your responsibilities as a sponsor
Job offer
You must provide religious work for at least 5 years.
The work you offer can be paid or unpaid, but it must be mostly made up of one or more of the following religious activities:
- teaching religious scripture or philosophy
- leading religious ceremonies, worship or prayer
- ordaining new religious leaders, initiating new members into your religious community, carrying out religious ceremonies
- providing spiritual guidance and care.
If the work is paid employment for salary or wages, you must provide an employment agreement that complies with employment law.
Employee rights and responsibilities — Employment New Zealand
Your employment and/or job description should be included with your 'Sponsorship Form for Religious Workers'.
If the work is unpaid or paid by other means, you must provide a job description.
What happens next
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Step 1: Religious worker applies for a resident visa
Your religious worker completes a residence application.
For us to accept their application, they must send us all the information we ask for, including evidence they have an offer of religious work and sponsorship from a religious organisation that’s an acceptable sponsor.
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Step 2: Wait for a decision
We make a decision about your candidate’s application as soon as we can. You can view our historic visa timeframes below.
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Step 3: Religious worker starts work
As soon as your religious worker has been granted a work visa, they can come to New Zealand.
Prepare for when your workers from overseas arrive
Get organised before your new employee arrives in New Zealand. Put together information to help them settle into your workplace and life in New Zealand.From the first contact with your new employee to the time they arrive in New Zealand, be positive but realistic. Do not promise anything that you or New Zealand cannot deliver. You will only set migrants up for disappointment if life in New Zealand is not what they expected.
You can help your new migrant workers to prepare for work and life in a new country through giving them the information they need.
Some information is best provided before they leave and some when they arrive.
Much of this preparation will only need to be done once. If you hire migrant workers in the future, you will be very well prepared.
Where to start
If you are unsure of what things to consider, our checklist will prompt you with ways you can help your migrant employee. It includes things to do before they arrive, upon their arrival and during their first days at work.
Prepare information for your new staff
It pays to prepare some tailored content for your new migrant staff. If you don’t already have it, you may want to create:
- an orientation programme to introduce your workplace
- a welcome kit with local information about the region, accommodation and transport information.
You could also prepare existing staff for your new migrant employee by announcing their upcoming arrival on your website or staff communication channels, for example, noticeboards.
Use our resources to help your new staff
Send your new staff links to our tools and online resources to help your them plan their move before they leave their home country.
NZ Ready planning tool
Moving to a new country can be a daunting task for your new employee. The best way to help your new employee with their move is to guide them to NZ Ready, Immigration New Zealand’s free online planning tool. This tool asks a series of questions that will help them to create a comprehensive personalised to do list to follow.
Get ready for New Zealand — NZ Ready
Cost of living calculator
What it costs to live in New Zealand may be quite different from a migrant's home country. This tool helps migrants to understand the cost of living in various parts of New Zealand.
Think beyond the workplace
Provide information about life in New Zealand during the recruitment process. Your new employee needs to know what to expect in relation to:
- basics of life in New Zealand such as housing and healthcare
- schooling and employment opportunities for their partner and children
- community support available.
A happy, settled family makes for a happy and productive employee who is more likely to remain loyal to you.
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Step 4: Religious worker continues to work for you
If we grant your religious worker a resident visa, it will be conditional on:
- them doing religious work for you for a period of 5 years
- you sponsoring them for a period of 5 years from the first day we grant their resident visa.