New Zealand is currently offering a recovery visa of short term for up to 6 months. Cyclone Gabrielle and other extreme weather events have made destruction in the country and New Zealand needs a speedy recovery of North Island. The purpose-specific visa helps interested migrants to support the recovery process. Immigration New Zealand processes the visa application and decides in a very short time less than 7 days. Till May 4, 2023, the Immigration New Zealand department has so far managed the following applications:
- Total applications received: 2108
- Applications approved and visas issued: 1191
- Declined and withdrawn applications: 663
- Labourers were the most common role that has been approved with almost 500 migrants, followed by 91 commercial cleaners and 68 carpenters.
Recovery visa process
This visa allows employers to sponsor experts such as engineers, technicians, and insurance assessors to come to New Zealand. The prospective employers find interested migrants to apply for the visa. They also fill in the Employer Supplementary Form (INZ 1377) and provide it to the applicant. After having all required documents completed and collected, the applicant can apply for the visa under the Specific Purpose Work visa application.
Recovery visa fees
Immigration New Zealand requires the migrants to pay NZD 700 which will be refunded once the visa application is successful. This can take about a time of fifteen to twenty days in total.
Job professions for recovery visa
Following are the roles and jobs which are to be performed by the successful migrants:
- immediate clean-up
- assessing risk or loss
- providing emergency response
- infrastructure, building and housing stabilization and/or repair (including planning functions)
- work that directly supports the recovery (e.g. producing relevant materials for road rebuild, transport drivers, etc).
Dependent visa
Applicants cannot include their family members and cannot sponsor them either for the recovery visa.
Visa conversions, switching the visa
Since it is mandatory for an applicant not to apply for the recovery visa again once the time period of 6 months has been reached, they may apply for another visa category once find a job in other roles.