Thursday, 26 November 2009
New Zealand carefully plans allocation of permanent residence places.
The Government's annual residence programme gives priority to skilled and business migrants and the partners of returning New Zealanders. The family capped stream (which comprises parent, adult child and sibling residence cases) is currently allocated 4,950 - 5500 places per year. Demand for these places currently exceeds supply.
There is a current waiting time of 18 -24 months for a place to become available within the cap. In practice this means that an application will usually take from 18-24 months from the time of lodgement to be allocated to a case officer for assessment.