New Zealand visa holders will say goodbye to visa labels

Visa labels in passports are about to become a thing of the past for New Zealand visa holders.

From 4 July 2018, Immigration New Zealand will stop issuing physical labels into visa holders’ passports. Instead all successful visa applicants will be emailed a visa approval letter or ‘eVisa’.

“EVisas have been issued to online applicants since 2016 and now they will be issued to all visa holders even if an application has been paper based,” said Steve Stuart, General Manager of Visa Services.

“Nevertheless, labels already in passports will remain valid until the date of expiry of the visa or the passport, whichever comes first,” said Mr Stuart.

An exception to the new label-less system will be for Provider Direct (an online service for student applicants from certain education providers). Immigration New Zealand will review this over the next year.

“The move to eVisas is part of Immigration New Zealand’s goal of removing paper and operating in a digital world, “said Mr Stuart.

Since the introduction of Immigration ONLINE in 2014 over half a million applications have been made online, with more than half of those being made in the last 12 months. This calendar year Immigration New Zealand is on track to exceed 300,000 online applications.

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