Dear Steemit Friends,
Recently I collected my New Zealand visa and I want to share with you guys how to apply the tourist visa online . You can find more information on https://www.immigration.govt.nz/
Although I applied for the tourist visa, you can use this reference to apply for the work visa or student visa as the processes are more or less the same.
If you are from one of the visa waiver countries , of course there is no need for you to apply the visa, but if you want to stay longer and work while traveling you can apply for working holiday visa.
New Zealand has been on top of my lists to visit for the longest time and last year I managed to find a ticket from Singapore for about $500 return , including a stop over at Fiji! What a great deal! It is indeed a very expensive country to visit and also the visa fees are very expensive. It has by far the most expensive visa fees.
To give you an idea of how much it cost
How to apply the visa ?
You can either choose to do online submission or paper submission for your application. But paper submission will cost extra fees to handle your documents.
Online Visa Application Requirements:
- Passport
- Photo ( they do have strict requirement so it's best to follow their instruction mentioned in the immgiration newzeland's website)
- Evidence of Funds - Bank Statement - for the last 6 months.
- Proof of Employment
- Certicate of Employment
- Employer Leave Approval
- Proof of Pre-Purchased Travel ( Round Trip Flight Tickets - unlike other countries that discourage buying tickets before getting a visa, NZ actually requires purchase of onward travel tickets before you apply for their visa)
- Other Supporting Documents*
- Depending on your duration of stay and type of visa , you might require to submit the letter from police station from where you resident or medical reports
How to Apply Online:
Step 1: Create a RealMe account
Step 2: Accomplish the Visitor Visa Application Form
One of the best thing about applying online is you are able to accomplish the application form slowly, you can save the data and come back to complete in a later time.
Step 3: Upload your documents and pay for the visa fees
Step 4: After submitting your application, a Thank you message that needs to be printed will appear in your screen:
You must print this letter because you will need to bring that along with your passport to VFS. Submitting your passport to VFS is a must with the application as the embassy will need to verify your identity through the actual passport.
Step 5: Submit your passport to VFS/ pay for passport handling fees
VFS is the third party agency that processes paper visa applications and accepts the online applicants passport submission for NZ. It basically helps you send your passport to Zealand embassy.
Processing Time
It took around 3 weeks for me to received the newzeland visa
My Experience on applying new Zealand visa
I find using https://www.immigration.govt.nz to get some information to be very confusing.
Because of my passport origin , I was required to fill up additional forms that has a total of 12 pages . This was communicated through email and from my application via https://www2.logon.realme.govt.nz/cls/logon.logon?cid=1
Important information During uploading the documents
During submission of your documents online, each document type should be uploaded as a single file. You can't upload several files in one category, so all you have to do first before uploading is to merge all the documents ( for e.g all 6 files of your bank statements into just one file.
You can use the following websites to merge your documents
Right now, I was granted 1 year multiple entry visa although I applied for single entry visa which I think is really nice. It was indeed a costly and lengthy process , but I am sure it's worth it!
Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope you find this article useful.