For every business operating in New Zealand, the possibility of accidentally hiring an illegal worker – a non-citizen without a visa or in breach of visa conditions – is risk they need to avoid.

The NZ Immigration Department is responsible for enforcing employer obligations under the NZ Immigration Act 2009 and the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Act 2023.

Employers need to mitigate the risk of non-compliance by taking reasonable steps to ensure they are not hiring or retaining staff in breach of their work rights.

Relevant Legislation

Amendments to the  NZ Immigration Act 2009 contained within the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Act 2023 states:

359A Employment infringement offence

(1) An employer must not—

(a) allow a person who is not entitled under this Act to work in the employer’s service to do that work:

(b) employ a person in a manner that is inconsistent with a work-related condition of that person’s visa:

(c) fail to comply with a requirement made under section 275A within the time period required by that section.

And the key points within 275A are about NZ Immigration's right to enforce the above rules:

275A Power to access employment documents

(1) An immigration officer may exercise the power in subsection (2) for the following purposes:

(a) determining whether a supporting employer is employing (or has employed) a supported employee in accordance with the work-related conditions of the supported employee’s visa:

(b) determining whether a supporting employer is complying (or has complied) with the supporting employer’s obligations (which, to avoid doubt, include the obligation not to commit an offence) under this Act.

What does this mean for employers?

In simple terms, all New Zealand employers must validate the legal Right To Work of all staff. Specifically this means:

• Verifying through collection of evidence, whether the employee is a New Zealand or Australian citizen; otherwise
• If they are a non-citizen, employers need to validate the worker's visa and conditions, in order to ensure they have the legal right to work and under what conditions.

New Zealand VisaView Service

The New Zealand Department of Immigration provides employers with the VisaView service. VisaView allows employers to verify whether a foreign passport holder has the legal right to work for them. Employers can also apply to verify New Zealand Passports to check citizenship.

An employer can perform a VisaView check with just 3 datapoints:

1. Passport Country
2. Passport Number
3. FamilyName

VisaView provides limited details about the visa, but is specific to the visa holder's right to work for the querying Employer:

• YES, is entitled to work for <Employer Name>:
• NO, is not entitled to work for <Employer Name>;
• REFER to Immigration Contact Centre.

Specific conditions around work hours (such as Students being limited to 20/25 hours) and roles (such as allowed to work as a Farm Hand) can be included in the result. See the full table of responses down below.

VisaView is reknowned for not always simply returning a YES or NO, with many employers complaining about receiving REFER results often.

This can be where the Visa Verification service can be useful.

NZ Immigration Visa Verfication Service

Whilst not specific to employers, NZ Immigration offers an alternate service known as the "Visa Verfication Service" .

Whilst the VisaView Service is exclusive to New Zealand based employers (which you must prove), Visa Verification is relatively easy for anybody to register for.

The New Zealand Visa Verification Service provides more details than VisaView about the specific visa held by the employee and as such, is often used by employers in addition to Employer VisaView.

Visa verfication requires 6 datapoints:

1. Passport Country
2. Passport Number
3. FamilyName
4. Date Of Birth
5. Gender
6. Visa Start Date

The first 4 arte ALWAYS on the visa holders passport.

Visa Verification requires a binary gender (only Male or Female) which is not always on every country's passport.

But Gender and Visa Start Date can be found on the Visa Approval Letter that each visa holder will have received from the New Zealand Department of Immigration.

So in order to perform a Visa Verification an employer would require details from both the visa holder's passport and Visa Approval Letter.

The following information is returned via the Visa Verification Service:

• visa type
• visa start date
• number of entries
• Immigration New Zealand (INZ) client number
• family and given names
• gender
• passport number
• first entry before date
• expiry date travel
• visa expiry
• passport nationality
• date of birth
• visa conditions.

The table at the bottom provides the list of possible responses from the NZ Visa Verification Service.

How do employers comply?

New Zealand employers should take the necessary steps to collect / sight "proof of work rights" documents for all staff. Specifically this means:

• Proof of New Zealand or Australian Citizenship:
  • NZ or Au Passport;
  • NZ or Au Citizenship Certificate;
  • NZ or Au Birth Certificate;
• OR Foreign Passport + a VisaView check; OR
• OR Foreign Passport + Visa Approval Letter; OR 
• Best practice is Passport + Visa Approval Letter + VisaView + Visa Verification

Sound easy? If you only have a few employees, sure. But it is common for employers to not find this easy as their headcount grows. And this is where vSure comes in. We help streamline compliance, whilst delivering optimal employee experience.

How does vSure help?

vSure makes work rights compliance in New Zealand easy, by:

• Streamlining the collection of Proof Of Work Rights documents from all staff; 
• Automating VisaView checks and Visa Verification checks; AND
• Automating visa monitoring throughout the cyucle of employment;

Would you like to know more? Reach out today to arrange a demo and a quote.

NZ Immigration provides are useful guide for Employer VisaVisa. The below table of possible responses from VisaView is taken directly from the "VisaView Guide For Employers". You can download the guide using the link below.

NZ Immigration provides are useful guide for the Visa Verification Service. The below tables list the explanation of the data returned from the Verification Service and are taken directly from the "Visa Verification Guide For Employers". You can download the guide using the link below.