Health Requirements - New Zealand
Health Requirements for New Zealand
Everyone who wishes to enter New Zealand must be of an Acceptable Standard of Health (ASH).
To be considered ASH, New Zealand will require you to undergo medical tests. The objective of this is to protect public health in New Zealand; ensure that people entering New Zealand do not impose excessive costs and demands on New Zealand’s health and special education services and where applicable, ensure that applicants for entry to New Zealand are able to undertake the functions for which they have been granted entry.
Immigration New Zealand will assess your health according to the type of visa you are applying for and the amount of time you plan to stay in New Zealand for.
Those who are planning to stay for 6 months or longer must provide a Chest X-ray certificate.
Those who intend to apply for a residence class visa or a temporary visa where they will stay in New Zealand for more than 12 months must provide a Medical Certificate and a Chest X-ray Certificate.
Certain exceptions apply to fee-paying student visa applicants, working holiday extension and
refugee/protection status applicants.
Medicals must not be older than 3 months when you submit them with your visa application. These tests should only be taken when you are about to submit a visa application. Once included with a visa application, they will then be valid for 36 months. When these tests are required, your file manager will provide contact details for the Immigration New Zealand approved panel physicians in your area. Children under the age of 11 years are not required to provide a Chest X-ray certificate.
Should your child turn 11 years of age before a residence class visa is submitted and had not provided a chest x-ray with their temporary visa, they must undergo the chest x-ray before the application is submitted.
Pregnant women are not required to provide a Chest X-ray certificate.
Pregnant women who cannot provide a Chest X-ray must be aware that their visa will be granted for less time than that of their spouse/partner. This is because INZ want you to provide this after you have given birth. Your temporary visa will be valid up until 3 months after your due date.
In this time you must complete the x-ray and apply for a new temporary visa.
Visa Applicants Who do not meet the Health Requirements
may be considered for a health waiver. This means INZ might make an exception to the rules. In this instance, additional information will be required. This is the reason you must advise your migration agent and/or file manager of ALL health concerns for all visa applicants.
Should any of the below apply to you and any other visa applicant, please advise us immediately:
- Are you taking prescribed medication? If so, detail the medical condition/s this relates to.
- Do you require any type of medical therapy, i.e. occupational therapy, regular
psychiatry/psychologist appointments, etc? If so, detail the medical condition/s this relates to. - Have you ever had any type of surgery or will you require any type of surgery in the future?
We will require as much information as possible in order to provide you with advice on how to proceed. Provide details of your full medical history, what you have been diagnosed with, when you were diagnosed, what your current treatment is and your future health prognosis.
Should any of the above items apply, you will also need to provide reports from medical specialists who are experts in your diagnosis. These reports will need to be dated for the time of your visa application. It is best to investigate appointment options in advance, so that the report/s can be requested at the time a visa application is to be submitted.
You must be prepared for additional expenses related to these medicals and possible additional specialist reports.
When assessing your medical results, Immigration New Zealand will not consider your ability to cover the expenses related to your required future medications, therapies, surgeries, etc.
If there are health concerns that INZ need to assess, this will mean that your visa will take longer to process. The medical results are sent to an assessment team that is separate from INZ. They then review the information and determine if your health is of an acceptable standard.
INZ cannot influence the time they need and neither can we. This part of the process will require patience as this can add up to 6 additional weeks to the overall processing time of the application.
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