What are the medical and character requirements for a New Zealand visa?

INZ's operational manual sets the thresholds by how long you intend to stay:

• Temporary visa, more than 6 months, where risk factors for tuberculosis apply — a Chest X-ray Certificate.
• Temporary visa, more than 12 months — a Medical Certificate and a Chest X-ray Certificate.
• Every residence class visa — a Medical Certificate and a Chest X-ray Certificate.
• The Global Workforce Seasonal Visa — both certificates, regardless of how long the stay is.

Two exclusions INZ states outright: "Pregnant women and children under 11 years of age are not required to have an X-ray examination."

"Risk factors for TB" is defined, not judged: a passport from a country not on INZ's low-incidence list, or 3 months or more spent in such countries in the previous 5 years. INZ publishes the low-incidence country list.

An immigration officer can ask for either certificate regardless of the intended stay.

There are three, and INZ publishes each as a PDF:

• INZ 1007 — General Medical Certificate
• INZ 1201 — Limited Medical Certificate, which applies instead of INZ 1007 to partners and dependent children of New Zealand citizens or residence class visa holders, to refugees and protected persons, and to Ukraine Resident Visa applicants
• INZ 1096 — Chest X-ray Certificate

Where INZ has appointed panel physicians in a country, you must use one: "All applicants within such countries must have their Medical Certificate and Chest X-ray Certificate completed by a panel physician or radiologist." INZ publishes a panel physician finder.

Results are usually submitted electronically through eMedical, after you sign a client consent and declaration at the clinic. You will be given an eMedical reference (NZER) and an INZ health case number (NZHR). The examination has three parts: medical history and physical examination, urine and blood tests, and a chest x-ray where one is required.

You pay the clinic, and INZ publishes no price for it — its only guidance is to ask the clinic about the cost when you book. So we publish no price either.

A certificate must be less than 3 months old when INZ receives the application. That is the deadline that catches people: a medical done early, while other documents are gathered, can expire before the application is lodged.

Once INZ has assessed you as having an acceptable standard of health, that assessment can be re-used for a later application for 36 months. The re-use is broken if you spend 6 consecutive months in a country that is not on the low-TB-incidence list.

INZ's manual defines it. A person has an acceptable standard of health if they are unlikely to be a danger to public health; unlikely to impose significant costs or demands on New Zealand's health services or special education services; and able to undertake the work or study the visa application is based on.

"Significant costs" has a number attached. INZ's threshold is NZ$81,000: a relatively high probability that the applicant's condition or conditions will require health services costing more than that. For acute conditions, cost is measured over 5 years. (Applications made before 4 September 2022 used NZ$41,000.)

Four things INZ says are expressly irrelevant to that assessment: your ability to pay, your access to private healthcare, whether you hold health insurance, and whether your family could provide the care. It is a cost-to-the-system test, not a means test.

You cannot apply for one. INZ's wording: "You cannot apply for a medical waiver. We decide whether to give you one when we process your visa application."

Some conditions cannot be waived at all. INZ's manual lists, among the absolute bars: requiring dialysis now or within the next 5 years; severe haemophilia; an incapacity requiring full-time care; active untreated tuberculosis; and a history of multi-drug-resistant or extensively drug-resistant TB without clearance from a New Zealand specialist.

For temporary entry there are further limits — INZ states that Parent Boost Visitor Visa applicants cannot be given a medical waiver.

Section 15 of the Immigration Act 2009 sets out who is not eligible for a visa at all. A person is barred if they:

• have ever been sentenced to imprisonment of 5 years or more, or to an indeterminate sentence capable of running 5 years or more;
• have, in the preceding 10 years, been sentenced to imprisonment of 12 months or more;
• are subject to a prohibition on entry under section 179 or 180 of the Act;
• have ever been removed or deported from New Zealand;
• are excluded under any enactment; or
• have ever been removed, excluded or deported from another country.

Section 15(2) makes the sentence count whether it was immediate, deferred or suspended, and aggregates cumulative sentences imposed in one proceeding. Section 16 adds security, public-order and terrorist-entity bars.

These are not waivable in the ordinary sense. Section 17 leaves only a special direction under section 378, which is rare, or section 83.

Separately from the statutory bars, INZ's manual lists character grounds where a waiver can be requested. For residence, these include convictions at any time for immigration, citizenship or passport offences; prohibited drugs; dishonesty; sexual offences; violence; any offence carrying a term of imprisonment; an offence committed while unlawfully in New Zealand punishable by 3 months or more; and, in the last 5 years, dangerous driving, excess alcohol or drug driving offences. Giving false or misleading information is its own ground.

For temporary entry the list is shorter: immigration and passport offences, any imprisonment, New Zealand offences punishable by 3 months or more, and pending charges or investigations that could trigger a section 15 bar.

There is no character waiver form. You explain the issue in the application and ask for the waiver there. The decision must be made by an officer holding the right delegation, and for residence INZ's manual lists the factors weighed: how serious it was, how many grounds apply, how long ago it happened, whether immediate family are lawfully and permanently in New Zealand, your connections to New Zealand, and whether your potential contribution to New Zealand will be significant.

If you qualify under New Zealand's Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004, you do not have to declare the New Zealand convictions it covers. INZ's manual is emphatic that officers "cannot, under any circumstances, request or require that an individual disregard the effect of the Clean Slate Scheme."

The scheme covers New Zealand convictions only. Overseas convictions are not affected by it.