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If you work in a trade or as a technician, New Zealand opened a residence route for you on 24 August 2026. It is called the Trades and Technician pathway, and it is one of three ways to qualify for the Skilled Migrant Category resident visa, New Zealand's main route to settlement for skilled workers. The first thing to know: there are no points to add up. Immigration New Zealand (INZ, the government agency that runs visas) sets a short list of conditions, and if your occupation, qualification, work experience and pay all clear them, you can apply.
Our post on what changed on 24 August 2026 covers the rest of that day's changes. This one is the full explainer for this pathway.
You work in a skilled trade or a technician role that INZ names on a published list, you hold a trade or technical qualification, and you have already spent years in that field, including time in New Zealand. If you have never worked in New Zealand, this route is not open to you yet, because part of the experience it asks for has to be New Zealand experience.
INZ states the requirements on its eligible occupations page for this pathway. You need:
The two experience figures add up to four years in total, 1.5 of them (18 months) worked in New Zealand. INZ's announcement describes the pathway the same way: for people in "specified skill level 1 to 3 trades and technician occupations" with "at least 4 years of directly relevant experience gained post qualification, including 1.5 years in New Zealand" (INZ news, 5 March 2026).
These are separate tests: clearing three and missing one means you do not qualify yet.
This is a named list of occupations, not a general skill band. INZ publishes it on the page linked above using ANZSCO codes, the system that gives every job a number and a skill level; the eligible roles sit at skill levels 1 to 3.
We do not reproduce the list here: it is long, and INZ can change it. Look your job title up on INZ's page rather than assuming a similar-sounding title counts. If occupation codes are new to you, our post on New Zealand's occupation classification explains how they work.
Level 4 refers to the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework (NZQCF), the numbered scale New Zealand uses to rank qualifications. It is around the level of a trade certificate, so a completed apprenticeship qualification is often in range; anything higher counts too.
A qualification earned outside New Zealand has to be assessed as comparable to that level by NZQA, the national qualifications authority; our post on the NZQA qualification assessment walks through it. INZ also requires the qualification to be relevant to your occupation, so a level 4 qualification in an unrelated field does not carry this application.
Not necessarily, and this is the condition people most often get wrong. The word doing the work is "post-qualification": INZ counts only experience gained after you finished the qualification you rely on. Someone with fifteen years on the tools who finished their certificate three years ago has three years here, not fifteen.
Self-employment does not count towards the work experience requirements either, on INZ's Skilled Migrant Category pages. And the New Zealand share has its own condition: it must have been paid at the wage threshold.
INZ sets a wage threshold for the Skilled Migrant Category. It is based on the median wage (the wage in the middle when every New Zealand wage is lined up) and is "updated each year", so we do not print the figure here. INZ publishes the current amounts on its pay rates page.
Two things matter here. This pathway uses the plain Skilled Migrant Category threshold, set at the median wage, rather than one of the higher levels some other routes require. And once it is fixed for you it stays fixed: "Once your threshold is set, it does not change." For the New Zealand experience you are counting, the threshold that applies is the one in force when you started it, not today's.
Yes. Across the Skilled Migrant Category you need a job or job offer in New Zealand, it has to be with an accredited employer, and it has to be permanent or fixed-term for at least 12 months (INZ, Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa). Accreditation is something the employer applies for and holds, so ask a prospective employer directly whether they have it. Our post on the Accredited Employer Work Visa explains it, since that is the visa most people are on while building this experience.
The better-known Skilled Migrant Category route is points-based: you need "6 skilled resident points from your skills and work in New Zealand", from your qualification, an occupational registration or your income, plus up to 3 more from New Zealand work experience. Our guide to the Skilled Migrant Category explains it, and our free SMC points calculator adds the points up for you.
The two routes ask different questions. The points route rewards a high qualification, a registration or a high income, and a trade certificate sits low on that scale. This one asks only whether you are doing a listed job, with the right qualification behind you, for long enough, at the right pay.
The Skilled Migrant Category's general requirements apply here too. You must be "aged 55 or younger when you apply", "able to speak and understand English", "in good health" and "of good character", which means medical examinations and police certificates (police clearance certificates from the countries you have lived in). Partners and dependent children aged 16 and over also have to meet the English requirement.
The resident visa "lets you live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely", and you can "include your partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger in your visa application". The travel conditions on a first resident visa run for two years, after which most people apply for the Permanent Resident Visa, New Zealand's final status, which carries indefinite travel rights.
Our report has assessed this as its own New Zealand route since it opened on 24 August 2026, from the answers you give in the questionnaire. It checks your occupation against INZ's eligible roles for the pathway, checks whether your qualification reaches level 4 or higher, adds up your relevant skilled work experience and separately the share worked in New Zealand, and compares your pay with the Skilled Migrant Category wage threshold at the value we hold, which the report states so you can see what was applied.
It is equally clear about what it does not decide. The questionnaire does not link a particular qualification to a particular job, so the report cannot apply the post-qualification rule for you: it hands you a required checklist step telling you to count your years again with that rule applied, a step for the evidence INZ asks for, and a step asking you to check your occupation on INZ's list yourself, because that list uses a different occupation coding system from the questionnaire. It does not ask about self-employment, or about whether your qualification is relevant to your job, and it says so beside the requirement. It never tells you that you qualify: only INZ decides that.
The honest argument for a report here is what this post has just shown: several conditions that all have to hold at once, one of which quietly re-dates your career, and a pay bar fixed at a moment in your past. One questionnaire, with every New Zealand route measured against the same answers, beats reading four pages and hoping you read them the same way.
The questionnaire is free, and so is the eligibility summary at the end of it. Paying unlocks the full report, with the requirement-by-requirement detail and the checklist steps above.
To see how this pathway and New Zealand's other routes read against your own situation, start the free assessment for New Zealand, or read more on our New Zealand page. Before you apply, check the current rules on INZ's Skilled Migrant Category pages, which are the authority on all of this.
Answer our free questionnaire and see your eligibility summary instantly. You only pay to unlock your full personalized immigration report.