Loading
Just a moment while this page opens.
Just a moment while this page opens.
Just a moment while this page opens.
Almost every page about moving to Canada or New Zealand uses three words as if everyone already knew them: visa, permanent residence and citizenship. They are three levels of permission to be in a country, and they usually come in that order. This post explains each one in plain words, for both countries, then the other words you will meet as soon as you start reading official pages.
You are thinking about moving to Canada or New Zealand and have not yet learned the vocabulary. You may have heard that a friend "got PR" or that someone "is on a work visa" without being sure what either means. Start here, then go on to the Canada or New Zealand pages for the routes themselves.
A visa is temporary permission. It lets you enter a country and stay for a fixed purpose and a fixed time. The three purposes you will meet most are visiting, studying and working.
The two countries use slightly different words. In New Zealand everything is called a visa: a visitor visa, a student visa, a work visa. In Canada the document that lets you study or work is called a permit (a study permit, a work permit), and the visa (or electronic travel authorisation) is the separate paper that lets you board a plane and enter. When a Canadian page says "permit", it means the same kind of temporary permission a New Zealand page calls a visa.
Whatever it is called, a temporary visa or permit has three features:
Canada's work permits come in two types, and the official page states the difference simply: an employer-specific work permit needs a job offer, and an open work permit does not (IRCC: work in Canada temporarily). New Zealand's main work visa for people with a job offer is the Accredited Employer Work Visa, which can be granted for up to 5 years depending on the job and can lead to a resident visa (INZ: Accredited Employer Work Visa). We explain that visa in our AEWV post.
Permanent residence is the right to live, work and study in the country for as long as you like. It is not tied to an employer or a school, and it does not run out the way a visa does. People shorten it to "PR", and "getting PR" is where most of the routes on this site lead.
It is not the same as being a citizen: a permanent resident does not get the country's passport and, as Canada's official page puts it, cannot vote or run for political office, and some jobs needing a high-level security clearance are closed to them (IRCC: understand PR status).
When you become a permanent resident of Canada you receive a PR card. It proves your status, and you show it with your passport when you return to Canada by airline or another commercial carrier. Permanent residence itself does not end when the card expires: the card is the proof, not the status.
Spending too long outside Canada can cost you the status. To keep it, you must have been in Canada for at least 730 days during the last five years. The days do not need to be in a row, and some time spent abroad can count (IRCC: understand PR status). This is the residency obligation.
New Zealand splits permanent residence into two steps, and the names are confusingly close.
A resident visa is the one you get first. It lets you live, work and study in New Zealand indefinitely, but it carries travel conditions with an expiry date: if you are outside New Zealand after those travel conditions expire, the resident visa expires too.
A Permanent Resident Visa removes that limit. It has no conditions at all, and you can travel in and out of New Zealand indefinitely as long as the visa sits in a valid passport. To apply you must have held a resident visa for at least 2 years in a row and show a commitment to New Zealand; one way to show it is having been in New Zealand for at least 184 days in each of the last 2 years (INZ: Permanent Resident Visa).
So in New Zealand "resident" already means you can stay for good; "permanent resident" means you can also come and go for good.
Citizenship is full membership of the country. A citizen gets the passport and can vote. It comes after permanent residence, not instead of it, and it takes years of living in the country as a resident first.
In Canada, an adult applying for citizenship must be a permanent resident and must have been physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days (3 years) during the 5 years before applying. Applicants aged 18 to 54 also show adequate English or French at level 4 of the Canadian Language Benchmarks (the scale from 1 to 12 that Canada uses to describe language ability) and pass a test on Canada's history, geography, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens (IRCC: citizenship eligibility).
In New Zealand, you need a current resident or permanent resident visa, and you must have been living in New Zealand as a resident for at least the last 5 years, physically present for 1,350 days across those 5 years and at least 240 days in each 12-month period. You also need to be able to hold a basic conversation in English, be of good character, and intend to keep living in New Zealand (govt.nz: presence requirements, govt.nz: requirements for NZ citizenship).
Most people do not arrive as permanent residents. The common shape of a move is:
Not every route needs the first step. Canada's Express Entry system can select skilled workers who have never been to Canada, and New Zealand's Skilled Migrant Category is the equivalent points-based residence route. Family routes are different again: a Canadian citizen or permanent resident can sponsor a spouse or partner, and New Zealand has partner visas for both the temporary and the resident stage. If you start by studying in Canada, see the study permit to permanent residence path.
HowToMoveTo's free questionnaire and full report cover both kinds of route for Canada and New Zealand: the temporary ones (work and study visas and permits) and the permanent residence ones. Every route is explained in the same plain words this post uses, so you never need to know a term before you read your result.
The report does not tell you that you qualify. For each route it shows how the route's requirements compare with the answers you gave, requirement by requirement, so you can see what you already meet and what you would still need.
You do not need any more vocabulary than this to begin. Answer the free questionnaire in your own words and let the report do the translating: start your assessment.
Answer our free questionnaire and see your eligibility summary instantly. You only pay to unlock your full personalized immigration report.