Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Visa fees across nearly all migrant categories will skyrocket from 1 October, but applicants from Pacific countries will largely escape the steep increase.
National campaigned on making the visa processing system largely user-pays in order to recoup what it called a heavy taxpayer subsidy.
In a statement released on Friday, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford said the move would free up more than $563 million over the next four years.
"The changes we're making are shifting the cost to those benefiting from the system. We're ensuring it is self-funding and more efficient," Stanford said.
Migrants applying for the skilled residence category will be charged $6450, up from $4290 currently.
Partners applying for residency will see their fees climb to $5360, up from $2750.
Student visas, meanwhile, will double from $375 to $750. Post-study work visas will jump from $700 to $1670.
Applicants from Pacific countries will continue to be subsidised, which Stanford said was due to "New Zealand's ongoing commitment to supporting its Pacific neighbours".
The new charges also reflected the increased cost of assessing more high-risk applications and dealing with higher levels of migrant exploitation, as well as IT upgrade costs, Stanford said.
"We expect that once further improvements are made to modernise immigration systems in the coming years, the running costs will reduce over time and efficiencies will improve."
Stanford said the charges remained competitive compared to countries like Australia and the United Kingdom.
Green Party immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March told RNZ the government was burdening migrant workers with higher fees in order to fund its tax cuts.
"The government is using migrants as cash cows," he said.
Menéndez March said the changes would leave migrants more vulnerable to exploitation if they were forced to, for example, work cash-in-hand jobs to try cover the increased costs.
He said the so-called "self-funding" approach for Immigration New Zealand was irresponsible.
"It will leave the agency reliant on volatile visa volumes and more vulnerable to global economic conditions and events, which we saw a few years ago with the pandemic."
