[MB]

I have asked this before -- quite recently, too -- but I'm asking again because I don't think anyone suggested an answer last time although we had a productive exchange about something else. Anyway, here goes:

when I go to NZ later this month, by myself for a 9-day trip (I'm the spouse of the principal applicant), do I just enter NZ via my PR visa sticker in my US passport even though our proper family migration isn't until July?

I'm hoping so and that I will just get my conversion to my full PR permit a month or two earlier than my wife and child. After all, there are no conditions on the 'Conditions' section of my sticker.

Or will I be making a bloomer if I do this?

[xanctus]

Bump for Matt's question, cause I have the same question...

[freeflyer]

I would have thought that when you enter NZ (with PR sticker in your passport) that you won't have much choice and that your PR will start from that date.
They will then give you Returning Residents Visa enabling you to go in and out of the country for 2years.
As you are planning on moving in July anyway , the 2 year RRV should'nt affect you.

BTW sorry if I have misunderstood your question , and answered complete rubbish.

Anna

[baboonworld]

i'd have though that as long as you did your 186(?) days in NZ in the next 3 years u will beokay.

I dont think applying for a RRV is a biggie??? (correct me if i am wrong)

[Bubbles]

Still not going to suggest an answer Matt, i don't have one, sorry.

But GOOD LUCK with the trip.

All the best

[veronica]

Hiya, I am pretty sure that the entry into the country automatically starts the visa and that it matters not that you are not the primary applicant. You hold a separate passport with its own work visa and there is nothing to say you have to travel together. Its no different to anyone deciding their spouse/partner comes over to start setting up here while they close down in their home country.

[MB]

Thanks so much, everyone. I think Veronica's answer chimes almost exactly with my own ruminations about this. I think the only thing that was giving me pause was that NZIS seem so careful about areas such as the 'sovereignty' of the concept of the Principal Applicant, and also about your telling NZIS of any change in circumstances before entering NZ, that they might just be leery if the non-Principal showed up first and alone....

...but then by this stage any given family has already demonstrated its closeness via joint mortgage bills, photos, etc., and I guess that NZIS are already assured that you're all going to be turning up in NZ within a few months anyway. Their airport immigration computers would ultimately red flag any disparity in arrivals/non-arrivals, presumably, and they'd come knocking. :uhoh :bobby

[MB]

By the way, a propos nothing and I'm certainly not saying this in a whining tone, but I'm slightly surprised that neither this thread's question nor my first version of it a couple of weeks ago didn't attract a flurry of answers based on personal experience.

The fact that it didn't is just dandy... it's merely of passing interest to me that one or two dozen forum regulars haven't already gone to NZ in a fragmented way like this and reported the answer to my question based on first-hand history. I'd have thought this was a very common situation, but maybe it ain't. Or maybe I'm daft and the question has been asked loads of times already.

Just appeals to my curiosity about how people are actually doing their NZ migration as opposed to what one might have predicted. :yes

Anyway, thanks again to the posters! :nice1

[RoadRunner]

Hi Matt,
Agreed that the lack of first-hand experience postings a bit odd.

I can't answer your question either, unfortunately. I am leaving next Tuesday, several weeks before my husband. But I am the principal applicant so it wouldn't really be a test of what you've described.

RoadRunner