Information on Licensed Immigration Advisers
A person must be licensed by the Immigration Advisers Authority to give advice on New Zealand immigration. Lawyers and Citizens Advice Bureau workers are however exempted from being licensed. Education agents based abroad may offer advice only on student visas.
Apart from these exempt people, if anybody else from any part of the world wants to offer New Zealand immigration advice, they need to be licensed according to the law.
This licensing system was introduced in 2008 amidst growing public and government concerns that migrants were being duped and exploited by unscrupulous agents.
About 220 advisers were thereby licensed based on industry experience; this number gradually grew to about 500 in 2012.
In 2013, a Graduate Certificate in New Zealand Immigration Advice became a requisite qualification for advisers to become licensed. This was a 6-month full-time or one-year part time qualification course offered online - by the e Bay of Plenty Polytechnic.