What Accreditation and Hiring a Migrant Actually Cost

Ask most employers what it costs to hire a migrant worker and they'll quote the visa fee. That's the smallest, simplest part of the picture — and focusing on it is how businesses end up under-budgeting for the whole exercise. Here's a more honest view of what's involved, and why the headline numbers rarely tell the real story.

The government fees are the easy part

There are three distinct sets of Immigration New Zealand fees along the way, and they stack:

• Accreditation — priced by type. Standard accreditation (up to five workers) sits at the lower end, high-volume accreditation costs more, and controlling third-party (labour hire) accreditation is several times higher again.
• The job check — a separate fee for each role you want to fill, payable before the worker can apply.
• The visa itself — the worker's AEWV application, which includes an immigration levy on top of the base fee.

As a rough sense of scale in 2026, a straightforward standard-accreditation-plus-one-role hire runs into the low thousands of dollars in government fees alone. But these figures are set by Immigration New Zealand and change regularly, so any number you read online should be treated as indicative, not final.

The costs that don't show up on the fee schedule

This is where budgets go wrong. Beyond the official fees, a realistic hire usually involves:

• Advertising — for many roles you must genuinely advertise locally first and be able to prove no suitable New Zealander was available.
• Settlement support — you're obligated to help new migrant workers settle, which has a real time and resource cost.
• Professional advice — most employers don't run accreditation, job checks, and visa support in-house, because the risk of getting it wrong is high.
• Time — processing takes weeks at each stage, and a role you needed filled now may be months away from a start date.
• Relocation and onboarding — bringing someone from overseas often means flights, initial accommodation, and a longer runway to productivity.

The most expensive cost of all: getting it wrong

The biggest number in this whole exercise is rarely a fee — it's the cost of a mistake. A declined accreditation, a job check that doesn't hold up, or a visa refused because the paperwork didn't align means lost time, a role left unfilled, and sometimes fees paid twice. For labour-hire and high-volume employers, a compliance failure can jeopardise your accreditation entirely. Budgeting properly means budgeting to get it right the first time.

What this means for planning

If you're weighing up migrant recruitment, the question isn't just "what's the visa fee" — it's "what's the total cost, over what timeline, and what's the risk." A role filled three months late, or an accreditation that has to be reapplied for, costs far more than the fees themselves.

Every case is different

Fees, levies, and requirements change, and your real cost depends on your accreditation type, the number and nature of the roles, and your industry's advertising and settlement obligations. A proper budget is built around your specific situation — not a generic figure from a web page.