New Zealand PR points calculator

The minimum is 6 points, from one skill category

Six points are required on the Points-based pathway, and they come from one skill category or from one skill category with skilled work experience in New Zealand. Two categories are never added together. The instructions print it this way:

Nothing else scores. The section holds four tables (income, qualification, registration and skilled work experience in New Zealand) and no other, so there are no points for age, a partner, family, a region or work outside New Zealand.

From the values in those tables, exactly 6 is reached by 6 from a skill category alone, 5 and 1, 4 and 2 or 3 and 3 (category first, experience second). That is arithmetic from the tables, not a sentence of the instructions. They set no figure above 6 and attach nothing to passing it.

New Zealand PR points table

These are the four tables of SR3.25 and SR3.30 in full: 3 income rows, 9 qualification rows with the three values an assessment by level can give, 120 registrations under 34 bodies, and three bands of experience. Points come from one of income, qualification (either qualification table) or registration, and the experience table may be added to it.

Three pathways, and what decides which are open to you

The principal applicant has to meet one pathway: the Points-based pathway, the Skilled Work Experience pathway or the Trades and Technician pathway. What routes a person between them is the job: its ANZSCO skill level, whether the occupation is on one of three lists, and what it pays. The table sets the job test of each pathway beside what the pathway asks for beyond the job, in the instructions’ words.

The lists narrow the choice. An occupation on the Red List leaves only the Points-based pathway; one on the Amber List has requirements of its own on the Skilled Work Experience pathway; and the Trades and Technician pathway is open only to the occupations of Appendix 23. All three lists are printed on this page, under the pathway each belongs to.

One pathway is named in the expression of interest (EOI), and the residence application has to be made under the pathway the invitation to apply was for (SR3.5). A person can meet more than one. The instructions do not say which to prefer, and neither does this page.

What every pathway requires

No pathway is open without current employment, or an offer of employment, in New Zealand: the section of each pathway opens with those words. The principal applicant must also be within the age limit on the day the residence application is made, which is a requirement and not a score.

The job

The job has to be full-time, with an accredited employer, permanent or for a fixed term the instructions set, and genuine. A contract for services is accepted only on further conditions, one of which is an immigration officer’s judgement that no calculator can make.

What “genuine” means is set out in a section of its own, which the calculator prints whole under Conditions this calculator does not ask about. It is a condition this page states and does not test.

The skill level of the job

The skill level is the one ANZSCO gives the occupation, in the version the instructions name, and an immigration officer decides whether the job matches the occupation claimed.

English, health and character

The principal applicant must meet the minimum standard of English, and the instructions give no way round it: an application is declined where the standard is not met. A test result is one kind of evidence, at the scores below. The section also accepts some qualifications, and its other kinds of evidence are in SR2.10 itself.

Health and character are requirements for everyone included in the application. This page says only that they exist: it cannot assess either.

Occupations where the law requires registration

Where the occupation is one that needs registration by law, holding it is part of being suitably qualified for the job. This is a different list from the registrations that earn points, and it is marked effective 9 October 2023.

The SMC wage threshold, and which date’s figure is yours

Every pay test on this visa is a cell of one table: seven date ranges by six columns. Each cell below is the figure the instructions print for it. None is worked out here by multiplying, and the test is pay at or above the figure.

Which row is yours

The row is fixed by a date. It is the row in effect when the skilled work experience in New Zealand you are counting began. Where the pathway needs no experience of you, it is the row in effect when you are invited to apply. And where your work visa was granted in the five months before that experience began, it is the row for the day the visa was granted.

So a person whose one skill category gives 6 points alone needs no experience, and meets the figure at invitation and not the figure of any start date. The calculator shows today’s row for that case, because the invitation has not happened yet.

The instructions’ own example of the visa date, whole:

Two things the words do not settle, and the calculator says so instead of guessing. They do not say whether a visa granted exactly five months before the start counts. And they state no limit on how old a start date may be: their examples hold a start date’s figure for the length of the look-back period, counted to different events and ending on different days, so a start date exactly that long before today is shown as not settled, like an older one. Where an example says “more than” or “over” a figure, the test is still at least the figure.

How pay is measured against the figure

The figure you compare is a guaranteed rate for each hour, reckoned as SR2.5 sets out. That section is written for a proposed employment agreement and is marked effective 9 October 2023. In short:

• Paid a salary? Divide the annual salary by 52, then by the hours you will work each week: the calculator’s salary helper shows the working. For a salary that is not annual, the relevant number of weeks is used in place of 52.
• Pay not confirmed yet, but within a range? Use the lowest rate.
• Does your employment agreement specify a reasonable deduction from your salary or wages for goods or services, or, for accommodation provided in connection with the job, a reasonable deduction or an accommodation allowance? That value counts as pay: add it back.
• Leave out tool and uniform allowances and other employment-related deductions or allowances, and any piece rates, commissions or bonuses that depend on performance and are not guaranteed.
• Do your hours vary? The maximum hours are used to calculate the rate.
• Does your pay differ from one pay period to another? The figure is the average guaranteed rate per hour over a pay period, paid leave included.

The instructions state no schedule for changing the table.

The three skill categories

Income, qualification, and New Zealand registration, licensing or certification are alternatives. Points come from one of them: the instructions print “Or” between the income table and the qualification table, and the registration table follows. The calculator scores the category you choose and never adds a second.

Income points

Income gives 3, 4 or 6 points at three multiples of the SMC wage threshold. On the row “9 March 2026 onwards” those are $52.50 an hour for 3, $70 an hour for 4 and $105.00 an hour for 6. Pay under the lowest of them earns no income points. That alone is not ineligibility: another category may still give points, and the job’s own pay test is a separate condition.

Adding experience to income points carries a condition of its own: the experience must have been paid at the same multiple. The instructions give the rule and an example.

Qualification points

New Zealand and overseas qualifications are scored in separate rows. An overseas qualification needs an International Qualification Assessment (IQA), or a place on the List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment; with neither it earns nothing in this category.

Three points exist by one route only: an assessment that recognises a level 8 qualification without naming a listed type. That route also needs a bachelor’s degree at levels 8 and 9.

The top value for a New Zealand master’s, 6 points, needs a bachelor’s degree and at least 30 weeks of full-time study in New Zealand. Without them the row “Level 9 New Zealand master’s” applies, at 5. What full-time study means is defined in another chapter, and whether a programme was full-time is an officer’s decision.

The table has no row below a level 7 bachelor’s degree, and this section sets no condition that the qualification be relevant to the job. The exempt list is long and is linked here, not reproduced: Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual, Appendix 17 (Effective 24/08/2026) (opens in a new tab) verified 10 Oct 2026

New Zealand registration points

The registration must be held, be a row of the registration table and meet the requirement printed in its row. Provisional, trainee, intern and limited forms do not count unless the row names them, and experience counts only from the day the registration was gained.

Immigration New Zealand’s own points tool, as saved on 10 October 2026, differs from SR3.30 in two places; the table says where, and this page follows the instructions. The occupations where the law requires registration are a different list, with a different purpose.

Points for skilled work experience in New Zealand

Experience has three bands, each with its own look-back period, and the period is counted back from the day the residence application is submitted. It adds to one skill category and scores nothing alone.

To count, the work must have been full-time, in New Zealand, lawful, and paid at least what the pathway requires. It need not be continuous. The employment it was gained in must itself have been genuine, a condition this page states and does not test.

This calculator applies the reckoning of SR2.5 to the pay of past experience. The instructions do not say so in terms.

A contractor is the exception to the rule that 6 from a category needs no experience: a person on a contract for services still has to complete a period of it.

There is no points cut-off

In the sections of the instructions read on 10 October 2026 there is no pool, no ranking, no draw and no cut-off. An expression of interest is answered with an invitation to apply, or a refusal, on the claims made in it, and 6 points is a fixed threshold on one pathway. This is a statement about those sections as read on that date, and it is checked again each time the page is.

Six points is also only one requirement of several, so reaching it is not eligibility. And a claim in an EOI has to be true. The instructions give three grounds on which an application can be declined: false or misleading information; relevant, potentially prejudicial information withheld; and a failure to tell an officer of a fact or material change after the EOI. They say what an officer need not find first.

This result is a reading of your answers and not a reason to make a claim.

The Skilled Work Experience pathway

This pathway has no points and no total. It is a set of requirements: a job at ANZSCO skill level 1 to 3 that is not on the Red List and pays the multiple the instructions set, and work experience in two parts that may not overlap. SR3.35 requires no qualification and mentions none. An occupation on the Amber List meets a higher multiple, and its earlier experience must have been in New Zealand too. Whether experience is “directly relevant” is for the employer and an immigration officer to judge, and its skill level is an officer’s determination.

The calculator works out the job, list and pay items from your answers and asks the rest as yes or no. Each item is printed here with the paragraphs it rests on, so it can be read without the calculator. No item is scored and none is counted.

The Trades and Technician pathway

This pathway also has no points and no total. The job must be in one of the 109 occupations of Appendix 23 and pay at least the SMC wage threshold. It needs a relevant qualification at level 4 or above, with a credit rule for one gained in New Zealand and an assessment for one gained overseas, and work experience in two parts, all of it after the qualification.

The calculator works out the job, list and pay items from your answers and asks the rest as yes or no. Each item is printed here with the paragraphs it rests on, so it can be read without the calculator. No item is scored and none is counted.

An occupation that has since left the list is covered by a paragraph of its own:

What changed on 24 August 2026

The Skilled Migrant Category sections changed on 24 August 2026. Until then there was one route and no pathways, one qualification scale for every country, experience bands that were longer at the top and in the middle, and a pay measure called the median wage. The left-hand column quotes the instructions as they stood to 23 August 2026; they are superseded, apply now only to an application on an invitation issued before 24 August 2026 (below), and are printed here to show the difference.

If a calculator shows a bachelor’s degree at the lowest value for every country, or one point for each year of experience, it is showing the scale in force to 23 August 2026. Totals of 100, 160 or 180 points are in no current section and not in the version before it; this page cannot date them.

One group is still assessed on the earlier instructions, which is why the calculator’s first question asks about it:

What the official points tool does not ask

Immigration New Zealand has a points tool of its own, on its page for this visa (opens in a new tab) , and this site is independent of it. What follows describes that tool’s questions as saved on 10 October 2026. It is an account of what the tool covers, not a criticism of it.

• It scores the Points-based pathway. It asks nothing about the other two pathways.
• It asks nothing about age, the job, the employer, the hours or English.
• It asks the job’s pay, as a multiple of the threshold, only where income is the category chosen, and never asks the job’s skill level.
• It takes experience by its length and look-back period, and asks nothing about what it was paid or when it began.
• It asks nothing about the 30 weeks of full-time study behind a New Zealand master’s top value.
• It shows no date and no section number.

This page asks each of those, prints the paragraph behind every question, and gives a section and a date for every row. Where the two disagree on a value, the instructions decide.

A worked example

Take someone in a job at ANZSCO skill level 4, with an overseas bachelor’s degree that has an International Qualification Assessment, who began counted work in New Zealand on 1 September 2025, will have completed the band “1 year and 6 months in the prior 3 years” by the time the residence application is made, and is paid $48.00 an hour. The row “Level 7 overseas bachelor’s degree” gives 4 points and that band 2, which makes 6.

The points are not the end of it. A job at that skill level must pay the column “1.5 times the SMC wage threshold”, and the row for that start date, “18 August 2025 – 8 March 2026”, prints $50.34 there. $48.00 is under it, so on these answers the calculator shows a message in place of the total: “Not eligible on the Points-based pathway on these answers”. The total alone would have misled.

A second person, briefly: a registered nurse in a skill level 1 to 3 job, 3 points for the registration and 3 for “2 years in the prior 4 years”, who began on 1 April 2024 at $34.00 an hour. Her row, “28 February 2024 – 17 August 2025”, prints $31.61 in the threshold column, her pay is at or above it, and the calculator shows 6 points once every check is answered, with the conditions it cannot check named beneath.

Partners and children

Nothing about a partner or a child changes the points or the pathway: every points provision is the principal applicant’s. A partner and dependent children can be included in the application, within the definitions and age bands the residence instructions set, and each person included has to meet health and character requirements. The calculator lists one more condition it does not ask about: “English for a partner and for dependent children aged 16 and older”. This page states no charge for English tuition, or for anything else.

Which edition this is, and how it is re-checked

The source is the Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual, whose entry page is titled with the issue date 7 October 2026. Each section carries its own “Effective” line, and a section keeps its line until it is next changed, so the lines below differ. The official pages were read on 10 October 2026 and last checked against this page on 10 October 2026; the calculator’s result shows the same two dates.

The section numbers moved on 24 August 2026, so a citation written before then can point at a different section now (the table in “What changed” gives the two that matter here). When a section this page rests on changes, the ruleset behind the page is rebuilt from the new text and reviewed, and the change is recorded below with its date.

• 10 October 2026. First version. The points of the Points-based pathway, the SMC wage threshold table, the 120 registrations and the three occupation lists, read from Immigration New Zealand’s Operational Manual as fetched on 10 October 2026: sections marked effective 24 August 2026 (SR3.10, SR3.25, SR3.30, SR3.35, SR3.40 and Appendices 21 to 23).

What this page cannot show: a fee, a processing time, a forecast of any kind, or a decision. It cannot check health, character, or anything an immigration officer decides, and it never tells a reader that they are eligible. If something here differs from the instructions, the instructions are right; tell us and it will be checked against the source.