INZ Operational Manual: Residence, S4.10
If you’ve been accepted by Immigration New Zealand as a refugee and been granted citizenship or residence, the Refugee Family Support residence category allows you to sponsor some of your family for New Zealand residence. The purpose of this is to help with your resettlement by allowing you to sponsor family members who don’t qualify for residence under any of the other New Zealand residence categories.
The first step is for you, the accepted refugee, to apply to be selected as a sponsor under this scheme. If you’re selected, your family member then applies for a Residence Visa within the next 12 months. The sponsored family member has to meet the usual health and character requirements (see the chapter “Immigration”, under “Health, character, and money”).
Only 300 people are accepted under the Refugee Family Support category each year (and this includes any partners, children or other family members that the sponsored person brings with them). In recent years, you’ve only been able to sponsor family members under the Refugee Family Support residence category if you come under “Tier 1” of this category, which means that you currently have no immediate family in New Zealand.
If you sponsor a family member under the Refugee Family Support category, you’ll have to make sure they have an adequate place to live for the next two years.