Immigration decisions have life-changing consequences. They determine whether families can live together, whether children are born with both parents present, and whether people can lawfully visit loved ones in New Zealand. For offshore visa applicants, however, these decisions are often made with broad decision-making authority and limited accountability.
Increasingly, we are seeing offshore visa decisions that rely on standardised or templated wording. Decline letters frequently state that INZ is “not satisfied” that an applicant has a genuine intention to travel or sufficient ties to their home country. Beyond repeating policy language, these decisions often provide no real explanation for how those conclusions were reached or why the evidence supplied was rejected.
Decisions Without Reasons
Immigration Instructions A1.15 require visa officers to inform applicants of the reasons for a decision. However, a change introduced in May 2025 links this obligation to section 27 of the Immigration Act, which only requires reasons to be given for applications made onshore or within an immigration control area. This appears to open the door to giving no real reasons for an offshore decline yet still abide by Immigration Instructions.
The lack of concrete reasons is particularly egregious for offshore applicants because they have no guaranteed right of reconsideration and no ability to challenge decisions through judicial review under s 186(3)(a) of the Immigration Act. While advisers can request INZ’s internal notes under the Privacy Act to understand what happened behind the scenes, this does not excuse the failure to explain the decision at the time it is made. Even when those concerns are addressed in a new application, applicants will receive the same templated refusal again.
Decision-Making Without Review
Immigration officers are entrusted with significant authority when assessing offshore applications. That authority is necessary, but it must be exercised fairly.
For many offshore applicants, key safeguards are missing. There is often:
- no right of appeal or reconsideration
- no internal review of the merits of a decision
- a complaints process focused only on procedure, not decision quality
As a result, poorly reasoned or inconsistent decisions can go uncorrected.
Recent RNZ reporting on “flawed” visa decisions reflects what immigration professionals have long observed: offshore visa decision-making often lacks transparency, consistency, and meaningful review. When mistakes occur, applicants are usually left with only one option – reapplying at significant financial and emotional cost.
Case Examples
A Partnership Visa Declined Five Times
In one case, a married couple in a genuine partnership of more than three years made multiple offshore applications. By the fifth application, the applicant who is the wife of a New Zealander was pregnant with their first child. The application included extensive evidence of the relationship, multiple visits, and clear plans to live together in New Zealand.
Despite this, the application was declined again. The decision was clearly templated and made no meaningful reference to the partnership and offered no explanation for rejecting the evidence. It simply stated that INZ was “not satisfied” as to the applicant’s lawful purpose and ties to her home country.
A statement of non-satisfaction is not a reason. Applicants are entitled to understand why their evidence has been rejected. It is difficult to reconcile how a pregnant wife travelling to join her husband through recognised partnership pathways could be said to lack a lawful purpose. In cases like this, reapplying is no longer a realistic solution.
A Visitor Visa and a Permanent Penalty
In another case, a visitor visa applicant sought to visit elderly parents in New Zealand who were medically unfit to go and see them overseas. The application was declined twice due to an overstaying issue that occurred more than a decade ago.
Despite lawful employment, stable family circumstances, and extensive international travel since then, the applicant was deemed not bona fide with a focus on the past overstaying issue. The decision effectively imposed a permanent penalty that does not exist in visitor visa instructions. A limited visa could have addressed any concerns, but refusal appeared to be the easier option.
Why the Complaints Process Falls Short
INZ has pointed to a reduction in complaints as evidence that the system is working in the Radio NZ report. However, complaints do not assess the merits of a decision. Advisers and lawyers know that complaints rarely lead to meaningful outcomes and often advise clients to reapply instead. There are probably less complaints because it is well-known that the complaints process is usually a waste of time.
A reduction in complaints does not necessarily indicate better decision-making—it may reflect futility.
What Needs to Change
While some immigration officers do provide careful, evidence-based decisions, it is concerning if a policy, official or not is creeping into decision making to issue decline letters that do no more than quote the immigration instructions relied upon, rather than engaging with the specific evidence of bona fides, or sufficient funds for maintenance, in particular.
Fair decision-making requires:
- proper engagement with the evidence
- clear and reasoned explanations
- internal review options for offshore decisions
- accountability for decision outcomes
- training to reduce unconscious bias
Offshore applicants deserve the same standards of fairness as onshore applicants. Geography should not determine justice.
Until meaningful review and accountability are built into the offshore decision-making framework, flawed decisions will continue to cause unnecessary harm and undermine confidence in New Zealand’s immigration system. This potentially drives increased reliance on an external review process such as the Office of the Ombudsman.
If you have received a decline decision that lacks reasons or appears procedurally flawed, contact us, we can look at how it may effectively be challenged.