P18PPS

Hi there - has anyone recently gone from a PR to citizenship?? From initially "applying" to getting the black passport how long did the process take?

We got our PR in August 2005, and moved out weeks later so we come under the new rules whereby you have to have been in the country for 5 years before applying (rules changed April 05 I think).

If anyone's been through the process I'd be really interested to hear your timelines and experiences.

Thanks

BEVS

We arrived in NZ June 2004 , coming in on temp work visas. We gained our PR November 2004 so the 3 year rule applied to us.

We applied for a Grant of Citizenship around March 2008, downloading the forms from the Internal Affairs website

10th April 2008, we received a letter confirming the application and allocating a reference number. The letter advised it could be approx 6 months to process the applications. It also stated that they would request our documents 2 months before we were assigned a case officer .

10th June 2008. We received a letter stating that our application would be assigned a case officer in approx ten weeks. This enclosed a courier pack for us to send our documents and UK passports.

8th September 2008 Standard letter from Internal Affairs detailing our names, place of birth and ages. You are asked to contact Internal Affairs if any of those details are in any way incorrect.
I think our certificates and UK passports were returned with this letter .

In any case, should you require your passport for any reason, you simply contact internal affairs for its early return.

28 November 2008 Letter to state our grant of citizenship has been approved and is conditional on attending the Citizenship Ceremony and swearing allegiance etc. You have 12 months to attend a ceremony. Ceremonies are arranged by the ceremonies team and you wait for a letter to state the date.

Also received two passport application forms. You cannot apply for the NZ passport however, until you have the Citizenship Certificate which is given to you at the ceremony after you have sworn allegience .

Not sure on the exact date as husband received the letter about the ceremony. I was in the UK at the time.
Anyway, letter received from our local council beginning of February 2009 to state the date of the ceremony. It asked that you confirm attendance and how many guests you might bring.

5th March 2009. Attended the citizenship ceremony and received our Certificates of Citizenship and our tree.

6th March 09 Letter from local member of parliament congratulating us on becoming citizens.

17th March 09 Received complimentary photos of us at the ceremony.

Currently, 4th May 2009, we still have the passport applications to send off. Cost is $300 but what with one thing and another , we haven't got round to doing this yet.

Hope this helps.

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If you received your PR on or after 21st April 2005 , then you have 5 years to wait from your PR date.

harrogate girl

Hi Bev WOW just down loaded application forms on Sunday so all this information will be of good use THANK you so much as we did not belive it would take that long..but now we do
Lin

BEVS

As with other offical forms , you will be able to visit your local Justice of the Peace to have your identities confirmed and the application forms endorsed. This service is free.

harrogate girl

Thanks I work with one so that should not be to hard!! why free we have to pay back in the uk.

Lin

P18PPS

Thanks, really interesting and informative.

newkiwi

We applied for citizenship late feb/ early march 06, and i had my passport in hand the towards the end of november. that included getting approval for citizenship, waiting for a ceremony, attending, applying for a passport and getting the passport approved and sent out.

pixi-dust

We just had our citizenship ceremony on Friday
We were granted our PR after the April cut off date in May 05 but had a successful application accepted before the cut off date. There must be a handful of people in this situation and you can apply for citizenship after only three years.

We arrived in NZ in October 2005 but we had activated our PR in the June as we'd come over for job interviews.

We applied in December 2008, got letter saying they had our documents about 5 or 6 weeks later.
Towards the end of March we got a letter to say we'd been accepted and we would hear in due course when the ceremony was.
A month later the letter arrived and the ceremony was scheduled for 10 days time.
So from start to finish we were 5 months.
We haven't applied for NZ passports yet as new ones are coming out soon and we're going to wait and apply for them.

sarahw

Hi - I'd be interested to hear more on this - our blue stickers were dated 27 May 05 and our application was obviously accepted before then. Do you recall what date your application was accepted? Thanks

pixi-dust

gosh now you're asking! I'm really sorry I just can't remember.
But it doesnt matter - just so long as yours was in before the 21st April cut off.

this is frm the Internal Affairs website.

sarahw

Rats - think we missed out by a week!!!

harrogate girl

Hi
That goes for me as well dam (
Lin

pixi-dust

When did you 2 put your applications ( ITA's ) actually in?
Sarah if you got your stickers on the 27 may 05 ( we got ours on the 5th may 05) did you not have your ITA in before the 21st April. It must have come through incredibly fast if you didnt!

sarahw

Hi pixi-dust. No we handed our ITA into NZ House in early May, phone interview 2 weeks later, passports back a week after that.

Now if only citizenship was as quick..!

pixi-dust

Aw that's such a shame.
Well I'm sure the next couple of years will zoom past. We were 6 months 'late' in applying for ours as the time just vanished.
Sorry to have got your hopes up.

ETA it's only a little more than a year now!!