The Minister of Immigration has agreed to lapse visa applications that cannot be approved due to the border restrictions. Immigration New Zealand will refund application fees and levies for applications being lapsed. Immigration New Zealand will refund and return temporary visa applications received from people OUTSIDE New Zealand who lodged applications before and after 10 August 2020, when offshore processing was suspended.
Immigration New Zealand currently has about 50,000 temporary visa applications on hand that will be refunded. These are mainly visitor, student and work visa applications.
Most applicants felt it was criminal of Immigration New Zealand to allow [offshore visas lodgement] and accept visa fees and “do nothing” with these applications. In our opinion, the immigration system was not equipped to handle the anomaly stop visa applications from being lodged. There was also a hope border restrictions would have been lifted by December 2020.
For further details on the refund process, read here