Most employers who get a post-accreditation check are not in trouble. That is worth saying first, because the letter does not read that way.
A post-accreditation check is Immigration New Zealand confirming that an accredited employer has done what it undertook to do. It can arrive without warning. It typically asks you to evidence that you have paid the agreed wage, provided the agreed hours, met your employment law obligations, and kept the records that prove all three.
If you have, it is an administrative exercise. If you haven't, it is the beginning of a much longer conversation — and accreditation problems end up being business problems, because they affect every migrant worker you employ, not just the one whose file prompted the check.
Why checks are increasing
Immigration New Zealand has shifted from an educational posture to an enforcement one. That shift has been underway for a while and is now well established, with more checks, more investigations, and accreditation suspended or revoked where employers fall short.
The logic is straightforward. The accreditation system is built on employer undertakings — you tell INZ what you will do, INZ takes you at your word, and the visa is granted on that basis. A system built on undertakings only works if somebody checks them. Post-accreditation checks are that mechanism.
Role inflation is part of the same picture. INZ has had significant and ongoing concerns about roles being described at a higher skill level than the actual duties support. A check that compares the job as approved against the job as performed is how that gets found.
What a check typically asks for
Expect requests along these lines. This is not an exhaustive list, and the scope varies.
Wage evidence. Payroll records showing what you have actually paid the migrant worker, across the whole period, against what was approved. This is the most common area of difficulty, and usually not through bad faith — a rate that was correct at approval and was never revisited when thresholds moved.
Hours evidence. Records showing the hours actually worked and paid against the hours guaranteed in the employment agreement. Guaranteed hours are a guarantee, not an aspiration.
The employment agreement itself. Matching what was approved. If the role, the rate, the hours or the location changed after approval and the agreement was varied without telling INZ, the check will find it.
Employment law compliance. Holiday pay, leave records, minimum wage compliance, deductions. Immigration and employment law overlap here, and a breach of one tends to surface as a problem in the other.
Settlement support. The information and support obligations that attach to accreditation, which employers routinely forget exist after the first hire.
The obligations employers most often overlook
Three obligations come up again and again, and each one is a breach of your accreditation standards on its own.
Telling INZ when an AEWV worker leaves. If an AEWV holder stops working for you — whether they resigned, were dismissed or were made redundant — you must notify INZ within 10 working days.
Settlement information within the first month. Every AEWV worker must be given settlement information within one month of starting, including information on local healthcare, the Citizens Advice Bureau, cost of living and workplace hazards. Keep a dated copy of what you gave each worker.
Recruitment costs are yours. You must pay all recruitment costs and fees, in New Zealand and overseas. Passing advertising fees, agent fees or any other recruitment-related cost on to a migrant worker is a serious breach.
Where employers actually come unstuck
In our experience it is rarely deliberate. It is almost always one of these.
The wage drifted below a threshold that moved. The immigration median wage changed on 9 March 2026, and the minimum wage rose on 1 April 2026. An employer paying correctly in February can be paying incorrectly in April without having changed anything. Our guides on the median wage increase and the minimum wage compliance position cover the mechanics.
The role changed and nobody told INZ. A promotion, a restructure, a new site, a shift in duties. All normal business activity, all capable of putting the employment out of step with what was approved.
Guaranteed hours weren't delivered in a quiet period. Trade dropped, hours were cut by agreement with the worker, and the guarantee in the agreement was not varied. The worker's agreement does not cure the immigration problem.
The records exist but aren't retrievable. This one is genuinely avoidable. The obligation is not only to comply but to be able to demonstrate compliance, and an employer who did everything right but cannot produce the evidence within the timeframe is in a worse position than one who can.
Accreditation was treated as a one-off. It isn't. Your obligations continue for the life of every visa you support.
What happens if a check finds a problem
The consequences scale with how serious the breach is and how you respond to it.
- Infringement notices. An employer can be fined NZD $3,000 per infringement as a body corporate, for example for failing to provide employment documents or employing someone inconsistently with their visa conditions.
- The stand-down list. Infringement notices can put you on INZ's stand-down list, from 6 months for a single notice to longer periods for multiple notices. While you're stood down, you can't support visa applications for migrant workers.
- Paused Job Change applications. Since 17 November 2025, INZ can pause Job Change applications where it has serious concerns about an employer's conduct or accreditation, which can freeze internal moves during a restructure.
- Suspension or revocation. Accreditation can be suspended or revoked, which affects your ability to support every migrant worker in your business.
How to be ready
Reconcile your migrant payroll against approvals every time a threshold moves. Two dates a year, roughly. Put them in the calendar. This single habit prevents the most common finding.
Keep an approvals file per worker. The Job Check approval, the employment agreement as approved, any subsequent variations, and the visa. When a check arrives you want one folder, not an archaeology project.
Report material changes when they happen. Role, rate, hours, location, ownership. Reporting a change is routine. Being found not to have reported it is not.
Diary your re-accreditation date well ahead. A lapse in accreditation is not a technicality — it affects your ability to support visas.
Run your own check before INZ does. Pick one migrant worker at random and assemble the evidence you would need to answer a check on them. Whatever you can't produce in an hour is your exposure.
Audit-ready checklist
If an immigration officer asked tomorrow, could you produce these straight away?
- Leaver notifications: proof that you notified INZ within 10 working days of every AEWV worker who left.
- Settlement information: dated copies of the settlement information given to every AEWV worker within their first month.
- Payroll against approvals: pay and hours records for each migrant worker, reconciled against the approved rate and guaranteed hours.
- Employment agreements: the agreement as approved, plus every variation and evidence you told INZ about material changes.
- Recruitment records: job advertisements and Job Check records, and evidence that no recruitment costs were passed on to workers.
- Visa register: a current record of every migrant worker's visa expiry and conditions.
For a closer look at every promise you made at accreditation and Job Check stage, read What Exactly Did You Promise Immigration NZ? The 2026 Reality Check for Employers. To see where your business sits on the risk curve now, try our free Employer Accreditation Feasibility / Risk Tracker.
If a check has already arrived
Read the deadline first and diarise it. These requests have timeframes, and an extension is much easier to request before the deadline than to explain afterwards.
Answer what was asked, completely and accurately. Partial responses invite follow-up, and follow-ups widen scope.
If you already know there is a problem in the period being examined, get advice before you respond rather than after. How a genuine error is presented and remedied materially affects where it ends up. An employer who identifies an issue, fixes it and evidences the fix is in a different position from one who is found out.
And don't guess at the answers. If a question is ambiguous, it is usually ambiguous because your situation doesn't fit the standard shape, which is precisely when a wrong answer does damage.
Where we can help
Ishvinder Singh (IAA Licence 201401130) and Shaveta Khanna (IAA Licence 202100174) have advised New Zealand employers since 2014. We prepare employers for post-accreditation checks, respond to them when they arrive, and advise on accreditation obligations as they come up — including the ones employers routinely miss.
Start with a 30-minute consultation ($99). Call +64 9 213 1677, message us on WhatsApp, or see our employer services.
INZ's guidance for employers is at immigration.govt.nz.