The Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, what it does and how it has changed

What the Act sets out to do

Section 3 states the purpose in consumer terms rather than professional ones:

The mechanism is licensing, and the Act binds the Crown. That framing matters when reading the rest of it, because the duties it imposes run to the client and to the integrity of the immigration system rather than to the immigration adviser's standing.

Section 7 defines immigration advice broadly: using, or purporting to use, knowledge of or experience in immigration to advise, direct, assist or represent someone on a New Zealand immigration matter, directly or indirectly, and whether or not for a fee.

Section 8 reaches beyond the border. The Act applies to advice given outside New Zealand as well as inside it, with transitional relief that has long since expired for people not ordinarily resident here. Offshore immigration advisers are therefore licensed on the same register as those in the country, which is why the register carries immigration advisers with overseas addresses.

Who may give immigration advice

The exemptions in section 11 are narrow and specific rather than a general professional carve-out:

• Advice given in an informal or family context only, so long as it is not systematic or for a fee
• Members of Parliament, and their staff acting within their employment agreement
• Foreign diplomats and consular staff protected under the diplomatic and consular privileges Acts
• Public service employees acting within their employment agreement
• New Zealand lawyers, and, since 30 March 2025, employees of New Zealand lawyers and of incorporated law firms
• People employed by or volunteering for community law centres, on the conditions section 11(f) sets, and people employed by or volunteering for citizens advice bureaux
• People giving advice offshore, and only about student visa applications under the Immigration Act 2009
• Anyone exempted by regulations made under section 12

The offences, and what they carry

Section 63 creates two offences of providing immigration advice while neither licensed nor exempt.

The Act does not stop at the immigration adviser. Separate offences cover:

• Holding out as an immigration adviser or as a licensed immigration adviser
• Asking for or receiving a fee for advice given by someone unlicensed
• Employing or contracting an unlicensed person as an immigration adviser
• Providing false or misleading information
• Obstructing an inspection
• Failing to notify a change in circumstances

The practical effect is that a business cannot lawfully run unlicensed advice through licensed staff, or the other way round. For what this means when choosing who to deal with, and how to report someone, see the guides on unlicensed immigration advice and complaining about an immigration adviser.

The bodies the Act created

The tribunal decisions it publishes are the record of how the code of conduct is applied in practice.

How the Act has been amended

The consolidation lists every amendment incorporated into the current text. Read in order, they show an Act adjusted by general statute-tidying legislation far more often than by immigration policy:

• Immigration Advisers Licensing Amendment Act 2010, from 7 July 2010, which added to the definition of immigration advice
• Immigration Act 2009, from 29 November 2010, which aligned the Act with the new immigration statute
• Companies Amendment Act 2013, and the public holidays legislation of 2013 and 2022, on technical points
• District Court Act 2016, on appeals to that court
• Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Act 2018 and Statutes Amendment Act 2019, on tribunal procedure
• Public Service Act 2020, from 7 August 2020, which is why the Registrar is appointed under that Act
• Secondary Legislation Act 2021, on the status of instruments made under the Act
• Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Act 2025, from 30 March 2025, the largest set of changes since 2010
• Statutes Amendment Act 2025, from 27 November 2025, a single drafting correction

The 2025 changes, and the thinking behind them

The 2025 amendments came through a regulatory systems bill, the vehicle departments use for maintenance changes across many Acts at once rather than a bill of its own. MBIE's aide memoire to the Minister of Immigration of 23 April 2024 describes 18 minor and technical amendments to this Act inside that bill, following a review of the Act in 2014 and Cabinet decisions in 2016, and says they were intended to "improve clarity", "support efficient operational practice" and "remove unnecessary administrative burdens".

Amendments described by MBIE

18

Amendment notes dated 30 March 2025

26

In force from

30 Mar 2025

What was enacted, reading the consolidation rather than the bill, includes:

• A replaced section 9 on immigration applications put forward by unlicensed immigration advisers
• The section 11(e) exemption extended to employees of New Zealand lawyers and of incorporated law firms
• Replaced and inserted provisions in section 15 on who may not be licensed
• Additions to sections 16 and 17 on fitness to be licensed
• A new function for the Authority in section 35
• Changes through the complaints and appeal provisions