100 out of 100 for agency processing, and only 25 for the grace period after you lose your job.
On agency performance New Zealand is the best in our sample. Immigration New Zealand publishes real processing times weekly, applications are fully online with no appointments or queues, and 91-94% of work visa applications were approved in 2025. There is no mandatory address registration and no integration course or test; a bank account opens with a passport and visa, and the big banks let you start before you arrive. Children of work visa holders attend state school free of charge, as domestic students.
The weak spot is how secure the status is. The work visa is tied to one employer, and the rules set no protected period to find a new job. If you are dismissed the visa is not cancelled automatically, but you may not work until a change of employer is approved: that application costs NZD 325 and takes 1-3 weeks. If no job turns up, people switch to a visitor visa to stay lawfully. Since 17 November 2025 the agency may pause a job change if it has questions about the new employer.
We found no pressure on foreigners living there legally. In the year to August 2026 the rules mostly eased: the median wage threshold went in March 2025, the experience requirement fell from 3 years to 2, and Skilled Migrant became easier from 24 August 2026. The state turned its toughness on employers, revoking accreditation from 1,493 of them. One tightening hit families: in 2025 the income threshold for sponsoring children jumped from NZ$43,323 to NZ$55,844 a year, up 29%, with no transition period. A bill introduced on 18 March 2026 would widen the grounds for deporting residents and extend that liability from 10 to 20 years; when we checked, it had not passed.
Family rights are conditional. A partner gets open work rights only if the main applicant in a higher-skilled role earns at least NZ$28 an hour; in lower-skilled roles it takes NZ$52.50 an hour, a Green List occupation or a sector agreement. Below the threshold the partner gets no right to work at all. Points for qualifications and some roles require a paid NZQA assessment of your diploma, which takes weeks or months.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa for up to 3 months per visit, but you need an NZeTA electronic travel authority in advance. Living and working there takes the same work visa route.
Under the Trans-Tasman arrangement they enter, live and work without a visa and get resident status on arrival: none of the route above applies to them.
Ukraine is not on the visa waiver list, so even a trip needs a visa. The work visa and the path to residence are the same as for everyone.
When we checked on 9 August 2026 we found no direct nationality restrictions on the work visa. They have no visa-free entry: even a short trip needs a visitor visa.
The place interval 1-5 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Agency processing: 100 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 48.7. The weakest is Status security: 56 against 57.9. Above the world average: 6 out of 7.
One of two countries in the index with the maximum on this criterion; the other is the Netherlands. The agency works the way it promises to. Children of work visa holders attend state schools alongside locals and free of charge, an account opens on a passport, there is no address registration, and path to citizenship scores 100.
DownsideThere is no grace period after dismissal. The visa is not annulled automatically, but you cannot work until a change of employer is approved, and since November 2025 the immigration service may put an application on hold if it has questions about the new employer. There is no visa for remote work: since January 2025 newcomers have been officially allowed to work for a foreign client for up to 90 days, but that grants no local rights.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The median is 5 weeks and 80% of applications are decided within 7.5 weeks; the agency updates these figures weekly. If you apply to extend before your visa expires, you get an interim visa and may keep living and working until the decision.
For most people, no: there is no digital nomad or self-employment visa, and the investor visa starts at NZ$5 million. Study and the Working Holiday scheme, open to citizens of about 45 countries, remain.
NZD 1,540 per applicant: an NZD 480 application fee plus an NZD 1,060 immigration levy. Accreditation (NZD 775) and the Job Check (NZD 735) are paid by the employer.
The visa is not cancelled at once, but you cannot work until a change of employer is approved, and there is no protected period to search. If no job comes, people switch to a visitor visa to stay lawfully.
Residence through Skilled Migrant after about 1-3 years of work in the country, the Permanent Resident Visa 2 years after that. Citizenship after 5 years, dual citizenship allowed; there is no test, only sufficient English checked at an interview.
The state is fast and transparent, there are no campaigns against legal residents, and the path to citizenship is among the shortest. The main risk is how fragile the work visa is: it rests on one employer, and a partner's right to work depends on the main applicant's pay.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.