Offshore visitor visa for Iranian parents

[SPONSOR] settled in New Zealand on a partnership residence visa in 2022 and became a permanent resident in 2024. Once she was settled, she asked us to help bring her parents, [Applicant A] and [Applicant B], over from Iran for a three-month family visit. Visitor visa applications from Iran need solid evidence that the visit is genuine and that the applicants will return home, so the application had to be built carefully.

We put together a 75-document application. It included a sponsorship letter from [SPONSOR] explaining the three-month family visit, her sponsorship form and proof of her residence status, an extra information form for each parent, evidence of the parents’ home, family, and finances in Iran, and proof that the trip was funded. The whole pack was built around one clear message: this is a genuine family reunion.

The Visitor Visa was approved on 12 February 2026, allowing [Applicant A] to travel to New Zealand to see his daughter and her family. A clear sponsorship pack and well-evidenced visit purpose answered Immigration New Zealand’s genuine-visitor concerns directly.

A sponsor who is already settled in New Zealand carries real weight in a parent-visit application. Because [SPONSOR] had already been granted residence and then permanent residence, we could point to a concrete, verifiable life in New Zealand as the anchor for the visit.

For visitor visas from countries Immigration New Zealand looks at more closely, the genuine-visitor test is won on evidence rather than assertion. We documented the parents’ home, family, and work in Iran, the purpose of the visit, and how it would be paid for, so the officer had a complete picture.

A clear, simple visit purpose is easier to assess. A three-month family reunion with a resident daughter is exactly the kind of straightforward purpose that supports a quick, confident decision.

The sponsorship form and the extra information form work as a pair. The sponsorship form records the daughter’s promises of support; the extra information form captures the personal details of each parent that the standard visitor form does not.