Registered Nurse in NZ: Green List Tier 1, NCNZ Registration and Pay

Registered nursing is one of the strongest Tier 1 occupations on New Zealand’s Green List: all 13 scopes (aged care, child and family health, community health, critical care and emergency, mental health, perioperative, surgical, paediatrics and more) (plus midwives and nurse practitioners) lead to Straight to Residence. With Nursing Council registration and an accredited-employer offer you can apply for residence directly, even from overseas.

But the gate on this pathway is not the visa: it is registration. The Green List requirement is essentially one line: registration with the Nursing Council of New Zealand (NCNZ). So this guide focuses on the registration process.

Green List position and visa pathway

Under the 9 March 2026 version of INZ’s Appendix 13, the Green List requirement for registered nurses (ANZSCO 254412–254499) is simply NCNZ registration. Once you have it:

• a job offer (or current job) as a nurse with an accredited employer
• pay at or above any specified rate for the role, or the median wage ($35.00/hour) where none is specified: public-sector nursing salaries start well above this line, so it is rarely an obstacle
• 55 or younger, meeting health, character and (visa-level) English requirements

You can apply for Straight to Residence from overseas, or enter on a work visa first. See Tier 1 vs Tier 2 for the full comparison.

The IQN registration process, step by step

The Nursing Council’s requirements for internationally qualified nurses, item by item from the official pages:

1. Identity and credential verification through the designated agency TruMerit (formerly CGFNS): notarised passport, qualifications and registration evidence. Qualification floor: a Bachelor of Nursing or equivalent for RN registration (a diploma for enrolled nurses)
2. Current overseas registration: you must hold current registration overseas and provide details of every authority you have been registered with in the last 10 years
3. 1,800 hours of post-registration practice before you apply; applicants with no post-registration experience at all are not eligible, and applying short of the hours delays your file
4. English: only two tests accepted: OET (350 in listening/speaking/reading, 300 in writing) or IELTS Academic (7.0 in listening/speaking/reading, 6.5 in writing). Multiple sittings can be combined, but required scores must be achieved within 12 months of your first sitting and within three years of applying. PTE is not accepted, and neither are fully online tests. Nurses educated in English in the UK, Ireland, Canada, the USA or Singapore (or currently registered there) may be invited to use an alternative evidence pathway (case-by-case)
5. Competence assessment (required for most): two stages: a theoretical examination (Pearson VUE computer-based, available overseas: 120 questions in 165 minutes for RNs, Part A medication safety + Part B nursing knowledge, three attempts with single-part re-sits) and a clinical assessment (Nurse Maude centre in Christchurch: a two-day orientation course plus an OSCE of 10 stations for RNs, three attempts). Nurses educated in the UK, Ireland, Ontario, British Columbia, Singapore or the USA may be exempted after assessment
6. Character and fitness: an international criminal history check via Fit2Work (covering every country you lived in for 12+ months in the last seven years) plus two short online cultural competency courses (Te Tiriti o Waitangi and cultural foundations)

Australian-registered nurses use the separate, much simpler TTMR mutual-recognition pathway.

The study pathway (if you study nursing in NZ)

Domestic registration requires an NCNZ-approved Bachelor of Nursing (3 years): or an approved Level 7/8 nursing qualification: plus an approved competence assessment and the NCNZ state final examination. Many universities and polytechnics run approved programmes; the only thing that matters when choosing a school is whether its programme is on the NCNZ-approved list. Graduates are then registration-ready, connecting directly to Green List Tier 1.

Pay: the public-sector collective agreement scale

The largest employer is Health New Zealand (the public system). Its collective agreement with the NZNO sets the benchmark scale (April 2026 rates):

Step	Annual salary (2026-04)
Step 1 (new graduate)	$77,296
Step 3	$88,258
Step 5	$102,876
Step 7 (top, ~6+ years)	$108,884

• Around 72% of registered nurses sit on the top step; average total earnings including overtime, penal rates and allowances are about $125,662
• In May 2026 NZNO members ratified a new collective agreement (a 2.5% rise in year one and 2% in year two), so the figures above have since moved up: check the latest agreement for current rates
• Private hospitals, aged-care providers and clinics negotiate separately but generally benchmark against the public scale

Our take-home pay calculator shows what each step means after tax.

Common misconceptions

• “Nurses are in shortage, so I can work as soon as I land”: wrong. Practising without NCNZ registration is illegal, and the registration process (exams included) commonly takes months to over a year: build it into your timeline
• “I’ll take PTE for registration”: NCNZ does not accept PTE. Many applicants pass the visa English requirement with PTE, then discover registration demands IELTS or OET: prepare your English against the registration rules, not the visa rules
• “Fresh graduates can register straight away”: no. 1,800 post-registration hours are a hard floor. The new-graduate route is to register at home and build clinical hours first
• “Enrolled Nurse is the same as Registered Nurse”: the enrolled nurse (411411) is also Green List Tier 1, but the scope, qualification floor (diploma vs bachelor) and pay scales all differ; since September 2025 overseas enrolled nurses must also show 1,800 hours and pass the two-stage assessment

Next steps: check the exact wording for your scope (2544xx) in the Green List Checker, and compare your profile against the six-point system in the SMC calculator: nursing qualifications plus registration usually open both pathways.