Immigration New Zealand accepts PTE Academic as evidence of English language ability for visa categories including skilled residence and the Accredited Employer Work Visa, and it states its requirements as a single overall PTE score rather than a set of per-skill minimums. The table above lists the current overall thresholds INZ publishes; this page covers what those thresholds apply to and the test conditions INZ sets alongside the score itself. Information here is current as of 2026-09-26; INZ's own pages, linked in our sources, are the definitive record.
| Visa | PTE overall required |
|---|---|
| Skilled residence visas | Principal applicant 58, partner/dependant (16+) 36 |
| Accredited Employer Work Visa | 29 |
Test sat in person at a test centre; result no more than 2 years old at time of application; at-home tests not accepted.
Unlike Australia's Home Affairs requirements, which set a minimum in each of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, Immigration New Zealand's published pages for skilled residence and work visas state a single overall PTE Academic score with no separate per-skill floor.
This means a candidate can meet an INZ requirement with an uneven skill profile, as long as the overall score clears the published threshold, which is a materially different test to the per-skill requirements used elsewhere on this hub, and it is worth confirming directly on the INZ page before you plan your preparation around it.
For New Zealand's skilled residence visa category, the principal applicant needs a higher overall PTE Academic score than a partner or a dependant aged 16 or over included on the same application. INZ publishes both figures on the same page, so check which one applies to your role in the application before comparing your score.
The lower figure applies to a partner or a dependant aged 16 or over. For anyone else included on the application, check the specific visa instructions on the INZ page linked in our sources.
The Accredited Employer Work Visa sets its own, separate overall PTE Academic requirement, distinct from the skilled residence visa thresholds. Confirm the current requirement on the INZ page for this specific visa category rather than assuming it matches the residence visa figures; the AEWV figure is the lowest of the three INZ thresholds on this page.
The INZ page also sets the test conditions described below, so read the visa's own instructions in full rather than relying on the overall score alone before you apply.
INZ requires the test to be sat in person at a physical test centre; at-home PTE Academic results are not accepted for these visa categories. Your result also needs to be no more than two years old at the time you submit your application.
The INZ pages we checked for these categories do not mention PTE Academic's 7 August 2025 update, unlike Australia's Home Affairs pages, and do not show a separate score table split by test date.
New Zealand's overall-only requirement is simpler to check than Australia's per-skill tables, but it does not transfer between countries. A PTE Academic result that clears an INZ overall threshold may still fall short of Australia's Competent, Proficient or Superior English levels, which each require every one of the four skills to individually reach a minimum.
If you are weighing New Zealand against another destination on this hub, compare your result against each country's own page separately rather than assuming a pass in one implies a pass in another.
