Police Check NZ: How to Get a Police Vetting or Criminal Record Check

Ask for a “police check” in New Zealand and you could be sent to three different places, because the phrase means three different things here. There is the copy of your own criminal record, which comes from the Ministry of Justice. There is Police vetting, a deeper check that New Zealand Police run for employers and agencies, which you cannot order for yourself. And there are police certificates for visa applications, where Immigration New Zealand has its own rules and, for your time in New Zealand, does the checking directly.

Getting the wrong one wastes weeks. People apply to Police for a document Police do not issue, or they pay a private background check company for something the government provides free. This guide works through each type: who provides it, who can request it, what it costs, and the mistakes that trip people up.

The three checks at a glance

Check	Provided by	Who can request it	Cost
Your criminal record	Ministry of Justice	You (or a third party with your consent)	Free for your own record
Police vetting	New Zealand Police	Authorised agencies only, never individuals	$8.50 plus GST per request, charged to the agency
Police certificate for a visa	Police or government agency in each country	You, for overseas countries; Immigration NZ arranges the New Zealand check	Varies by country

1. Your own criminal record from the Ministry of Justice

If you need to see your own criminal record, or show it to someone, the Ministry of Justice is where you go. You can apply online through the Ministry’s website or use the paper form. Either way, requesting a copy of your own record is free.

The Ministry aims to process your request within three working days of receiving your form. That timing does not include mail delivery. Your report is sent to the email address you give on the form, or by post if you do not provide an email address.

The ID you need

With the paper form you must send a copy of your ID, and the name on the form has to match your ID exactly. The Ministry accepts:

• A New Zealand driver licence, current or expired within the last two years, as long as it is not cancelled and not a temporary licence
• A New Zealand passport, signed, current or expired within the last two years and not cancelled
• An overseas passport, signed and current
• A current New Zealand firearms licence

If you have none of these, someone can confirm your identity using the Ministry’s proof of identity form, or you can complete a statutory declaration instead. Small details cause real delays here. Write clearly, sign and date the form, and send it within six months. A form dated six months ago or earlier will not be processed, and changing the date after you first filled it in means starting again.

Employers sometimes use this service too. Organisations can register with the Ministry to request criminal record checks on staff or applicants, with the person’s consent, and they pay per request. But the most common pattern is simpler: the employer asks you to request your own record and bring the report in.

2. The Clean Slate scheme: why your record may come back blank

The record the Ministry sends you is shaped by the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004. If you are eligible, your convictions are concealed automatically. You do not apply for this and you do not ask for a clean slate check. It simply happens when you request your record.

You are treated as having no criminal record if all of the following are true:

• You have had no convictions within the last seven years
• You have never been sentenced to a custodial sentence, such as prison, corrective training or borstal
• You have never been convicted of a “specified offence” listed in section 4 of the Act (these are mainly sexual offences)
• You have fully paid any fine, reparation, compensation or costs ordered by a court in a criminal case
• You have never had an order made about you under section 65 of the Land Transport Act 1998 (indefinite disqualification from driving)
• You have never been held in hospital by a court in a criminal case, instead of being sentenced, because of your mental condition

If you meet every condition, you can lawfully say you have no convictions when you are asked about your criminal record in New Zealand, and nobody can require you to reveal the concealed convictions, apart from the exceptions below.

Three misunderstandings cause most of the confusion around this scheme.

Concealed does not mean deleted. Your convictions still exist. If you ask the Ministry for your full record of convictions, you can still see them yourself.

Eligibility can be lost. If you are convicted again, fail to fully pay a court-ordered fine, reparation or costs, or are permanently banned from driving, all your convictions show again until you meet the conditions once more. An unpaid fine from years ago is a common reason a record someone expected to be blank is not.

Clean Slate stops at the border. The scheme does not apply outside New Zealand. Some countries ask for your full record when you travel, move or apply for their visas, and you are expected to provide it. Check with that country’s embassy or consulate.

When the full record is required

Even if you are eligible for a clean slate, your full record, including concealed convictions, is needed in some situations. On your own request to the Ministry, you might need it for certain jobs, such as police, prison or probation roles, if you are involved in court cases or tribunal hearings, or for travel to certain countries. The Ministry can also supply an authenticated or Apostille-certified record for use overseas.

There are two narrow cases where you can apply to the court that heard the conviction to have it disregarded so that the clean slate applies: where the offence has since been decriminalised, or where you received a non-custodial sentence for a specified offence. The Ministry suggests getting legal advice on whether this applies to you.

3. Police vetting: the check you cannot buy for yourself

Police vetting is a different and much wider check, run by the New Zealand Police Vetting Service. The single most important fact about it is this: Police do not provide vetting checks to individuals. There is no form you can fill in, no counter you can visit and no fee you can pay to get yourself vetted. Police are also clear that they do not issue “police clearance certificates” at all.

Vetting is only available to organisations registered with Police as authorised agencies. These are generally organisations that care for children or other vulnerable people, government and regulatory agencies, and bodies with a legal obligation to screen people. The agency submits the request online, with your consent, which you give by signing the NZ Police Request and Consent Form. The result goes directly to the agency, not to you.

A Police vet is used where the role involves trust or vulnerable people. Safety checks under the Children’s Act 2014 require vetting for children’s workers, which takes in teachers and other education staff, health and care workers, and many volunteer roles working with children or vulnerable adults. Various professions also need a vet as part of a “fit and proper person” assessment for registration or licensing.

What a Police vet can include

A vetting result is more than a conviction list. As well as your criminal record (with clean slate concealment applied, unless a legal exception applies, such as safety checks of core children’s workers), Police may release a summary of other information they hold that is relevant to the request. That can include pending charges, charges that did not result in a conviction, Youth Court charges, infringement offences, demerit points, arrest warrants, involvement in family violence, overseas convictions, Police investigations where no charge was laid, and other interactions with Police.

Police do not approve or decline anyone, and they do not recommend whether you are suitable for a role. They supply the information and the agency makes its own decision.

What vetting costs

The cost falls on the agency, not on you. Under the Policing (Cost Recovery) Regulations 2017, Police charge New Zealand agencies $8.50 plus GST per vetting request. There is an exemption for agencies that make 20 or fewer vetting requests in a year (1 July to 30 June), and fee waivers exist for registered charities, agencies in extreme financial hardship, and agencies hit by exceptional circumstances. If an employer or agency asks you to pay for your own Police vet, something has gone wrong, because the service cannot be sold to individuals in the first place.

4. Police certificates for a New Zealand visa

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) uses police certificates as evidence that visa applicants are of good character. Whether you need one depends on the visa and how long you will be in New Zealand. If you are aged 17 or over and your total time in New Zealand will be 24 months or longer, counting time you have already spent here on earlier visas, you must provide police certificates. That applies to visitor, student and work visas, and residence applicants have their own character requirements, covered in our Resident Visa NZ guide.

The rules that catch applicants out:

• Your police certificate must be less than six months old when you submit your application
• If it is not in English, you must provide a translation
• Applying without a required certificate can see your application declined, or your visa issued for a shorter period
• If you have provided police certificates with a previous application, you may not need to provide them again, but check the character requirements of the visa you are applying for
• INZ may ask for fresh certificates before deciding if your original certificate becomes a year old from its issue date

Your New Zealand certificate is arranged for you

Here is where New Zealand differs from most countries. You do not obtain a New Zealand police certificate yourself and upload it. NZ Police advise that for a New Zealand visa you speak to your immigration officer: INZ submits a vetting request to Police on your behalf, with your consent, and the result is returned directly to INZ. Do not contact the Police Vetting Service yourself, and do not waste money on a third-party company offering to get you one. This is also separate from renewing your passport or moving your visa into it; if your visa sits in an old passport, see our guide to transferring a visa to a new passport.

Certificates from other countries

For countries other than New Zealand, you arrange the certificate yourself from that country’s police or government authority. Expect INZ to want certificates covering your country or countries of citizenship and the countries you have lived in for extended periods since you turned 17, with the exact requirements set by the visa type. INZ’s website has a country-by-country tool that tells you how to get a police certificate from each specific country, including which authority issues it and what form to use. Some issuing authorities require a full set of fingerprints before they will issue a certificate. Private fingerprinting services operate in many regions, and NZ Police offer a fingerprinting service in some regions on specific days, so check availability before turning up at a station.

If you are in New Zealand and need a check for another country’s visa, the route is different again. For Australia and Switzerland, vetting requests must be submitted by the relevant consulate or embassy. For other countries, you complete Police’s Section 14 form and email it to the Vetting Service naming the country; the results are sent directly to that country’s consulate or embassy, not to you.

Common mistakes

Asking Police for your own record. Police cannot help. Your own criminal record comes from the Ministry of Justice, and it is free.

Paying a private company for a standard check. Commercial background check firms advertise heavily, but the official MoJ record costs nothing, and no private company can sell you a Police vet.

Assuming clean slate means the convictions are gone. They are concealed, not erased. They reappear if you are convicted again or leave court-ordered money unpaid, and foreign governments are not bound by the scheme.

Guessing that a vetting result is a pass or fail. Police provide information only. The agency decides what it means for the role.

Ordering a visa police certificate too early. Because INZ requires the certificate to be under six months old when you apply, a certificate obtained at the very start of a long application process can expire before you lodge. Time it once your other documents are coming together.

Name mismatches. On the MoJ form, your name must exactly match your ID. A middle name included on one and missing on the other is enough to delay things.

Which check do you actually need?

If you want to see or share your own record, request it from the Ministry of Justice. If you are starting a job or volunteer role involving children or vulnerable people, expect the organisation to Police vet you, and expect to sign a consent form rather than pay anyone. If you are applying for a New Zealand visa, let INZ handle the New Zealand check and focus your effort on getting certificates from the other countries you have lived in, using INZ’s country tool.

You will find more guides like this in our Visa and Immigration section.

Sources

• Ministry of Justice, How to fill in the paper form (criminal record requests, ID, cost and timeframes): https://www.justice.govt.nz/criminal-records/get-your-own/how-to-fill-in-the-paper-form/
• Ministry of Justice, Clean Slate scheme: https://www.justice.govt.nz/criminal-records/clean-slate/
• Ministry of Justice, Frequently asked questions (including third-party criminal record checks for organisations): https://www.justice.govt.nz/criminal-records/frequently-asked-questions/
• New Zealand Police, Information about vetting: http://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/nz-police-vetting-service/information-about-vetting
• New Zealand Police, Fees, Charges and Payments FAQs (Police vetting service): https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/nz-police-vetting-service/fees-charges-and-payments
• New Zealand Police, NZ Police Vetting Service: https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/businesses-and-organisations/nz-police-vetting-service?nondesktop
• Immigration New Zealand, Police certificates: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/process-to-apply/applying-for-a-visa/providing-evidence-and-documents-to-support-your-visa-application/character-requirements-third-party-checks-and-police-certificates/police-certificates/
• Immigration New Zealand, How to get a police certificate: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/tools-and-information/police-certificates