Horticulture jobs
in New Zealand

For workers

Picking, pruning and packing jobs follow the growing season, and the visa follows the job. Which route fits depends on where you live, how many seasons you have already worked, and whether the job is hands-on crop work or a skilled role such as machinery or winemaking.

Visas that can fit

• Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme. An RSE employer recruits workers, generally from eligible Pacific countries: the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. You work only in that employer's horticulture or viticulture business, planting, maintaining, harvesting or packing crops. You do not apply on your own: the employer needs an approved Agreement to Recruit first.
• Not the AEWV for picking. INZ's AEWV page says offers for horticulture or viticulture planting and harvesting work are not eligible for that visa.
• Global Workforce Seasonal Visa. Since 8 December 2025 INZ has offered a 3-year visa for experienced seasonal workers. You need at least 3 seasons of relevant experience in the same or a similar role in the last 6 years and must spend 3 months outside New Zealand each year. No English test is needed. The job list includes agricultural and horticultural mobile plant operators, agricultural technicians, winemakers, winery senior cellar hands and large-scale tulip growers.
• Peak Seasonal Visa. This one lasts up to 7 months and needs at least 1 season of relevant experience in the last 3 years, with a 4-month stand-down before another. In INZ's seasonal job table, none of its roles are horticultural.
• Other work rights. New Zealand citizens, residents and visa holders whose conditions allow it can work in orchards without any of these schemes. See our seasonal work guide.

Registration, licences and English

• No professional registration. Crop work does not have a registration body of the kind nurses or electricians deal with.
• Machinery roles. INZ treats agricultural and horticultural mobile plant operators (721111) as skill level 3 if the employer states in the Job Check that the job needs either 3 years of work experience or a level 4 qualification.
• English. The two new seasonal visas need no English test. AEWV jobs at skill level 4 or 5, and level 3 from 1 June 2026 (INZ, 25 May 2026), such as a forklift driver, still do. Exempt from the level 3 rule: an AEWV expiring on or before 1 December 2026 when you apply for a further level 3 AEWV, people who already gave English evidence in an earlier AEWV application, Global Workforce Seasonal Visa and Peak Seasonal Visa applications, and Job Change applications (same INZ news item).
• Food safety. MPI puts horticultural producers and packhouses in National Programme 1, its lower-risk group under the Food Act 2014.

How to find jobs

• For RSE work, ask whether the business is a Recognised Seasonal Employer and who recruits in your country. INZ also publishes an RSE guide for workers (INZ 1144).
• Check the season. INZ's seasonal job table shows the machinery operator season running from October to May, and the agricultural technician season from October to June, each about 9 months.
• Read the Nelson and Tauranga city guides for the crops grown in those regions.

Common mistakes

• Accepting an AEWV offer for fruit picking. INZ lists that work as not eligible.
• Changing employer, region or dates without a new approval. For workers already in New Zealand, INZ says that needs a new Agreement to Recruit and a new RSE Limited Visa.
• Expecting full-time hours every week. The RSE rule is an average of 30 hours a week over four weeks, or 240 hours, whichever is greater, for placements of six weeks or longer.
• Paying a middleman. INZ declines applications that involve money paid to an employer for a job.

For employers

Horticulture employers have three main choices: join the RSE scheme, hire seasonal workers on the new visas, or recruit people who already have work rights. Each has its own paperwork, and they can be combined.

• RSE status and the Agreement to Recruit. Horticulture and viticulture employers need RSE status and an approved Agreement to Recruit before recruiting. You must show that the labour need cannot be met by the New Zealand workforce and that you made reasonable attempts to train and recruit citizens and residence class visa holders. INZ gives each employer a worker allocation number within the government's cap for a season that runs 1 July to 30 June.
• Hours and pay. Workers must be paid at least the market rate for hours actually worked. For stays of six weeks or longer, you guarantee the greater of 240 hours or an average of 30 hours a week over each four-week period. INZ's announcement of 14 August 2024 said the 10% above minimum wage rule applies only to experienced workers returning for a third or later season, so check the current rate on INZ's wages page.
• Accommodation. INZ's guide of June 2025 says that in Auckland, Marlborough, Nelson/Tasman, Northland and Otago, accommodation must be employer-owned or purpose-built for horticulture or viticulture workers. In Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay, housing you bought after 26 September 2019 cannot be used. You must also make sure workers have suitable accommodation, food and health services at a reasonable cost.
• The seasonal visas. For the Global Workforce Seasonal Visa, no labour market test is needed. For the Peak Seasonal Visa you advertise the role in New Zealand and either engage with Work and Income in good faith or obtain its endorsement, and health insurance is required if the job runs longer than 3 months. Both need an accredited employer, a Job Check and a signed employment agreement.
• What is coming. INZ announced on 28 July 2026 that changes after the RSE policy review will be introduced in stages from early 2027, and that current settings stay until then (INZ news).

We help employers set up accreditation and Job Checks, and work out which scheme fits. See the employer accreditation service →