The Parent Category is being temporarily closed to new applications. INZ will not make selections from the PC Pool until further notice.

The Government, previously set the total number of places for the Capped Family categories across 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 to 11,000 visa approvals. This number is being reduced to a total of 4,000 visa approvals across 2016/2017 and 2017/2018.

As the cap has been reduced, there are already sufficient numbers of people who have applied or been invited to apply.

A review of policy will be undertaken with the aim to ensuring that potential applications can be managed under the new lower cap without creating longer queues.