What the official sources say

Below is every source we read on this, in its own words, with a link so you can check us. Where two of them appear to disagree, we have left the disagreement visible rather than picking the tidier answer, and explained underneath what is actually going on.

So do you need one or not?

Both sources agree, and neither mentions an apostille. Order your FBI Identity History Summary, keep it inside the six-month window, upload it with the application. That is the whole requirement. There is nothing on this page for us to sell you.

Apostille

Not required. Immigration New Zealand’s police certificate guidance and its guidance on supporting documents do not mention an apostille, authentication or legalisation anywhere. The certificate is uploaded with the online application. We sell apostilles, and we are telling you not to buy one for this.

Translation

Only where the certificate is not in English. An FBI Identity History Summary is issued in English, so nothing to translate arises for a US applicant.

The caveat we would want told to us

Two things still catch people. The six-month clock runs to the day you submit, not to the day New Zealand decides, and INZ says it may ask for a fresh certificate if your original reaches a year old while the application is still open. And the 24-month threshold is about the stay you intend, so a shorter visa you plan to extend can put you over the line.

Working backwards from your application

Without an apostille the only clock that matters is the FBI’s. Ordering through an approved channeler takes hours to a few days once you have been fingerprinted; ordering direct from the FBI by mail can take months. The certificate then has to still be inside its six-month window on the day you submit, so the mistake to avoid is ordering far too early rather than far too late.

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