Visas approved by a glitch, not a person? What New Zealand's system faults mean for Kenyan applicants

Visa guide · 2026-09-30 · 4 min read

A Kenyan woman reviews paperwork beside a laptop at a wooden table in her sunlit home.

Applicants usually assume a trained officer will read every page of their file. In New Zealand, that assumption briefly failed. Faults inside the immigration agency's online platform let a small number of applications through without anyone assessing them. For applicants in Nairobi or Mombasa, and for firms that hire from overseas, the useful question is what to do differently.

The platform and the glitch

ADEPT is the agency's online processing system and has been in use since 2022. According to briefings that came to light on 30 September 2026, a technical fault sometimes allowed one automated routine to fire repeatedly on a single application. The repeats duplicated actions and bypassed the stage at which an officer is meant to assess the file.

The review, in numbers

Item	Finding
Visitor visas approved with no manual assessment	32, across roughly three years
Job Check applications approved the same way	23, in 2022
Visa holders already in New Zealand with no adverse outcome noted	Twenty
Files reopened for full assessment because of risk factors	Six
Files recommended for decline	One

A Job Check is the stage where an accredited employer demonstrates that it tried to recruit a New Zealander first. Technical advisors reviewed every visitor visa involved.

Other trouble spots

Health screening slipped in 2025: 364 people applying for multiple entry visitor visas for parents and grandparents were never asked a tuberculosis-related residency question, and 295 of them received visas. Officials judged the individual risk to be relatively low and said those applicants would be contacted.

Employers were hit too. Roughly 2,300 businesses whose accreditation had lapsed and been renewed could no longer see their migrant staff in the system, which hampered resending job tokens and reporting a departure. In August 2026 an update left some visitor visa applicants unable to submit drafts after adding a second person. A permanent fix arrived within days, though nobody knows how many people were caught.

A promise the system broke

Ministers had said automation would help to approve applications while refusals would remain a human decision. The law permits automated decision-making, yet the agency had reportedly not started, and in 2025 it estimated it was around two years from having suitable data and testing. These approvals were therefore accidents, not a rollout. Separately, a $336 million modernisation programme went back for a fresh business case after its projected savings were overstated by $134 million, and ministers want a report before April 2027.

Lessons for a Kenyan reader

Genuine applicants are not the target of the concern, which is about consistency and oversight rather than wrongful refusals. A fast result still tells you little about how closely your file was read, and mistakes uncovered later can bring follow-up contact. Sponsoring employers should reconcile the dashboard against their own staff lists and job token records. Everyone should keep personal copies of submissions, confirmations and medical results. A tidy CV and employment timeline belong in that folder, and Build AI CV can help you maintain them.

For more on New Zealand processes, see the immigration overhaul explained and how processing priorities are shifting. Roles are on our jobs page.

A short routine helps. After you submit, download or screenshot the confirmation, store it in a folder named for the application, and note the date. When the outcome arrives, compare it with what you applied for, including names, dates and conditions. If something looks off, raise it promptly with the right channel or an adviser, rather than waiting for the problem to surface at the border or at your employer's next check.

Common mistakes online applicants make

Reading silence as good news.
Skipping a health or character question because the screen did not ask it.
Failing to save each submitted page.
Leaning on an unlicensed helper instead of a licensed immigration adviser, or a person lawfully exempt from licensing.

Frequently asked questions

Were genuine applicants refused because of the faults?

No. The concern was approvals made without a manual check.

What does ADEPT do?

It is the agency's online visa processing system.

What is a Job Check?

The stage where an accredited employer shows it tried to hire a New Zealander first.

Should I worry about my own visa?

Keep your records. A fast approval does not prove careful review, and later follow-up is possible.

Key takeaways

Faults approved 32 visitor visas and 23 Job Check applications without manual assessment.
Other problems touched health screening, employer dashboards and application drafts.
Keep your own copies and answer every question fully.
Take advice from a licensed immigration adviser if anything looks odd.

#visa system #new zealand #applicants #accredited employers #adept