General practice, with time to care.
Very high demand, continuity of care, and a life outside the clinic.
The medicine is proper generalism, and the weekends are yours.
GPs are in acute, sustained demand across New Zealand, urban and rural alike, and general practice here is still built around continuity and generalist breadth. The shortage is real enough that you get to choose where you live, which is not true in most systems.
What draws most GPs is not the pay. It is that the consultation has room in it, that you keep the same families for years, and that the generalism is real rather than a triage function for somebody else’s clinic.
How registration works →
The practice is a business, and you can own part of it.
Enrolment is what changes the job. People enrol with a practice rather than turning up at whichever is nearest, and funding follows that enrolled population. It is the mechanism behind the continuity everyone praises, and the reason your list is yours.
Practices are independent businesses, and you sit inside one as an employee, a contractor or an owner. Salaried is the softest landing and the most predictable. Contractor arrangements pay on what you generate. Buying into a practice is a business decision as much as a clinical one.
How the health system fits together →
Very few professions let you pick the place first and the job second.
General practice is one of them, in a country where the difference between a city and a small town is twenty minutes rather than an afternoon. The main centres bring larger practices, teaching and registrar supervision, and the widest choice of employment model. Housing costs the most here.
Provincial towns bring a broader everyday scope, a shorter distance to the people making decisions, and housing that changes the maths entirely. Rural and remote practice has the widest scope in the country, often with additional incentives, and is frequently the health service for the district. Urgent care is clinic-based acute work, as a whole role or alongside a practice list.
Explore the destination guides →
The essentials, in five minutes
Seven questions people ask before they decide. Open the ones that matter to you.
Can I work there?Yes, and you arrive as a resident
General practice is on the Tier 1 Green List, so the Straight to Residence pathway applies — you arrive as a resident rather than working towards it. Registration is with the Medical Council of New Zealand towards the general practice vocational scope, and general practice is on the fast-track list: FRACGP, or FRCGP/MRCGP with a CCT, or MICGP with a CSCST.
How registration works →What could I earn?Around NZ$200,000+, depending on the model
Indicative and deliberately open-ended: general practice is the one New Zealand medical career with no published step ladder. Income follows your employment model, location, sessions and after-hours, and contractor, rural and practice-owner arrangements can sit well above that figure. Anyone quoting you a single national number is guessing.
How pay works →Where are the jobs?A national shortage
Sustained shortage in urban and rural practice alike, so the choice of where to live is unusually open — and in a country where a city and a small town are twenty minutes apart, not an afternoon. Main centres have the widest choice of employment model; provincial housing changes the maths entirely.
Where to live →What will the work be like?The practice is a business you can buy into
The clinical work feels familiar inside a month. What changes the job: practices are independent businesses with enrolled patient populations, and you sit inside one as an employee, a contractor or an owner. Enrolment is the mechanism behind the continuity everyone praises.
The work itself →Can I bring my family?Yes, most people do
Partners and children can usually join you on visas linked to yours, and partners can usually work. Schools, childcare and the family logistics are explained once, properly, in the family guide.
Family moves, explained →What will moving cost?Verification is the slow spend
Council fees, primary-source verification through EPIC / MyIntealth — often the single slowest step, so we start it early — certificates of good standing, police clearance, visa fees for everyone moving, flights and shipping.
The move, costed →How long could this take?Months, and the offer comes early
A job offer at specialist level is a listed prerequisite on the fast-track route, alongside 24 months’ recent general practice — so the offer is not the last step. Source verification runs in the background and is usually what sets the pace.
The journey, sequenced →Current opportunities
Roles we're recruiting for right now. If none is quite right, register your interest and we'll be in touch when something fits.
The detail, when you want it
Registration, pay, the work itself and life outside it. Everything is here, one section at a time.
Getting registeredRegistration overview
Reviewed July 2026 · checked against the Medical Council of New Zealand’s current published guidance
To practise as a GP in New Zealand you'll register with the Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ), working towards vocational registration in general practice. Most internationally trained GPs from comparable health systems register without re-sitting exams.
The Council assesses your qualifications and experience against New Zealand standards, often alongside the RNZCGP for the general-practice scope. You'll typically need:
- Verification of your primary medical qualification
- Evidence of recent general-practice experience
- Certificates of good standing & a police clearance
- Confirmation of English-language proficiency, if required
The Green List matters more than people expect. General practice sits in Tier 1, which means you and your family arrive on a Straight to Residence pathway rather than a work visa you later convert. Partner work rights and schooling come with it. Checked against Immigration New Zealand’s Green List (Appendix 13, in force from 9 March 2026); the list changes, so confirm it against your own occupation before you plan around it.
Which vocational pathway fits you
Almost every GP we move arrives by one of four MCNZ vocational pathways — and we'll confirm yours from the first conversation. Whichever applies, your qualifications are verified at source through EPIC / MyIntealth; it's often the slowest single step, so we start it early.
FRACGP, or a UK or Irish general-practice qualification
General practice is one of the areas of medicine on the Council’s fast-track list. FRACGP from Australia; FRCGP or MRCGP with a CCT from the UK; MICGP with a CSCST from Ireland. A job offer at specialist level is a listed prerequisite on this route, alongside 24 months’ recent general practice.
FRNZCGP, and already registered here
The RNZCGP Fellowship plus general registration in New Zealand — the direct route to the vocational scope, with nothing assessed for comparability.
FRNZCGP, but no NZ general registration
The same Fellowship without general registration here yet. Usually the direct route to permanent vocational registration.
A qualification that isn’t on the approved list
RNZCGP assesses your training against the FRNZCGP standard. “Equivalent to” leads to around 12 months’ supervision; “as satisfactory as” to an assessment pathway, around 18 months.
What follows a VOC3 or VOC4 approval
Both lead to provisional vocational registration rather than the full scope. You practise under a named supervisor in an approved position — a condition of the provisional scope, not a judgement on you — and if your practice, location or supervisor changes during it, you apply to vary your scope at least 20 days ahead.
Two things worth diarising. Your registration meeting happens in New Zealand, within two weeks of your intended start date, and you cannot see patients until it is done and your practising certificate issued — allow about three days after the meeting. And moving to the full vocational scope is an application you make once the Council’s requirements are met, not something that arrives on a date.
Where this comes from. Pathway definitions, prerequisites and processing times above are the Medical Council of New Zealand’s own published guidance, read in August 2026 against its approved-qualifications list dated 13 August 2026. Times are for complete applications; an incomplete one restarts the clock. Check your own case against the Council before you make a decision on it.
Your registration resources, all on one page
Start with our complete guide, go straight to the people who register you, then use the checklist and notes below to get your application right first time.
Prefer a download? Registration guide · Checklist
Registration checklist
What to gather before you apply to the MCNZ:
- Certified copies of your qualifications
- Evidence of recent, relevant clinical practice
- A certificate of good standing from every authority you’ve registered with
- A police / criminal-history check
- Proof of identity, plus any name-change documents
- English-language evidence (IELTS or OET), if required
- One personal and one professional referee
- Your application fee, ready at submission
Advice & notes
Start early
Gathering documents before you apply is the single best way to avoid delays. Missing paperwork is the most common hold-up.
Mind the dates
Certificates of good standing and certified copies have a short validity window, so time them so they’re still current when you submit.
Where the job offer fits
On the fast-track pathway a specialist-level job offer is one of the Council’s prerequisites, so the role does come first. The first step is a conversation, not paperwork. We’ll sequence it with you.
You’re not on your own
We’ll review your documents with you before you submit, and stay alongside you through every step.
PayNo national scale, so the model decides the number
General practice is the one New Zealand medical career with no published step ladder. Income follows your employment model, your location, your sessions and your after-hours. Anyone quoting you a single national figure is guessing.
A rough indication only, and deliberately open-ended: contractor, rural and practice-owner arrangements can sit well above it. We show you the real numbers for a real role rather than a national average.
An employed position with a predictable income and the least exposure. Usually the right first move if you are also managing a move.
Paid on what you generate, so income tracks how you work. Higher ceiling, more variance, and worth modelling before you commit.
Hard-to-staff and rural roles often carry additional incentives alongside a broader scope of practice.
Annual and CME leave, KiwiSaver, and no separate social-security contribution in the tax system. How pay and tax work
Life in New ZealandSurgery finishes, and the country is already there.
A short commute, and the coast or the hills at the end of it.
General practice is one of the few medical careers where you largely set your own week, and in a country this size that compounds. A four-day pattern is common and unremarkable, and the fifth day is not swallowed by a commute.
Most practices sit within half an hour of open water, a mountain or a river. For families that tends to be the argument that settles it, well before anyone works out the tax.
You agree the number of sessions and how they sit across the week, with after-hours arrangements defined separately. Most GPs tell us this is where the balance comes from, rather than from the hours themselves.
You set the sessions, so the week is yours to shape.
Compared · Australia and New ZealandIf you’re weighing both countries, general practice itself is the difference
On paper the two look remarkably similar: English-speaking systems and strong demand for experienced GPs. In practice general practice works quite differently in each, and that is where the decision lives.
Australia generally offers greater earning potential, a far wider choice of locations and a more commercially driven model of general practice. New Zealand offers a smaller, more connected system where continuity of care and community medicine still carry real weight. Neither is universally the better choice; it depends on what you want from the work, and from life outside it.
Registration is a separate process in each country — never assume one follows from the other. The full comparison sits in Australia or New Zealand?, and the money side in Where will your salary go further?
General practice in New Zealand is the kind of medicine many GPs say they trained for — continuity, generalist breadth, and time to know your patients.
Because the shortage is so acute, you have real choice: salaried or contractor, city or rural, the sessions that suit your life. Rural roles in particular can combine the best income with the best lifestyle.
Add Tier 1 straight-to-residence and you have a profession where New Zealand is one of the best moves a GP can make. Tell me the life you want and I'll help you find the practice to fit it.
SophieFounder, Ethicare Resourcing
What we can’t promise
Three things we won’t guarantee, and what we do instead.
Timelines that aren’t ours to give
Registration sits with the Medical Council and visas with Immigration New Zealand. We give you the likely range, keep your file complete and moving, and chase what can be chased — but we will not quote a faster number to win you over.
A specific practice in a specific suburb
Vacancies move. If your heart is set on one workplace in one corner of one city, we will tell you plainly how long that wait could be — before you resign anything, not after.
That the move is right for you
Some moves shouldn’t happen. If the scope, the pay maths or the family logistics don’t stack up, we will say so plainly.
Frequently asked
Will I need to re-sit exams?
Almost never. GPs from comparable health systems register towards vocational registration without sitting New Zealand exams — what varies is the supervision that comes first. If your qualification is on the Medical Council's approved list you take the fastest route with no separate college equivalence assessment. If it isn't, RNZCGP assesses your training and the outcome sets the length: broadly around a year of supervision, or longer where an assessment pathway applies.
Supervision here is not someone checking your work. It is a named colleague, regular scheduled conversations, and a structured way of showing you have settled into New Zealand general practice. Most GPs describe it as useful rather than onerous — and it ends with permanent vocational registration.
How different is the funding and consultation model?
This is the biggest practical adjustment, so understand it before you arrive. Practices enrol patients and receive capitation funding for that enrolled population, topped up by a patient co-payment at the time of the appointment. Most people pay something to see their GP; children and Community Services Card holders pay less or nothing, and practices in high-need areas are funded differently again.
What it means day to day: your list is your list, continuity is real, and the funding follows the relationship rather than the activity. There is no QOF-style points system driving your week. Standard appointments are short by international standards, though longer consultations are widely available and how you structure your day is largely yours to negotiate.
Salaried, contractor or practice ownership — which should I choose?
They are different jobs, not just different pay structures. Salaried is the simplest landing: a known income, employment protections, someone else carrying the business. Contractor arrangements give you more control over sessions and a higher ceiling, with the trade-off that you carry more of your own risk, tax and indemnity admin. Ownership is a business as well as a clinical role, and rewards people who want a say in how the practice is run.
Our advice is to arrive salaried or on a simple contract, learn the system for a year, then decide. Almost nobody regrets that order. We'll show you the numbers for a specific role, alongside what living in that town costs, rather than a national average.
What is rural general practice like here?
Broader than you are probably imagining, and that is the appeal. Rural GPs manage presentations that would be referred on in a city — minor trauma, acute medicine, obstetric and emergency care, sometimes inpatient work — with real distance between you and the nearest hospital. Demand is highest here, incentives are often better, and the clinical breadth is why many people never go back to metropolitan practice.
It asks something of you in return: fewer colleagues on site, on-call that really is on-call, and a small community where you are the doctor at the supermarket too. Some people find that the best part of the job. We will tell you plainly which category we think a role falls into.
Do I have to become an RNZCGP Fellow?
Not to work. You practise under vocational registration in general practice; Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners is the college qualification alongside it. If you already hold FRNZCGP, that is usually the most direct route to permanent vocational registration.
Many internationally trained GPs go on to Fellowship because it is the standard marker of a New Zealand generalist and it opens teaching, supervision and leadership roles. It is a choice about the shape of your career rather than a condition of holding a job, and it is not something you need resolved before you move.
Will my family be able to come, and can my partner work?
Yes, and this is one of the strongest parts of the New Zealand offer for GPs. General practice sits at the top tier of the Green List, which means a residence application from the outset rather than years on a work visa first. Partners can generally work, and children attend state school on the same basis as New Zealand children.
Immigration settings do change, so we confirm the current position for your family and your nationality before anything is lodged, against Immigration New Zealand's published rules.
What kind of practice would you like to walk into on a Monday?
Relocating to a new country can feel overwhelming at times, and you won't be doing it on your own. Find your registration pathway in two minutes, then send us your CV and we’ll take it from there.