Visitor Visas

Without a doubt, Australia is a country worth a visit. In accordance with the Visitor Arrivals Data, by the year ending April 2018 Australia hosted 9 million visitors with the main purpose of holidaying, visiting family and friends and being engaged in a business visitor activity.This is an increase of 6.3% per cent relative to the previous year.

However, regardless of the purpose of the visit, an Australian Visitor visa must be obtained. At the moment, there are several types of Visitor visa available and, depending on the nationality of your passport, you may come to Australian on an eVisitor (subclass 651) visa, Electronic Travel Authority (subclass 601) visa or one of the five streams of a Visitor (subclass 600) visa.

The visa may be granted for up to three, six or twelve months allowing one or multiple entries. There also may be some special consideration regarding the length of the Visitor visa for parents of Australian citizens and permanent residents.

The impression that getting a Visitor visa can be a very easy process, unfortunately, is deceptive. For holders of passports eligible for the visas subclasses 601 and 651, this is mainly the case. However, applicants that do not have any other choice but a visa subclass 600, can face an unexpected refusal which often leads to confusion, frustration and disruption of plans.  The unfortunate applicant also has a difficult choice of either:

•    forget about the failure and change their plans for holiday - however, the refusal will remained unrebutted in the immigration history of the person, most likely affecting the future application for a visa; 
•    apply for the same visa once again, not being sure what issues should be addressed and how to convince the Department that all the requirements are met – this approach could even worsen the situation in case of receiving a repeated refusal;
•    apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (which is possible in certain circumstances) to prove the genuine intention and ability to visit Australia temporarily and overturn the negative decision of the Departmental officer  - the one will face the application fee of A$3,000 and quite long processing time.

We highly recommend not putting your plans for a holiday or meeting with your family and friends in jeopardy. At least discuss the possibility for you or your relatives and friends to meet all the requirements of a Visitor visa on our online or face-to-face consultation or entrust the work on this application to a specialist.

However, if the visa is already rejected, do not be discouraged, contact us and we will try our best in overturning this result.