Visitor Visa

Migration Lawyers Melbourne · Visitor Visa · 600 · Tourist · To Legal with 20+ years of experience helping people visit family and holidays.

Undoubtedly, Australia is a beautiful country and many overseas people want to visit Australia for a holiday, sightseeing, social or recreational reasons or simply to say G’day Mate to relatives or friends. Generally, the Visitor visa or the Tourist visa allows overseas people to come to Australia for short periods of time.

Furthermore, this temporary visa is the perfect visa for those people wanting to visit Australia temporarily. Equally as important, the Home Affairs charges for the Visitor visa is nominal and the processing time is very short. The visa is generally for short-term visits of 3 months and can be for a single trip or multiple visits. However, in some certain circumstances, the visa period can be a number of years with 12 month stays.

Visitor visas include:

There are generally 4 streams, namely:

Tourist stream: holiday, recreational or to visit family and friends
Business Visitor stream: short business visit
Sponsored Family stream: family sponsored visit
Approved Destination Status stream: organised tour groups from China

Basic Eligibility

Firstly, for the Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) visa, the applicant:

must hold a passport from one of the following countries: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong (SAR of China), Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Republic of San Marino, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (excluding official or diplomatic passports), The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vatican City.
must apply for the visa while outside Australia and granted while outside Australia
can only apply to travel to Australia as a tourist with no rights to studying or working

Secondly, for the Visitor visa, the applicant:

Tourist stream: must satisfy the genuine temporary entrant criteria
Business Visitor stream: must have an acceptable reason to travel to Australia for approved business related activities
Sponsored Family stream: must satisfy the genuine temporary entrant criteria, and the applicant must be sponsored by an eligible relative, noting a security bond ($5,000 to $15,000) may be requested
Approved Destination Status stream: must be from China and the visa application must be through an agent registered with the Approved Destination Status scheme for travel to Australia as part of a tour group

Unfortunately, sometimes the Visitor visa may be refused due to the ‘Genuine Temporary Entrant‘ (GTE) criteria.

Despite the visa refusal, don’t be dishearten, contact Migration Lawyers Melbourne for help with the GTE criteria.

Visitor Visa

Electronic Transit Authority (ETA) visa Base application charge Internet service fee per applicant	$ 0 $ 20
Visitor visa (600) Base application charge (Offshore) Base application charge (Onshore)	$ 190 $ 475