Visas For Australia

Whatever you’re doing in Australia, you’re going to need a visa. There are lots of types of visas, but you’re probably interested in one of these four outlined below...

---

1) Tourist Visas: Up to 3 Months

If you’re visiting purely as a tourist for three months or less, an Electronic Travel Authority or ETA is the easy alternative to a visa. It will cost you less than a tenner and you can apply online - it takes 10 minutes max.

If you decide once you’re there that you want to stay a bit longer, you will be able to extend your ETA to last you an extra three months. To do this, go to an immigration office in Australia.

---

2) Tourist Visas: 3 to 6 Months

If you already know that you want to go for longer than three months (up to six months), you’ll need to apply for a long-term tourist visa. To do this, you’ll have to download and fill in a form, and send it to your nearest Australian High Commission. You’ll also need to pay £30, and send various documents, including proof that you can support yourself in Oz (for example, a bank statement, letters from a bank concerning your financial position, air tickets that have been purchased).

---

3) Working Holiday Visa

The UK, and many other countries (excluding the USA), have a reciprocal agreement with Australia so any citizen aged 18-30 years old can get a Working Holiday Visa (they cost around £80). This allows you to work for 12 months from the date you arrive in Australia (you can now extend that to two years if you can provide evidence that you undertook three months of harvest work in regional Australia during your first year). However, you can’t work for the same employer for more than six months.

You can leave and re-enter Australia using this visa as many times as you like during your year. However, if you permanently leave Australia without staying for the full 12 months you cannot go back, say, a year later and use the remaining months of your visa.

Apply for your Working Holiday Visa well in advance of your travel date. When you apply online you need to have relevant travel details (return tickets), funds (usually you have to prove you have about £2,000 to travel with) and passport details at the ready.

Once you have been approved you will be told what you need to do after that. Basically, you will eventually get a 'visa label' which is a piece of paper stuck into your passport so that it can be easily accessed by potential employers or Immigration Officials.

If you fly into Sydney you can get your visa label printed before you leave the airport: after having your passport stamped you will be directed to the visa label desk where you collect it.

If you fly into any other Australian airport you can get your label printed at the nearest DIMIA office (Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs).

---

4) Student Visas

For those who wish to study (where better to do Marine Biology than on the Barrier Reef?), the Australian Government operates an overseas student program (OSP) that allows people who are not Australian citizens or Australian permanent residents to study in Australia.

Anyone who is not an Australian resident may apply to study in Australia under the OSP.

If you want to study under this program, you’ll first need a student visa. You can only get one of these if you wish to undertake a registered course or part of a registered course on a full-time basis.

You can’t go out to Oz and then look around for courses. Before you apply for an Australian student visa, you’ll need a letter of offer or electronic Confirmation of Enrolment from your education provider.

Types and prices of student visa vary, but there are various requirements you’ll need to fill (including being ‘of good character’ - gulp!)