Is applying for a spousal visa from within Australia worth it?
Question by : Is applying for a spousal visa from within Australia worth it?
I am 20 years old and I married my husband (22) on the 30th of September this year. We have come to Australia (where I was born) to live. My husband is a British citizen and entered Australia on the free 3 month holiday visa, as we stupidly neglected to research or organise anything in advance. We are planning on living in Australia for at least 2 years, and obviously we would both like to get work. We’ve found that to apply for a spousal visa from within the country costs a non-refundable 00, which isn’t a complete deal-breaker if it actually works, but I was hoping to have some first hand advice about how quickly they usually process these things and what the success rate is like. Anyone here done this before?
Best answer:
Answer by Our Precious Chloee
My fiance(He’s American) and i applied from within Australia and it was a pretty quick response as we went into our states immigration office to apply. We were still waiting on the Australian federal police check so they couldn’t make a decision right there and then but once we sent it back to them we got a letter two weeks later saying it was approved. It’s coming up on two years since we applied so we are waiting on papers to see what we need to send in for the perminate part.. And when you apply for the temp one you are also applying for perminate one too. As long as you have all the paper work reqiured it should be fast and easy. Goodluck.
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Yes, it’s definitely worth it but he would have been better off coming to Australia on a Working Holiday visa rather than a Tourist (eVisitor) visa. The problem now is that WHVs can’t be applied for from within Australia. They only take at most a couple of days to be granted but that can’t happen onshore.
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/417/
The reason a WHV would be better is that when he applies for an onshore Partner visa, he will be granted a Bridging visa that will allow him to stay in Australia until his Partner visa application is decided BUT, the Bridging visa carries the same work privileges as the visa it is bridging from and Tourist visas don’t carry work privileges – WHVs do. He can apply for Permission to Work on his BV, but he needs to show real financial hardship and not all applications are successful.
http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1024i.pdf Bridging visas
http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/partners/partner/820-801/ Onshore Partner visa
All Partner visas (onshore or offshore) for people from countries like the UK, are currently taking around 5 months to be granted. Overall, the success rate is high. The usual things that result in an unsuccessful outcome are health or character issues, or more usually, a failure to show that the relationship is ‘genuine and ongoing’. You will need to provide evidence that yours is a genuine relationship – just being married isn’t enough. See pages 40/41 of the Partner Migration booklet:
http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/1127.pdf Partner Migration booklet