Visa refusals and cancellations
If a visa has been refused or cancelled, the period for asking for review has already started. It runs from the day you were notified, not from the day you read the letter.
General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.
Start with the decision record
The most useful thing to do on the day a decision arrives is not to lodge something. It is to read the decision record: the letter or notification the Department sent, which usually appears in ImmiAccount and at the email address given in the application. Find three things in it. The date you were notified. The provision the decision was made under. The part that sets out review. Where a refusal carries review rights, the Migration Act requires that notice to state that the decision can be reviewed, the time in which the application for review may be made, who can apply and where.
Merits review means a second look at your case on the facts, by a body independent of the Department. For migration decisions that body is the Administrative Review Tribunal, which replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 14 October 2024. Depending on the decision, the Tribunal can affirm it, vary it, set it aside and substitute its own decision, or send it back to the Department with directions. It is not a complaint about how you were treated. It is a fresh decision on the same question.
The time limit is what people lose. It is set by the Migration Act rather than by the Tribunal, it is shorter if you were in immigration detention when you were notified, and shorter again for character decisions. For migration and protection decisions the Act expressly disapplies the Tribunal’s general power to extend time, so there is no application for more time to be made. If the period has already passed it is still worth advice, because how you were notified can matter, but nothing replaces lodging in time.
Two other things usually matter immediately. Section 48 of the Migration Act is headed Non-citizen refused a visa or whose visa cancelled may only apply for particular visas, and it means what it says: if you are in Australia, do not hold a substantive visa and have had a visa refused or cancelled since you last entered, you can generally only apply here for a class prescribed for that section. It does not stop you applying for review. Separately, a bridging visa may keep you lawful while a review is on foot, but it decides nothing. Our guide to bridging visas explains how they work, and our guide to the first days after a refusal goes through the decision record step by step.
What we can do after a decision
Reading the decision with you
We go through the decision record and work out what was actually decided, under which provision and on what reasoning. That is what tells you whether the Tribunal can look at it, who is entitled to apply and how long there is.
Lodging the review application in time
Where review is available we prepare and lodge the application to the Administrative Review Tribunal with the documents that type of decision requires. Because the period cannot be extended, protecting the date comes first; the argument and the evidence are built after the application is safely on foot.
Responding before a visa is cancelled
If the Department is considering cancelling your visa it must notify you of the grounds and invite you to respond within a stated time. Answering that notice with evidence directed at the grounds is usually a better position than arguing about the cancellation afterwards. The same applies to an invitation to make representations after a cancellation on character grounds.
Working out what is still open
Where merits review is not available or has run out, we look at what remains: judicial review in the courts, which is about legal error rather than the merits and has its own time limit, a request for ministerial intervention after a Tribunal decision, or a different application made from a different position. We will say so plainly when nothing useful is left.
After a refusal or cancellation
How long do I have to apply for review?
The period depends on the decision, on how you were notified and on where you were at the time, so there is no single figure that is safe to print on a website. The Migration Act sets it, it runs from the day you were notified, and your decision record has to state it if the decision carries review rights. What is the same in every migration and protection matter is that the Administrative Review Tribunal has no power to give you more time. If you cannot tell when you were notified, take the letter to someone who can.
Can every refusal be reviewed?
No. Review rights depend on the visa, on where you were when you applied and, for some visas, on who sponsored or nominated you. Many decisions on applications made outside Australia cannot be reviewed by the applicant at all, and where review does exist it is sometimes the sponsor, the nominator or an Australian relative who is entitled to apply rather than the person refused. Decisions the Minister makes personally are generally outside merits review. Your decision record is the first place this is answered.
What is the section 48 bar?
Section 48 of the Migration Act applies to a person in Australia who does not hold a substantive visa and who, since last entering the country, was refused a visa or held a visa cancelled under one of the provisions the section lists. That person may only apply for a class of visa prescribed for the purposes of the section. The prescribed list is set out in the Migration Regulations and it is short. The bar does not prevent you applying for review of the decision itself, and it is directed at applications made in Australia. Leaving the country to apply from overseas carries its own consequences and is not a way around it.
What is different about a decision under section 501?
Section 501 allows a visa to be refused or cancelled because a person does not pass the character test, which is defined in the section and includes having a substantial criminal record. A delegate’s decision under section 501 can usually be taken to the Tribunal, but the period for applying is much shorter than in an ordinary migration matter and cannot be extended. Where the Minister acts personally on national interest grounds, the rules of natural justice do not apply and there is no merits review. A section 501 refusal or cancellation also triggers section 501E, which prevents further visa applications while the person is in Australia, apart from a protection visa and visas specified in the regulations.
My visa was cancelled while I was in prison. What happens now?
Where a person is serving a sentence of imprisonment on a full-time basis and does not pass the character test because of a substantial criminal record, or an offence of a kind the section names, cancellation under section 501(3A) is mandatory and happens without prior warning. The Act then requires the Department to give you written notice of the decision, particulars of the information relied on and an invitation to make representations asking for the cancellation to be revoked. That invitation has its own deadline. If a delegate decides not to revoke, that decision can generally be reviewed by the Tribunal, within a short period that cannot be extended.
Does a bridging visa mean I can stay?
A bridging visa is a temporary visa that keeps you lawful in Australia while something is being decided. It is not the visa you applied for, it gives you no permanent status and it ends a set period after the matter is finally determined; the grant notice tells you when. Work and study rights depend on the conditions attached to that particular bridging visa and are not always the ones you had before. A Bridging visa A has no travel facility, so it ceases if you leave Australia. If a visa was cancelled rather than an application refused, a bridging visa is not automatic, and holding one does not mean you hold a substantive visa for the purposes of section 48.
Do I need a registered migration agent?
No. Immigration assistance can be given by a registered migration agent or by an Australian legal practitioner. Since 22 March 2021 a lawyer holding an unrestricted practising certificate has been able to give immigration assistance without being registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, and so does not appear on that register.
What to bring to a first consultation
If you have only one document, bring the decision record; everything else can follow.
- The decision record in full, with every page and attachment, not only the first page
- The date you were notified and how the decision reached you: ImmiAccount, email, post or by hand
- Your passport, and the grant notice and conditions for any visa you hold now, including a bridging visa
- Every Australian visa you have applied for, held, been refused or had cancelled, with the dates
- Any notice inviting you to comment on grounds for cancellation, or to make representations after one, and the date it was given to you
- Anything you have already lodged in response, with any receipt or reference number
- If a sponsor, nominator or Australian relative is involved, their details and their visa or citizenship status