Bridging visas explained
A bridging visa is not a decision about your application. It is the visa that keeps you lawful while something else is decided, and the letter on it changes what you are allowed to do.
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.
A Bridging visa A follows an onshore application made while you still held a substantive visa. A Bridging visa C does the same job where you held none. A Bridging visa B is the only one that lets you leave Australia and come back. A Bridging visa E is the one for people who are unlawful or making arrangements to depart.
Do this first: find your bridging visa grant notice and read the conditions on it by number. That document, not a website, states what you may do.
What a bridging visa is, and what it is not
A bridging visa is a temporary visa that keeps you lawfully in Australia while something else is decided: an application, a review, a court case or your departure. The Migration Act allows one to be granted permitting the holder to remain until a specified period ends or a specified event happens.
It is not a substantive visa. The Act defines a substantive visa as any visa other than a bridging, criminal justice or enforcement visa, so holding one means you hold no substantive visa. It also says nothing about how your application is going: the notice is usually issued before anyone has assessed it.
You usually do not lodge a separate bridging visa application, because for many onshore applications the approved form covers both. That does not happen if you applied from outside Australia, or if the visa can only be granted offshore.
When it comes into effect
A bridging visa granted with an onshore application usually does not start on the day it is granted. The Migration Regulations provide that it comes into effect either on grant or when the substantive visa held by the holder ceases. While you still hold a substantive visa, that is the visa in effect and its conditions are the ones that apply to you.
This is what catches people out over work. Your rights do not change on the day the bridging visa is granted. They change when your current visa ends, and they change to whatever is written on the bridging visa, which may be less.
A Bridging visa E is different. It generally comes into effect on grant, because a person granted one usually holds nothing else for it to wait behind.
The four letters, and who each is for
Every bridging visa has a subclass number as well as a letter, and the number is what appears on your grant notice.
- Bridging visa A, subclass 010 — you applied in Australia for a visa that can be granted onshore, and you held a substantive visa when you applied.
- Bridging visa B, subclass 020 — you already hold a Bridging visa A or B and need to leave Australia and return before the application is decided.
- Bridging visa C, subclass 030 — you applied in Australia but held no substantive visa at the time. Same holding job as a Bridging visa A, with less attached.
- Bridging visa E, subclasses 050 and 051 — you are an unlawful non-citizen, or already hold one, and are departing, applying or seeking review. Subclass 051 is for certain protection visa applicants.
There are others: D covers subclasses 040 and 041, F is subclass 060 and R is subclass 070. They are for narrow situations this page does not describe.
Work and study
Work rights are not a feature of the letter. They are conditions, written on the grant notice as four-digit numbers, and the only way to know is to read them.
For a Bridging visa A the general rule is that it carries across the work-related conditions of the visa you held when you applied. Condition 8101 is that the holder must not engage in work in Australia. Condition 8104 caps work at 40 hours a fortnight, or 48 hours where the bridging visa was granted on a Subclass 500 student visa application. A Bridging visa C starts stricter: the Regulations impose 8101 in any case not specifically excepted.
Where 8101 applies you may be able to apply for a further bridging visa that permits work. The test is a compelling need to work, which the Regulations define narrowly as financial hardship or a particular sponsored-employment situation. Study is separate again: a bridging visa is not a student visa, and condition 8201, common on Bridging visas E, stops the holder studying or training for more than three months.
Working in breach of condition 8101 is a ground for cancelling a visa, and a cancellation is far harder to undo than a slow application is to wait out.
Travel: only a Bridging visa B
The Department of Home Affairs states this plainly: only a Bridging visa B will let you leave and re-enter Australia while you wait for a decision on a substantive visa, and if you depart while another kind of bridging visa is in effect, that visa ceases. The Migration Act sits behind it: a visa to remain in, but not re-enter, Australia ceases to be in effect if the holder leaves.
A Bridging visa B has to be granted before you go. You must already hold a Bridging visa A or B, and the decision maker must be satisfied that your reasons for leaving and returning are substantial. The visa specifies a travel period and you need to be back before it ends. Unlike a Bridging visa A or C, an application for one attracts a visa application charge.
Some people cannot be granted one at all, including current and former holders of Subclass 785 temporary protection visas and Subclass 790 safe haven enterprise visas. Check before you book, not after.
Bridging visa E, and being unlawful
A Bridging visa E is the bridging visa associated with holding nothing else. The plainest ground for grant is that the decision maker is satisfied you are making, or are the subject of, acceptable arrangements to depart Australia. Others include a valid onshore application that has not been finally determined and an application for review of a decision to cancel a visa.
Its conditions are usually the tightest of the four. Condition 8101 must be imposed in a number of the situations the Regulations set out, condition 8401 requires reporting at specified times and places, and condition 8201 limits study.
If you hold no substantive visa and no bridging visa, you are an unlawful non-citizen now, not at some point in the future. That is something to get advice about today.
What usually happens
Find the grant notice and check VEVO
The notice is in ImmiAccount or in the email used for the application, and it names the subclass, says when the visa comes into effect and lists every condition. VEVO tells you which visa is in effect today.
Read the conditions by number
Look up each four-digit number rather than relying on a summary. 8101 and 8104 are about work, 8201 is about study and 8401 is about reporting.
Work out what ends it
A bridging visa ends on an event rather than a date you choose: a grant, a refusal and the period after it, a cancellation, a withdrawal, or the grant of another bridging visa.
Deal with travel before you book
A Bridging visa B has to be applied for and granted first. Leaving without one generally ends the visa you hold.
Common questions
Can I leave Australia on a Bridging visa A?
You can leave, but you generally cannot return on it. Only a Bridging visa B lets you go and come back, and it has to be granted before you depart.
My bridging visa says I must not work. Can that change?
Sometimes. Where condition 8101 applies you may be able to apply for a further bridging visa that permits work, on the basis of a compelling need to work. The Regulations define that narrowly as financial hardship or a particular sponsored-employment situation, and it is decided on evidence.
What is the difference between a Bridging visa C and a Bridging visa E?
A Bridging visa C is for someone who lodged a valid onshore application while holding no substantive visa. The Regulations say an applicant for one must not hold a Bridging visa E and must not have held one since last holding a substantive visa. A Bridging visa E reaches people who are unlawful, or already on one.
What happens to my bridging visa if my application is refused?
It generally does not stop on the day. The Regulations allow a bridging visa granted with an application to run for a further 35 days, and for 35 days again after a Tribunal decision, with exceptions where it ends immediately. The time limit for applying to the Administrative Review Tribunal is strict, is stated in your decision record and cannot be extended in migration matters. Our guide to the first days after a refusal goes through it.
Related
If a date is close
The moments that matter are the day a substantive visa ceases, the day a decision is made and the day before you travel. If one of those is near, say so when you get in touch.
Official sources
- Department of Home Affairs — Bridging visa A (subclass 010)
- Department of Home Affairs — Bridging visa B (subclass 020)
- Department of Home Affairs — Bridging visa C (subclass 030)
- Department of Home Affairs — Bridging visa E (subclass 050 and 051)
- Department of Home Affairs — Travel while your visa is being processed
- Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth), Federal Register of Legislation
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