Visa Summary

This temporary visa allows you to leave and return to Australia while your application for a substantive visa is being processed.
Provided you return to Australia within the specified travel period, a Bridging Visa B (BVB) will then allow you to stay in Australia while your substantive visa application is being processed.
You can hold a substantive visa and a BVB at the same time. However your bridging visa will stay dormant until your substantive visa expires. You might need to apply for this visa each time you want to leave Australia and return on a bridging visa.

What Can You Do With This Visa ?

  • leave and return to Australia within the defined travel period while your application for a substantive visa is being processed
  • lawfully remain in Australia while your substantive visa application is being processed

How Long Can You Stay ?

Usually, a BVB comes into effect as soon as it is granted or when your current substantive visa ends

A BVB allows you to travel until a specified date, unless the visa ends before that date.

A BVB will end immediately if:

  • you are granted the substantive visa you applied for
  • Your BVB is cancelled or the substantive visa cancelled that you held when you were granted a BVB
  • you are outside Australia when the BVB specified travel period ends
  • you leave Australia after the BVB specified travel period end

Other Conditions

Other conditions apply to BVB applications depending on when they were granted

BVB Granted on or After 19 November 2016

Your BVB Will End 35 Calendar Days After:

  • Department of Home Affairs’s (DHA) decision or a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) in relation to your associated substantive visa application
  • a determination that your substantive visa application or an application for review by the AAT is invalid
  • you withdraw your substantive visa application or application for review by the AAT

Your BVB Will End 28 Calendar Days After:

  • a judicial review body upholds the decision to refuse your substantive visa application
  • you withdraw a related judicial review application

BVB Granted Before 19 November 2016

Your BVB will end 28 days after the date that 1 of the following happens:

  • DHA notify you that your substantive visa application is not valid
  • DHA notify you that your substantive visa application has been refused
  • DHA receive your written request to withdraw your substantive visa application
  • a merits review tribunal notifies you that it has upheld the department’s decision to refuse your substantive visa application
  • a merit review tribunal notifies you that it has no jurisdiction to consider your application for review
  • a merits review tribunal or a judicial review body receives your written request to withdraw your application for merits or judicial review
  • a judicial review body upholds the decision to refuse your substantive visa application

Stay longer

You can’t stay in Australia longer by extending this visa.

Location

You and anyone included in your application must be in Australia when the BVB application is submitted and granted.

Your Obligations

You and anyone included in your application must:

  • comply with all Australian laws
  • comply with the conditions of the current substantive visa, while you are waiting for the decision on your application
  • comply with the conditions of your Bridging visa B (BVB) when it comes into effect

See the conditions that will and might be applied to a BVB.

Travel Rights

If you still hold a substantive visa that allows you to travel and you believe you can return to Australia before your substantive visa ceases, it is your decision whether or not you want to apply for and be granted a BVB before you travel.

When Department of Home Affairs (DHA) grants you BVB, it will notify you when the specified travel period is ending.
If you hold a BVB where the specified travel period has ended but you need to travel outside Australia again, you will have to apply for another BVB.

When the specified travel period of your BVB ends, if you are still outside Australia, the BVB will end and you will not be able to use it to return to Australia. If you don’t also hold a substantive visa that lets you return, you will have to apply for another visa before you can return to Australia. There is no guarantee that you will be granted a visa.

In order to determine your eligibility about this visa, you may need to satisfy certain requirements, which may include

  • You and any other members of the family unit must be onshore
  • You must already hold a BVA a BVB
  • You must have applied in Australia for a substantive visa that can be granted to you while you are in Australia.
  • You must have substantial reasons for wanting to leave and return to Australia while your substantive visa application is being considered or where you are waiting for the outcome of a judicial review
  • You must meet health requirements
  • You must meet character requirements
  • You may not be eligible if  your previous visa was cancelled or refused

Our experience counsellors can advise you about the eligibility of your proposed visa and create a strategy to gain the best possible outcome.

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