During this Coronavirus outbreak, Australia Immigration Department has announced a few policies updates regarding the visa options for people who are affected by the travel restrictions. There are more than two millions of temporary visa holders living and working or visiting in Australia have been left in limbo due to the national travel ban enforced in March.
Commonly, many visitor visa holders can not depart from Australia as planned. If you are one of them, please check if your current visa has imposed a condition of 8503 ‘No Further Stay’. 8503 condition means you can not apply for any visa while you are in Australia. However, you can apply for a waiver of the 8503 condition. Once the waiver request is granted, you can apply for a new visa. Please leave enough time to prepare for 8503 waiver, the current processing time is between 2 to 4 weeks.
Another common condition imposed on a visitor visa is 8558 which means you can not stay in Australia for more than 12 months in an 18 months period. Even you have overstayed in your visa (more than 12 months) your visa will not be ceased, but you have breached the visa condition. So you need to check the date yourself and make sure you didn’t breach the
If your visitor visa has both 8503 and 8558 condition imposed, you need to request a waiver for the condition 8503, once it has been granted then apply for a new visa before reach 12 months stay.
