Getting your own visa file and travel history from the Department: the FOI request, the movement records request, and the cases where the file decides the next application

MARN 1576536

What the Department holds on you

The Department's client record links everything lodged or recorded under a person's identity: each visa and citizenship application with every form, statement and document uploaded or posted with it; the decision record for each, which for a grant is short and for a refusal is the officer's reasons and the material relied on; the case notes, which record the officer's reading of the evidence, the checks requested, the referrals, the verification calls and what was said; the interview records; correspondence sent and received; the health and character outcomes as the Department recorded them; the record of cancellation proceedings, bars and exclusion periods; and the record of who acted for the person, each agent, authorised recipient and nominated contact, with the forms that appointed them. In a separate system the Department holds the movement records: every arrival in and departure from Australia recorded against the person's passports, which is the record of presence in and absence from Australia that the Department reads for any residence-based requirement. Both are the person's personal information, and both are obtainable.

When the file decides the next application

The file matters because the Department reads it before it reads the new application, and the applicant who has not read it is the only person in the room who does not know what it says. A refusal years ago whose reasons the applicant never read, or read as a former agent summarised them, is read in full by the officer deciding the new application, and a new application that does not address the ground of the old refusal invites the same ground; the decision record shows what the ground was and what evidence the Department found wanting. An application a former agent lodged without showing the client, which is common with unregistered agents and with some registered ones, contains statements the client did not make and may not know, about employment, relationships, education, travel and intentions, and a new application that contradicts them is read as false or misleading information, with the consequences the declaring previous refusals guide describes; the file shows what was said. A residence requirement, for citizenship, for the Resident Return visa, for the Hong Kong streams, for the second 485, is counted on the movement records and not on the applicant's memory, and an applicant who counts wrong is refused on arithmetic the Department had in front of it. A person told they are barred, excluded or subject to a condition they do not understand needs the decision that imposed it. And a person with any character history needs to know what the Department recorded, because the character question on every form asks about it and the answer is checked against the record. In each case the file is obtained before the application is written, not after it is refused.

The FOI request for your own documents

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 gives a person a right of access to documents held by an Australian Government agency, subject to exemptions, and the Department of Home Affairs receives more FOI requests than any other agency, most of them from people seeking their own files. The request is made through the Department's online FOI request form, which asks for the applicant's identity details, the documents sought and how the applicant wishes to receive them; a request for documents containing the applicant's own personal information attracts no application fee and no processing charges, so the request is free. The request is made in the applicant's own name, with evidence of identity, or by a representative with the applicant's written authority. The Department acknowledges the request, may contact the applicant to clarify or narrow its scope, which an applicant who has asked for everything should expect, and then decides it, releasing the documents, usually as PDF by email or through a portal, with a decision letter listing what was found, what was released and what was exempted and why. The documents come as the Department holds them, in its systems' formats, with the case notes in the Department's internal shorthand, which the reading section covers.

Making the request so it comes back in time

The Act allows the Department 30 days from receipt to decide a request, extended by up to 30 days with the applicant's agreement, by a period for consultation with third parties whose information is involved, or by the Information Commissioner on the Department's application, and the Department's personal-information caseload means that requests commonly take longer than 30 days and some take months. The lever the applicant has is scope: a request for the decision record and the officer's notes for a named application, or for the documents lodged with a named application by a named agent, is small, is processed by one area and comes back faster; a request for all documents the Department holds about me is processed across several systems and areas, consulted on, and extended. An applicant with a deadline, a review period running, an invitation with 60 days, an expiring visa, asks for the specific documents they need, explains the deadline in the request, and, where the deadline is a review, tells the Tribunal that an FOI request is outstanding, because the Tribunal can obtain the Department's file directly for a review and does. An applicant who wants the whole file for a long-term plan asks for it and waits. The request is lodged once; a second request for the same documents starts a second clock.

What is redacted and why

The documents come back with parts blacked out and the exemption marked beside each. The common exemptions on a visa file are: the personal information of other people, which covers a sponsor's or an employer's details in parts, a referee's statement, a third party's information in a relationship or employment verification, and the names and contact details of Department staff below a certain level, released only with the consent of the person concerned; material whose disclosure would, or could reasonably be expected to, prejudice the enforcement of the law or reveal the Department's investigative methods, which covers some integrity checking, some character and security material, and the Department's reasons for selecting a particular application for verification; and deliberative material, the opinions and recommendations of officers in the course of deciding, where the Department considers disclosure contrary to the public interest, though in practice the officer's assessment and the reasons for the decision are usually released because the applicant is entitled to them. National security material is exempt and is not described. A redaction that removes the one thing the applicant needs, the ground of a refusal, the content of a verification call, is the subject of the review the next section describes, and an applicant should expect the Department to release the substance of a decision while protecting the identities and the methods around it.

Review of an FOI decision

A person dissatisfied with an FOI decision, a refusal of access, a redaction, a finding that documents do not exist, or a failure to decide within the time, can seek internal review by the Department within 30 days of the decision, which is decided by a different officer, and can then or instead seek review by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner within 60 days, which reviews the decision on the merits and can order release; a deemed refusal, where the Department has not decided within the statutory time including extensions, can be taken to the Information Commissioner directly. The Commissioner's reviews take time and are used for the file that matters over years rather than the document needed next month; for the document needed next month, the better path is a narrower request and a telephone call to the FOI section explaining the deadline. A complaint about the Department's handling of a request, as distinct from the decision, goes to the Information Commissioner or the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

The international movement records request

The record of a person's arrivals in and departures from Australia is held separately from the visa file and is obtained separately: the Department provides it through an online request for international movement records, which asks for the person's identity details, the passports held during the period and the period sought, and returns a record of each movement with the date, the direction and the port, as far back as the Department's electronic records run, which covers the whole of most people's history. The request is not an FOI request and is not actioned by the FOI section, which redirects it; it is free, it is quicker in the ordinary case, weeks rather than months, and the record it returns is the record the Department itself reads for the citizenship residence requirement, the Resident Return visa's two-in-five rule, the Hong Kong streams' usual residence, the regional years on a second 485, the newly arrived resident's waiting period and any question of presence in Australia on a date. The person planning any of those applications obtains the record first and counts on it, because a passport stamp missed, a trip forgotten, a departure on an old passport, is found by the Department's record and not by the applicant's, and the citizenship documents guide and the resident return guide both rest on it. A movement that the record shows and the person disputes, a departure recorded against a passport the person says they never used, is raised with the Department with evidence, because the record is corrected rather than argued with at the application.

Requesting through a migration agent

A registered migration agent, or a lawyer, can make either request on a client's behalf with the client's written authority, which for the Department is given on its authorisation form, and the documents are released to the representative. An agent taking on a client with any history, a refusal, a cancellation, a previous agent, an unregistered agent, a long residence with uncertain dates, or simply a client who is not sure what was said in an earlier application, requests the file before advising, and tells the client why: advice on a new application that is given without the decision record of the old one, or without the content of the application a former agent lodged, is advice given on the client's recollection, and the Department will not be deciding on the client's recollection. An agent who has acted for the client throughout has the file already; a client who has changed agents can ask the former agent for the copy the agent is required to keep, which is faster than FOI, and the change of agent guide covers what a former agent must hand over. A client who was a victim of an unregistered agent and does not know what was lodged in their name has the FOI request as the first step, which the unregistered agent guide describes.

Reading what comes back

The file arrives as the Department's systems produce it: the applications as the forms were submitted, with the answers given to each question; the documents as uploaded; the decision record as a letter and, for a refusal, the officer's reasons; and the case notes as entries in the Department's case management system, dated, with the officer's initials or identifier redacted, in the shorthand the Department uses, with codes for the checks run and the outcomes recorded. The things to read first are the refusal reasons, which say which criterion failed and on what evidence; the answers given in earlier applications to the questions about employment, relationships, education, travel, character and previous refusals, each of which will be compared with the next application; the case notes around any verification, interview or integrity referral, which show what the Department tested and what it concluded; the record of any bar, exclusion period or condition, with the decision that imposed it; and, in the movement records, each absence longer than a few weeks and each entry on an unexpected passport. What the reading produces is a list of the things the next application must be consistent with and the things it must address, and a consultation on the file is the consultation that reads that list. A client who finds in the file something they did not know was said in their name takes advice before the next application, because the question of how to deal with an earlier false statement has an answer and silence is not it.

What the file cannot do

The file cannot change a decision: it shows the reasons but the time to contest them was the review period, which ran from the notification whether or not the applicant read the reasons, and a person who discovers through FOI that a refusal years ago was wrong has, in most cases, no review left and the refusal on the record. It cannot be edited: a person who finds an error in the Department's record of them, a wrong date of birth, a movement recorded against them that was someone else's, a refusal recorded that was a withdrawal, asks for the record to be corrected under the Privacy Act or the FOI Act's amendment provisions, with evidence, and the Department annotates or corrects it, which is a separate process. It does not contain what the Department has not recorded: a conversation with an officer that was not noted, a document the former agent never lodged. And it does not arrive quickly enough to be requested the week an application is due. The person who treats the file as part of the preparation for the next application, requested months ahead, read with care, and reflected in what is lodged, gets what it can give; the person who requests it after the refusal gets an explanation.

The records checklist

1. Decide whether your history needs the file: any refusal, cancellation, bar, earlier agent, unregistered agent, character matter or uncertain travel record says yes.
2. For exact dates in and out of Australia, lodge the international movement records request online; it is free, separate from FOI, and the Department’s own record.
3. For the file, lodge the FOI request online, free for your own personal information, naming the applications or decisions you need rather than everything, and stating any deadline.
4. Expect 30 days extended, and longer for a wide request; ask a former agent for their copy in the meantime.
5. Read the refusal reasons, the answers given in earlier applications, the verification notes, and any bar or exclusion decision first.
6. Where a redaction removes the substance you need, seek internal review within 30 days, then the Information Commissioner.
7. Where the record is wrong, seek correction with evidence before the next application.
8. Write the next application to be consistent with the file and to address what it shows.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The Freedom of Information Act 1982, including the right of access, the exemptions, the processing periods and the review provisions, the Privacy Act 1988 amendment provisions, and the Department of Home Affairs’ published FOI and international movement records request processes, all as in force at the date above; processing times are the Department’s and vary with its caseload. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.