Visa application taking too long: what you can actually do

MARN 1576536

What the processing times mean

The Department publishes, for each visa, the time within which 50 per cent and 90 per cent of recently finalised applications were decided. They are backward-looking statistics, updated monthly, and they describe the applications decided last month, not yours. An application lodged today can take longer than the 90 per cent figure without anything being wrong, because the figure includes the simple cases decided quickly. The Act sets no deadline for a decision on a visa application. The figures are useful for one thing: knowing when your wait has become unusual, which is when the steps below start to be worth taking. The current figures and their trend are on the processing times page.

Why some files are slow

• The queue. Applications are allocated by priority direction and by date, and some subclasses and streams simply have more applications than officers.
• Something is missing. A health examination not done, a police certificate not received, a skills assessment that expired, a document the Department asked for in a letter that went to an old address.
• Verification. Employment references checked with employers, qualifications checked with institutions, relationships checked with interviews, identity checked with other agencies. Each is a request to a third party, and the file waits for the reply.
• Character or security referrals. A referral to another agency, which the Department does not control and cannot hurry.
• Sponsor-side problems. For employer-sponsored visas, a nomination still undecided, or a sponsor under monitoring.
• Your own circumstances changed and the officer is waiting for you to say so, or has written and not been answered.

Check your own file first

Before complaining about the Department, read what it can see. In ImmiAccount, open the application and check its status and the messages tab for any request; confirm the health examination shows as completed and that it has not expired; confirm every police certificate has been uploaded and is current; confirm the skills assessment and English result are still valid; check that your address, email and passport on file are current. For a sponsored visa, ask the employer whether the nomination has been decided. For a partner visa, check whether the sponsor's part has been lodged and whether the sponsorship has been approved. A surprising share of long waits ends when the applicant uploads something the Department asked for months earlier.

Requests that move a file

The Department will consider a request to expedite where there are compelling or compassionate circumstances: a serious medical condition of the applicant or a close family member, a death in the family, an employer's documented and urgent need for a sponsored worker, a visa about to expire with consequences that cannot be reversed, or a humanitarian situation. The request is made in writing, through ImmiAccount against the application or the Department's online enquiry form, with the application ID, a short statement of the circumstances, and the evidence: medical reports, a death certificate, an employer's letter. A request without evidence is noted and nothing happens. A request that explains why the delay causes harm that a decision would prevent is read. Travel plans and inconvenience do not qualify, and asking repeatedly does not help.

Priority directions

The Minister issues directions that set the order in which skilled and employer-sponsored applications are processed, most recently the directions in force from September 2026, which prioritise applications by factors such as regional sponsorship, occupation, and whether the applicant is in Australia. An application low in the priority order waits behind those above it however complete it is. Knowing where your application sits in the direction tells you whether the wait is the queue or something else, and whether a change in your circumstances, such as a regional nomination, would move it.

Complaining to the Department

The Department has a complaints process, through its online feedback form, for service problems including unreasonable delay. A complaint states the application ID, the lodgement date, the published processing time, the steps already taken, the effect of the delay, and what you ask for. It is acknowledged and answered, usually with a statement that the application is being processed in turn. That answer is not the point. The complaint creates a record, and the Commonwealth Ombudsman will not consider a delay unless the Department has first been given the chance to respond. Keep the reference number.

The Ombudsman

The Commonwealth Ombudsman investigates complaints about the administrative actions of the Department of Home Affairs, including unreasonable delay in deciding visa and citizenship applications. It expects you to have complained to the Department first and to have waited for the response, and it may decline matters that are old or where the delay is explained by the queue. Where it takes a matter up, it asks the Department for an explanation, and the Department usually responds by looking at the file. The Ombudsman cannot order a decision, but a file that is the subject of an Ombudsman enquiry is a file someone is reading.

Your MP

A federal member of parliament can make a representation to the Minister's office on behalf of a constituent, and the Minister's office asks the Department for a report on the application. It is a request for information, not an instruction, and it does not move the queue. What it does is put a human being in the Department in front of your file with a deadline to report, and where the file has been sitting because of something simple, that is often when it gets fixed. Approach the electorate office with your application ID, the dates, and one page explaining what the delay is doing. Be a constituent of the member you approach.

Mandamus

Where a delay is unreasonable in law, the Federal Circuit and Family Court can issue a writ of mandamus compelling the Minister to decide the application. Unreasonable means more than long: the court looks at the time elapsed against the nature of the application, the Department's explanation, and whether the applicant has done what was asked. Proceedings are brought by a lawyer and carry costs. In practice the Department commonly decides the application after proceedings are filed and before a hearing, which is the usual purpose of filing. It is the last step, for a delay measured in years against a published time measured in months, and it is a conversation with an immigration lawyer rather than a migration agent.

While you wait

• Keep health and police checks current; if they will expire, ask whether to renew them before being asked.
• Keep your address, email and passport current on the file, so the decision reaches you.
• Notify any change of circumstances, so the officer is not waiting for you.
• If your current visa is ending before the decision, read my visa is expiring soon; a pending application usually brings a bridging visa, but not always.
• Do not lodge a second application for the same visa to hurry the first. It does not, and it costs the charge again.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Processing times are the Department of Home Affairs’ published global visa processing times; the complaint and Ombudsman processes are as published by those bodies at the date above. 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.