Australia Visa Requirements for South Africans

Which visa, and how it is lodged

South Africans travelling to Australia for tourism, business or to see family apply for the Visitor visa, subclass 600. The Department of Home Affairs describes it as being for tourists, business visitors or visiting family, for 3, 6 or 12 months — the period you are granted is decided when the visa is issued, not chosen by you.

The application is made online, through an ImmiAccount, and lodged directly with the Department. There is no visa application centre taking the application in the way VFS, Capago or TLScontact do for Schengen and UK applications. You may still be asked to provide biometrics in person; if that applies to you, the Department tells you where to go after you have lodged.

Australia does not use the paper-visa model. A grant is recorded electronically against your passport, so there is no label to collect and no reason to hand over your passport for weeks.

What it costs

We are not quoting a figure here, and the reason is worth stating plainly.

Australian visa application charges are indexed and change on 1 July each year. That change happened seven weeks ago. Any amount you find on a blog, or in a cached page, is quite likely to be last financial year's, and the gap is not trivial. Check the Department's own pricing estimator, which is always current, or ask us and we will confirm it for your specific case.

Two things that do not change: the charge is per applicant, including children, and it is not refunded if the visa is refused.

What Australia looks for

The structure of the assessment will feel familiar if you have applied for a Schengen or UK visa: a genuine temporary purpose, the means to fund the visit, and a reason to come home. What differs is the emphasis.

• Genuine temporary entrant. Australia weighs your circumstances in South Africa, your immigration history, and whether the visit makes sense against them.
• Funds. Bank statements showing the trip is affordable from visible, established income rather than a recent deposit.
• Ties. Employment, business, property, dependants — the same evidence that answers the question everywhere else.
• Health and character. Australia takes both more seriously than most destinations, and health examinations are required for some applicants depending on length of stay, intended activities and history.

If your income is not straightforward, the reasoning on our self-employed page and commission income page transfers well, even though those pages are written for Schengen applications.

Where we can and cannot help

We prepare and check the application, assemble the supporting evidence and lodge it with you. We cannot influence a decision or shorten a processing time. If your case is weak, we will tell you before you pay a charge that is not refunded on refusal.

See how the Australia visa application service works, or ask on WhatsApp.