Australian Border Force (ABF) has issued a notice confirming that it will take almost every major immigration IT platform offline for scheduled maintenance from 8:30 pm AEDT on Friday 28 November until 12 noon AEDT on Saturday 29 November. During the 15-hour outage, ImmiAccount, eLodgement, Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO), eMedical, LEGENDcom and a dozen other portals—including the APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) interface—will be inaccessible. Employers won’t be able to run VEVO checks, education providers won’t be able to upload Confirmation of Enrolment data and travellers will not be able to pay for or submit online visa and citizenship applications.
ABF is urging anyone whose current visa expires on 28 November to lodge renewal applications before the shutdown begins. Failure to do so could push applicants on to Bridging Visa E status and expose them to work-right restrictions and Medicare gaps. Corporate mobility teams have been advised to bring forward any last-minute lodgements and to warn assignees transiting Australia over the weekend that VEVO print-outs may not be available for airlines’ document checks.
![Planned 15-Hour Shutdown of Australia’s Online Visa Systems Set for 28-29 November]()
The outage falls on the pay-cycle weekend for many multinational payrolls. HR and mobility managers who rely on VEVO batch files to automate Right-to-Work audits will need to schedule alternative compliance checks. Freight forwarders using Australian Trusted Trader (ATT) are also caught up, as the maintenance will suspend the ATT portal for the duration; import declarations may face manual processing delays.
ABF says the upgrade will deliver “security hardening and performance improvements” ahead of the traditional Christmas travel surge, when daily visa-status look-ups typically double. The agency has apologised for the inconvenience but maintains that an after-hours weekday window would have carried higher commercial risk given record student-visa lodgements ahead of the 2026 academic year.
ABF is urging anyone whose current visa expires on 28 November to lodge renewal applications before the shutdown begins. Failure to do so could push applicants on to Bridging Visa E status and expose them to work-right restrictions and Medicare gaps. Corporate mobility teams have been advised to bring forward any last-minute lodgements and to warn assignees transiting Australia over the weekend that VEVO print-outs may not be available for airlines’ document checks.
The outage falls on the pay-cycle weekend for many multinational payrolls. HR and mobility managers who rely on VEVO batch files to automate Right-to-Work audits will need to schedule alternative compliance checks. Freight forwarders using Australian Trusted Trader (ATT) are also caught up, as the maintenance will suspend the ATT portal for the duration; import declarations may face manual processing delays.
ABF says the upgrade will deliver “security hardening and performance improvements” ahead of the traditional Christmas travel surge, when daily visa-status look-ups typically double. The agency has apologised for the inconvenience but maintains that an after-hours weekday window would have carried higher commercial risk given record student-visa lodgements ahead of the 2026 academic year.
