Australian migration agents are warning corporate mobility teams and individual applicants to brace for a post-Christmas slump in visa processing. According to data published on 7 January by VisaHQ, case-officer availability at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has plunged by roughly 70 per cent since mid-December. That drop translates into a sharp reduction in Section 56 requests for further information and in grant notifications across skilled, family and visitor streams.
The holiday slowdown is an annual feature of Australia’s immigration calendar, but advisers say 2025-26 is proving particularly acute because the normal Christmas closure coincides with a wave of new applications lodged after the government’s November invitation rounds. “Files lodged after about 20 December are unlikely to show movement until Australia Day,” one registered migration agent told VisaHQ. While the online ImmiAccount portal remains open, most files are simply being queued.
In the interim, VisaHQ’s Australian visa team (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) can step in to audit pending applications, pre-populate missing forms and upload supporting evidence so that files are genuinely “decision-ready” the moment DHA officers return. The company’s live dashboard lets mobility managers track multiple cases at once and receive instant alerts for any Section 56 requests, helping both employers and individual applicants preserve their place in the queue without the usual administrative scramble.
![Holiday staffing lull slows Australian visa decisions until mid-January]()
For employers, the lag means longer lead-times for transferring critical staff and finalising January start-dates. Mobility managers are being urged to front-load medicals and police checks so they are ‘decision-ready’ when processing normalises, expected around 15 January. Companies with urgent skills-shortage roles are also revisiting labour-agreement pathways and on-hire labour arrangements to bridge gaps.
Individual applicants should use the pause to ensure that health insurance, English tests and skills-assessment documents remain in date. Advisers recommend responding quickly to any automated Section 56 requests that are issued, because doing so preserves an application’s place in the queue once officers return. Applicants who lodged student and visitor visas in late December are being reminded not to travel until their visa is granted, as boarding will be refused without a linked visa record.
Although frustrating, practitioners emphasise that the lull is temporary. Internal training memos seen by VisaHQ indicate DHA plans to run weekend overtime shifts later in January to recover service-level agreements. In previous years a similar initiative cleared more than 18,000 applications within three weeks. Applicants can therefore expect a flurry of grants – and some unexpected refusals – in the second half of the month.
The holiday slowdown is an annual feature of Australia’s immigration calendar, but advisers say 2025-26 is proving particularly acute because the normal Christmas closure coincides with a wave of new applications lodged after the government’s November invitation rounds. “Files lodged after about 20 December are unlikely to show movement until Australia Day,” one registered migration agent told VisaHQ. While the online ImmiAccount portal remains open, most files are simply being queued.
In the interim, VisaHQ’s Australian visa team (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) can step in to audit pending applications, pre-populate missing forms and upload supporting evidence so that files are genuinely “decision-ready” the moment DHA officers return. The company’s live dashboard lets mobility managers track multiple cases at once and receive instant alerts for any Section 56 requests, helping both employers and individual applicants preserve their place in the queue without the usual administrative scramble.
For employers, the lag means longer lead-times for transferring critical staff and finalising January start-dates. Mobility managers are being urged to front-load medicals and police checks so they are ‘decision-ready’ when processing normalises, expected around 15 January. Companies with urgent skills-shortage roles are also revisiting labour-agreement pathways and on-hire labour arrangements to bridge gaps.
Individual applicants should use the pause to ensure that health insurance, English tests and skills-assessment documents remain in date. Advisers recommend responding quickly to any automated Section 56 requests that are issued, because doing so preserves an application’s place in the queue once officers return. Applicants who lodged student and visitor visas in late December are being reminded not to travel until their visa is granted, as boarding will be refused without a linked visa record.
Although frustrating, practitioners emphasise that the lull is temporary. Internal training memos seen by VisaHQ indicate DHA plans to run weekend overtime shifts later in January to recover service-level agreements. In previous years a similar initiative cleared more than 18,000 applications within three weeks. Applicants can therefore expect a flurry of grants – and some unexpected refusals – in the second half of the month.
