Australian relocation advisers are warning of a sharp increase in processing times for Bridging Visa B (BVB) applications, the short-term travel authority relied on by thousands of temporary residents to leave and re-enter Australia while another visa is being decided. Crown World Mobility’s 5 February weekly bulletin notes that recent approvals have been issued only “a few days before the individual’s planned travel” due to a backlog at the Department of Home Affairs(crownworldmobility.com).
The BVB is a critical safety-valve in Australia’s on-shore visa system. Holders of a Bridging Visa A cannot legally depart the country; doing so would void the underlying substantive-visa application. Business travellers awaiting skilled-migration, partner or graduate visas therefore depend on the BVB to attend urgent overseas meetings, manage family emergencies or take holidays. When approvals arrive late, companies scramble to rebook flights and face last-minute project delays.
Home Affairs does not publish service standards for the category, making forward planning difficult. Mobility managers are now advising expatriates and long-term consultants to lodge BVB applications as soon as trips are contemplated—ideally 6–8 weeks out—and to build “plan B” contingencies into travel budgets. Early lodgement, however, is no guarantee: high volumes and staffing constraints mean files can still sit untouched until close to departure(crownworldmobility.com).
![Surge in Bridging Visa B delays complicates outbound travel from Australia]()
For travellers who prefer professional assistance, VisaHQ offers an end-to-end service that can prepare Bridging Visa B paperwork, track application status in real time and step in with escalation requests when deadlines loom. Their Australian portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) also lets corporate mobility teams manage multiple employee cases from a single dashboard, reducing the administrative burden that comes with last-minute travel changes.
Practical tips include attaching proof of booked travel, monitoring ImmiAccount daily, phoning the departmental contact centre to flag time-critical cases, and discouraging staff from departing Australia before approval. Failure to secure a BVB can force an applicant to restart the entire visa process offshore, potentially triggering new labour-market testing and skills-assessment costs for employers.
With business travel from Australia rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, the bottleneck underscores the vulnerability of the country’s on-shore processing model. Industry groups are expected to lobby the government for published service metrics or a premium-processing channel to provide certainty for corporate travellers.
The BVB is a critical safety-valve in Australia’s on-shore visa system. Holders of a Bridging Visa A cannot legally depart the country; doing so would void the underlying substantive-visa application. Business travellers awaiting skilled-migration, partner or graduate visas therefore depend on the BVB to attend urgent overseas meetings, manage family emergencies or take holidays. When approvals arrive late, companies scramble to rebook flights and face last-minute project delays.
Home Affairs does not publish service standards for the category, making forward planning difficult. Mobility managers are now advising expatriates and long-term consultants to lodge BVB applications as soon as trips are contemplated—ideally 6–8 weeks out—and to build “plan B” contingencies into travel budgets. Early lodgement, however, is no guarantee: high volumes and staffing constraints mean files can still sit untouched until close to departure(crownworldmobility.com).
For travellers who prefer professional assistance, VisaHQ offers an end-to-end service that can prepare Bridging Visa B paperwork, track application status in real time and step in with escalation requests when deadlines loom. Their Australian portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) also lets corporate mobility teams manage multiple employee cases from a single dashboard, reducing the administrative burden that comes with last-minute travel changes.
Practical tips include attaching proof of booked travel, monitoring ImmiAccount daily, phoning the departmental contact centre to flag time-critical cases, and discouraging staff from departing Australia before approval. Failure to secure a BVB can force an applicant to restart the entire visa process offshore, potentially triggering new labour-market testing and skills-assessment costs for employers.
With business travel from Australia rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, the bottleneck underscores the vulnerability of the country’s on-shore processing model. Industry groups are expected to lobby the government for published service metrics or a premium-processing channel to provide certainty for corporate travellers.
