Updated! 5 Easy Steps to an Australian Tourist Visa

Photo from Lonely Planet

After three years of talking about it, I've finally done it: seriously plan a trip to Australia.

With a set of my three very good boy friends and our significant others, we agreed last June to come and visit my friend (pseudonym AJR) and his wife in Sydney in August. That's in the middle of effing winter (which I heard is expected to be worse than usual), bless my tropical soul. But that's our birth month, so August it is!

The planning for now is quite simple at this point: get an Australian visa, book cheap round-trip tickets to Sydney, and let AJR plan our our itinerary during our one-week stay. In early April, I finally received approval for my Australian visa--YAY!

Below, I want to share the five easy steps I followed in applying for a tourist visa to Australia.

Do note that I will only be sharing about the process I went through as an individual traveler who lodged an application for a tourist visa. If you are processing a visa application with a group or for something other than a tourist visa, do check the Australian embassy's website for more details. 

1. Identify the correct type of Visa

Make sure that the visa you are requesting for is the most appropriate for the kind of trip you are planning for. Mine was fairly straightforward: I'm going there to visit a friend, and will stay for about a week to 10 days. To be safe, however, I still went through the website of the Australia Embassy in the Philippines, on what is called the Visa Finder, where you can answer a set of questions to help determine the best type of visa suited for my purpose. My results showed that I have to apply for an Australian subclass 600 visa, the equivalent of what we usually refer to as a tourist visa. The subclass 600 allows you to enter the country and stay there for 90 days. It will limit you from working in the country. However, there are cases when this type of visa can allow you to study for up to 90 days in the country.

2.  Create an account with Australia's Department of Home Affairs.   

Once you have identified the kind of visa that you have to apply for, you can start with the online application, which the Australian embassy encourages for Philippine passport holders. That all begins with creating your personal account in ImmiAccount, which collects your basic information along with contact information such as your email address and your mobile or landline number. Once you have created your account, you should receive an email confirmation. Make sure to click on the link provided and follow instructions.

3. Fill-out the application form. 

With your account confirmed, you can start working on your application form. The information is collected in batches, and the system will ask for data about your family and other contacts in the Philippines and in Australia, your employment or livelihood history. It will also ask questions around your travel, criminal and financial history. There will be a total of about 20 pages of questions that you have to fill out. Don't rush through this process. Read everything twice, be careful about entering your details, and always double check facts and even spelling.

Do not worry if you need to verify or hunt information that you do not have on hand. The system allows you to save your information, which is filed through a visa transaction number that you will receive via your email address so it will be easier for you to return and continue with filling up the application form. You can also return to the system to correct information that you have already entered, for as long as you have not submitted the information yet.

4. Upload supporting documents. 

The system will also ask you to upload digital copies of various documents to support the information that you have included in your application form. Some of the documents that you have to upload: passport and another government-issued ID (mine was the UMID ID I got from SSS, but you can also use TIN, postal ID, and others), an ID picture, and birth certificate. Financial documents such as an official bank statement of account with an average daily balance of at least Php40,000.00 and a current balance of Php90,000.00 should be uploaded. A statement of assets and liabilities (emphasis on assets) that show you own property or businesses in the Philippines will be helpful. For your travel history, include a list of countries that you have visited--best if you are able to highlight trips that you have taken to other countries with highly-valued visas such as Korea, Japan, Schengen (EU countries) and of course the United States, supported by copies of your stamped passport pages, both current and expired.

5. Pay the application fee. 

Once you are satisfied with all the information and documents that you have entered and uploaded to the system, submit your application fee. Then, pay the application processing fee, through credit or debit card. I had to pay AUD140.00 for my visa. This can change depending on the visa that you are applying for.  Once that's done, you should receive another email from the Embassy confirming the payment. Monitor your Inbox for further instruction. In some cases, the Embassy will call you for a personal appearance, for others, you will receive their decision on your application via email. Hopefully, that information will say your visa has been granted.


Of course, all these steps are not a hundred percent fool-proof. Famous videographer and travel blogger Nas Daily recently uploaded a video that said his application got denied on his first try, but he persevered and was finally able to get permission to travel in Australia.

AN UPDATE: 

The visa will come through an e-mail from the Australian Embassy. I was initially confused as to how to proceed, and ended up calling the Embassy's Manila call center. I then got confirmation that the visa is not stamped on to the passport. Instead, the email with the detailed entitlement (the visa) should be printed, a copy of which should be shown to the immigration officers at the immigration checkpoints. Make sure to have multiple copies in all your luggage and bags to ensure that you don't get into legal trouble while on your Tour Down Under. 


Happy visa application and I wish you well!