Is the Working Holiday Visa for you?
The Working Holiday Visa is for young people who want to visit Australia for prolonged periods and who are interested in working for up to six months at a time. While the visa makes you eligible for employment, working in Australia’s regional areas can make you eligible for a second Working Holiday visa.
Other important facts you need to know:
If you are between 18 and 30 years old and will not bring dependent children on your trip; have a valid passport; and are going to Australia for the sole purpose of going on holiday, you may be qualified for a Working Holiday Visa.
Although the visa will allow you to work, any labor that you do should only be to support you while you travel around regional Australia. You will, therefore, have to be able to show that you have sufficient money to both support the first part of your stay, and for a ticket back to your home country.
Typically, you should be able to show that you have at least AUD$ 5,000 to cover your expenses. A certified bank statement will help you prove this, but keep in mind that the required amount of money may change depending on the length of your intended stay and how much traveling you plan to do.
While on working holiday, you will also be eligible to study or undergo training for up to four months.
If you are a passport holder from the United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Japan, Italy, France, Malta, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Belgium, or Estonia, you can apply for a Working Holiday Visa from anywhere in the world.
You cannot be granted a Working Holiday Visa, however, if you are already in Australia on another visa.
Passport holders from the Republic of Cyprus must apply for one from the resident Australian Government office in their country.
When applying, you will need a certified copy of your birth certificate showing both of your parent’s names. You will also have to submit two recent passport-sized photographs (45 m x 35 mm).
The photographs must show your head and shoulders and should be taken against a plain background. Don’t forget to print your name on the back of each photograph.
In case you have served in the armed forces of any country, you will also have to present certified copies of your service record or your discharge papers.
Before being granted a visa, you need to meet Australian health standards through a formal medical examination.
You may need to get a chest x-ray if you are a resident of a country considered to be of a very high health risk for tuberculosis, or have spent more than three months in the past five years in a country that is a high health risk for tuberculosis.
You will need to take more medical examinations if you come from a health-risk country and plan to work in a classroom environment for more than four weeks.
If you are likely to go into, or work at, a hospital, a health care area, or a child care center, you will need to take a chest x-ray.
Planning to work in the health care industry will also require additional screening for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.
Once granted, your Working Holiday Visa will give you 12 months from the date of issue to travel to Australia and another 12 months to stay in the country. Within that time, you can leave and re-enter Australia but time spent outside the country will already be counted against your 12-month stay.
Those with Working Holiday Visas who have been employed in specified work in regional Australia for at least three months can apply for a second Working Holiday Visa that will be good for another 12 months.
Specified work usually means work at a crop or livestock farm, fishing, or mining and construction work. Fruit picking and other harvest work is also counted as specified work and will also make you eligible for another 12-month Working Holiday visa as long as you meet the age, financial, and documentary requirements.
Usually, this type of work is done anywhere in Australia outside Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong, the New South Wales Central Coast, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Perth, Melbourne or the Australian Capital Territory.
What does a Working Holiday Visa look like? There usually is no need for a visa label or stamp since the actual visa is already electronically linked to your passport details that you provide when you apply.
The Australia Department of Immigration and Border Protection can make a label or stamp a condition for your visa, but you can also have one put on your passport if you want to. This may help make it easier to prove to potential employers that you are eligible to work in Australia.
You can have a visa label printed at the Sydney Airport when you arrive, just ask to be directed to the Visa Label desk before you leave the airport.
You can also go to any departmental office to have your visa label printed when you’re already in Australia.
This is increasingly no longer necessary, however, because of the Visa Entitlement Verification Online, or EVO, service that you can authorize third parties like employers to use to verify your visa information. You can give them consent by giving them your name, date of birth, passport number, and home country.
Want to know more information on visa in Australia? You can access visa immigration information and processing simply by clicking here.