How to Get an Australian Working Holiday Visa

April 30, 2014
Jess

If you’re planning a move to Australia and happen to be under 30 years old, the working holiday visa is probably the best bet for you. In summary, it’s a visa that allows you to live and work in Australia for a year. There is also the option to extend this visa by another year, but generally you need to do some rural work in order to be eligible.

Working, holiday and living in Australia is a very unique way to see the country. You’ll be able to earn AUD, which will help keep costs down. Maybe working holiday visitors to Australia spend half the time working and the rest of the time traveling. Australia is pretty huge, so a year long working holiday visa gives you ample time to explore the country. For the best experience, we suggest buying a used car in Australia and using that to travel around. If you’re in Australia for a year you can sell the car before you leave and you’ll end up making most of your money back, making for a very cheap car rental.

Sydney
Getting an Australian working holiday visa tends to be a relatively straight forward process, but we’ll outline some of the key pieces of information below:

You have to be from an eligible country

The Australian working holiday visa is limited to a number of countries around the world, including Belgium, Canada, Republic of Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan and the UK.

There’s also another visa, which is a little bit different called the “Work and Holiday visa” that’s for citizens of the following countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, the USA and Uruguay.

In this article we’ll discuss the first visa, the Working Holiday Visa.

What are the conditions of the working holiday visa
You’ll need to be between the age of 18 through to 31, but not yet 31. Unfortunately the Australian working holiday visa does not cover dependent children, so you’ll have to come solo.

For the first visa application, you have to be out of the country when you apply. Many people come to Australia, fall in love and decide they want to apply for the working holiday visa, but need to leave the country. Thankfully, New Zealand is a cheap flight away and offers some great scenery, so you can fly there and wait for your application. However, if you know you’re going to want to get an Australian working holiday visa you’ll probably find it substantially easier if you apply for it in your own country.

Heading Out at Currumbin
For the second visa application you can apply for it in Australia, but you need to stay in Australia until it is granted. If you apply for it outside of Australia, you can’t enter Australia until it’s granted so spend a bit of time planning how this will work in with your travel plans.

How to Apply for your Australian Working Holiday Visa
Applying for your Australian working holiday visa is relatively easy you can even apply for it online. The fees for this visa depend on what country your passport is from. This fee is non-refundable, which means that if your application is denied you will not get a refund of your fees.

We advise ensuring your passport has enough time left on it before you apply for the visa. If your passport is due to expire, you should apply for a new passport before you apply for your working holiday visa.

Applying for your Australian working holiday visa is very easy if you ensure you have the right documents and apply well in advance.