Bridging Visas in Australia: A, B, C and E Explained

Which bridging visa will you be granted?

Which bridging visa a person is granted is decided by the visa they held when they lodged their substantive visa application, not by the visa they applied for. This single fact explains almost every bridging visa outcome in Australia, and it is the point most often misunderstood.

If the applicant held a substantive visa on the day the onshore application was lodged, the application form is also an application for a Subclass 010 Bridging visa A. The relevant provisions are item 1301 of Schedule 1 to the Migration Regulations 1994 and subclause 010.211(2) of Schedule 2. If the applicant did not hold a substantive visa on that day, they cannot be granted a Subclass 010. They fall instead to the Subclass 030 Bridging visa C under item 1303 of Schedule 1 and subclause 030.212(2) of Schedule 2. Paragraph 1303(3)(d) is explicit: a person who held a substantive visa when the substantive visa application was made cannot make a valid Bridging visa C application.

If the person is already an unlawful non-citizen, or is in immigration detention, or is making arrangements to leave Australia, neither of those visas is available. Their only option is a Bridging E visa under item 1305 of Schedule 1, granted either as a Subclass 050 Bridging (General) visa or a Subclass 051 Bridging (Protection Visa Applicant) visa.

The Subclass 020 Bridging visa B sits apart from all of this. It is not an alternative to the Subclass 010. It is an additional visa that an existing Subclass 010 or Subclass 020 holder applies for when they need to leave Australia and return. Clause 020.211 of Schedule 2 requires the applicant to hold a Bridging visa A or a Bridging visa B at the time of application, and clause 020.221 requires that to continue at the time of decision. A Bridging visa C or Bridging visa E holder cannot be granted a Bridging visa B at all.

Two further classes exist and are mentioned here only so the list is complete. The Bridging D visa, item 1304 of Schedule 1, covers the short gap where a person is about to lodge an onshore application but cannot yet do so. The Bridging F visa, item 1306, is reserved for suspected victims of human trafficking and related offences. Neither is part of the ordinary visa pathway.

### Why the class is fixed at lodgement

The class is decided once, at the moment the substantive visa application is made, and it usually cannot be repaired afterwards. The Department's own procedural guidance works through the consequence. A person who should have been granted a Bridging visa C, but who was granted a Bridging visa A in error, departs Australia and returns on a visitor visa. They cannot apply for a further Bridging visa A, because paragraph 1301(3)(d) requires that they held a substantive visa when the original application was lodged, and they did not. They also cannot satisfy subparagraph 030.212(2)(ba)(ii), because that requires the Bridging visa C to have been applied for on the same form and at the same time as the substantive visa application. In the Department's words, the only remaining option for that person is a Bridging E visa.

The same trap catches a person who lodges an onshore application from outside Australia. Regulation 2.07A provides that a substantive visa application made on a combined form is not a bridging visa application at all if the applicant was outside Australia when it was made, or if the visa applied for can only be granted offshore. A person in that position who later travels to Australia and allows their travel visa to cease has no bridging visa to fall back on.

What a bridging visa is, and what it is not

A bridging visa is a temporary visa under section 37 of the Migration Act 1958 that keeps a non-citizen lawful in Australia while something else is being decided. It is granted under section 73 of the Act to an eligible non-citizen, a term defined in section 72 and expanded by regulation 2.20 of the Migration Regulations 1994. It is not a substantive visa. It confers no residence, no entitlement in its own right, and no standing beyond lawful status and whatever conditions are attached to it.

A bridging visa is also not automatically in effect. The distinction between holding a bridging visa and that visa being in effect is the second most common source of confusion. A person granted a Subclass 010 alongside an onshore Subclass 820 partner visa application holds the bridging visa from the date of grant. It does not come into effect until the substantive visa they already hold ceases. That can be many months later, and in some cases the bridging visa period ends before the visa ever comes into effect at all.

Because a bridging visa depends on a pending application or pending proceedings, it ends when that underlying matter ends. It is properly understood as a status-holding device attached to something else, and never as a visa a person can plan around. Anyone who intends to remain in Australia for the long term needs the substantive application itself to succeed. For couples, that normally means the partner visa pathway handled by My Migration Lawyers partner visa lawyers, not the bridging visa that sits underneath it.

### One person, more than one bridging visa

A person can hold several bridging visas at the same time, although generally only one will be in effect. Subsection 82(3) of the Migration Act 1958 provides that a bridging visa ceases to be in effect when another visa comes into effect, other than a special purpose visa or a maritime crew visa. That is a cessation of effect, not the end of the visa period. Under subsection 68(4) of the Act, a bridging visa that ceased under subsection 82(3) can come back into effect if the holder no longer holds a substantive visa in effect, and either holds no other bridging visa or the reactivated one is the most beneficial bridging visa held. Regulation 2.21 sets out how the most beneficial bridging visa is worked out.

This matters in practice. A person with two onshore applications on foot may hold a Subclass 010 for one and a Subclass 030 for the other. If they need permission to work, they must apply separately under each Part of Schedule 2, on two separate forms, because the criteria sit in different clauses.

### A section 48 bar does not prevent a bridging visa

Section 48 of the Migration Act 1958 bars a person in Australia who does not hold a substantive visa, and who has had a visa refused or cancelled since last entering, from applying for anything other than a prescribed class of visa. Every bridging visa class is prescribed. A person caught by section 48 can still apply for and be granted a Bridging visa A, a Bridging visa B, a Bridging visa C or a Bridging E visa, and the bar has no bearing on the bridging visa itself.

What section 48 does is close off most substantive visa options, which in turn removes the application that a bridging visa would otherwise attach to. The practical consequence is not that the person cannot get a bridging visa. It is that the bridging visa they get will be a Bridging E visa, granted for a narrow purpose and on heavy conditions, because there is no ordinary onshore application left to bridge.

Bridging visa A (Subclass 010): the default onshore bridging visa

A Subclass 010 Bridging visa A permits the holder to remain lawfully in Australia while an onshore substantive visa application is decided, and it permits nothing else. It does not permit travel to Australia and it does not permit re-entry. The Department states the position plainly in its procedural instruction: a Bridging visa A allows the holder to remain lawfully in Australia, but it does not allow the holder to travel to Australia or to enter Australia if they leave.

There is no visa application charge for a Bridging visa A. Subitem 1301(2) of Schedule 1 provides for a nil charge, and the same is true of the Bridging visa C and the Bridging E visa. Only the Bridging visa B carries a charge.

Clause 010.211 of Schedule 2 sets out six alternative time of application criteria, and the applicant must satisfy one of them and continue to satisfy it at the time of decision under clause 010.221. The three that matter most are subclause 010.211(2), for a pending substantive visa application; subclause 010.211(3), for a person whose application has been refused and who has applied to a court for judicial review; and subclause 010.211(4), for a holder with a compelling need to work. Clause 010.411 requires the applicant to be physically present in Australia, in the migration zone but not in immigration clearance, at the time of grant.

### Conditions carry across from the visa the person held

Conditions on a Bridging visa A are not chosen by the Department and cannot be negotiated. Clause 010.611 prescribes them, they attach by operation of law, and no condition outside clause 010.611 has any legal effect even if it appears on the grant notice. The general rule in subclause 010.611(4) is that whichever of conditions 8101, 8102, 8103, 8104, 8105, 8107, 8108, 8111, 8112, 8114, 8115, 8539, 8547, 8549, 8607 and 8608 were imposed on the visa the person held at the time of the bridging visa application carry across unchanged.

Some applicants receive a Bridging visa A with no conditions at all. Paragraph 010.611(1)(b) provides for nil conditions where the holder has applied for a protection visa that is not finally determined. Paragraph 010.611(1)(c) does the same for a class of applicants specified by legislative instrument, which covers onshore Subclass 820, Subclass 801, Subclass 804, Subclass 884 and Subclass 864 applicants. So an onshore partner visa applicant who held a student visa with a work limitation will normally hold a Bridging visa A with full work rights once it comes into effect. Protection visa applicants are in the same position under paragraph 010.611(1)(b), which is one reason My Migration Lawyers protection visa lawyers treat the timing of lodgement as a substantive question and not an administrative one.

The exception is judicial review. Subclause 010.611(2) provides that a protection visa applicant granted a Bridging visa A on the judicial review ground in subclause 010.211(3) takes condition 8101 if condition 8101 applied to the last visa they held, whether or not that visa was substantive. A person who reaches court therefore does not automatically keep the work rights they held during processing.

### A judicial review bridging visa is a separate application

A Bridging visa A granted with a pending substantive visa application does not follow the matter into court. When the application is refused and the person applies for judicial review, they must lodge a fresh Bridging visa A application on the judicial review ground. Paragraph 010.211(3)(c) requires them to have held a Bridging visa A or Bridging visa B at the moment they filed the court application. If their bridging visa had already ceased by then, they cannot satisfy the clause, and a Bridging E visa is the only remaining option.

Bridging visa B (Subclass 020): the only bridging visa that permits travel

A Subclass 020 Bridging visa B is the only bridging visa that permits the holder to leave Australia and re-enter it. Subsection 5(1) of the Migration Act 1958 defines "enter" to include "re-enter", and Division 020.5 of Schedule 2 provides the travel facility, either until a cessation event occurs or until a date specified at grant.

The applicant must already hold a Bridging visa A or a Bridging visa B under clause 020.211, must have a substantive visa application or judicial review proceeding on foot under clause 020.212, and must satisfy clause 020.223, which requires a valid passport within public interest criterion 4021. The Bridging visa B is the only bridging visa that attracts a visa application charge, under subitem 1302(2) of Schedule 1.

### The substantial reasons test

Each limb of clause 020.212 requires the decision maker to be satisfied that the applicant's reasons for wishing to leave and re-enter Australia are substantial. "Substantial" is not defined in the Regulations. Departmental policy applies the ordinary meaning of the word: real, actual, important and of real worth or value. Both halves of that matter. A seriously ill parent overseas is important, but the decision maker must also be satisfied the circumstance is real, which means evidence that the parent is outside Australia and is in fact ill.

Departmental policy treats the following as capable of meeting the test: employment, business or study commitments, including conferences, negotiations and academic work; visiting a seriously ill family member or attending a wedding, funeral or culturally significant event; and travel connected to the substantive application itself, such as obtaining documents needed to satisfy a Schedule 2 criterion or resolving custody arrangements. Where processing or review has been protracted, policy accepts that travel for personal reasons, including a holiday, may be substantial. A claim of protracted processing is checked against the Department's published processing times.

### The travel facility cannot be extended

There is no provision for extending a Bridging visa B travel facility after grant, and it cannot be varied. This is the most damaging trap in the whole bridging visa framework, and the Department instructs its own officers to warn applicants about it.

The danger is a decision made while the holder is overseas. If the visa application or the review is decided adversely during the absence, the Bridging visa B ceases a short fixed period after the decision, measured from the decision itself rather than from notification. The holder is then outside Australia with no visa. They cannot apply for a new Bridging visa B, because paragraph 1302(3)(b) requires the applicant to be in Australia and not in immigration clearance. The only way back is the grant of a fresh substantive visa from offshore. Separately, subsection 82(5) of the Act ceases a Bridging visa B if the travel facility ends while the holder is outside Australia, and subsection 82(6) ceases it if the holder leaves after the facility has ended.

Anyone considering travel while a visa refusal is under review should assume a decision could be made in their absence and plan on that basis.

### Travelling on a bridging visa B does not clear the section 48 bar

Subsection 48(3) of the Migration Act 1958 deems a person who leaves and re-enters Australia on a bridging visa to have been continuously in the migration zone. A departure and return on a Bridging visa B therefore does not reset a section 48 bar. What section 48 does not prevent is a valid application made while the person is physically outside Australia on that bridging visa.

Bridging visa C (Subclass 030): no travel, and no work unless it is granted

A Subclass 030 Bridging visa C is granted to a person who did not hold a substantive visa when they lodged their onshore substantive visa application. It keeps them lawful while the application is decided. It carries no travel facility and, by default, no permission to work.

The additional requirement in clause 030.211 is easy to miss. The applicant must not hold a Bridging E visa, and must not have held one at any time since they last held a substantive visa. A person who was granted a Bridging E visa at some earlier point is therefore excluded from the Bridging visa C entirely, even if every other criterion is met.

Clause 030.614 imposes condition 8101, no work, in every case not covered by clauses 030.611, 030.612 or 030.613. That is the default. It applies by operation of law, and it applies whether or not it is recorded in departmental systems.

If the holder leaves Australia the Bridging visa C ceases under subsection 82(8) of the Act, and there is no Bridging visa B available to them. A person who departs and returns on another visa must apply for a replacement Bridging visa C under subclause 030.212(2A), and must wait until the visa they returned on has ceased, because paragraph 030.212(2A)(a) requires that they not hold a substantive visa. Applying too early produces a refusal.

Many Bridging visa C holders are in that position because they lodged an onshore partner visa without a substantive visa, which engages Schedule 3. The bridging visa keeps them lawful, but it is the Schedule 3 waiver argument that decides the outcome of the application.

Bridging visa E (Subclass 050 and Subclass 051): the visa for people who are already unlawful

A Bridging E visa is granted to a person who is already an unlawful non-citizen, or who is in immigration detention, and who needs lawful status for a specific purpose. That purpose might be making arrangements to leave Australia, waiting for an onshore substantive visa application to be decided, seeking review of a refusal or cancellation, or asking the Minister to exercise a personal power. Bridging E (Class WE) has two subclasses, and an applicant applies for the class rather than the subclass, so a decision maker must consider both.

The Subclass 050 Bridging (General) visa is the general purpose bridging visa. The Subclass 051 Bridging (Protection Visa Applicant) visa is confined to a narrow group of people identified in subregulations 2.20(7) to 2.20(11), such as a minor whose release has been certified as in their best interests, a person who has turned 75 with adequate community support, a person with a certified special need based on health or previous torture or trauma, and the spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen or permanent resident. Clause 050.211(2) expressly excludes those people from the Subclass 050, so the two subclasses do not overlap.

Grant depends on being an eligible non-citizen. Section 72 of the Migration Act 1958 and regulation 2.20 of the Migration Regulations 1994 define who that is, and the Bridging E visa cannot be granted to anyone outside those categories.

### Conditions on a Bridging E visa are the heaviest in the framework

A Bridging E visa is the most heavily conditioned bridging visa. Departmental policy treats the minimum on an initial Subclass 050 grant as condition 8101, no work, together with condition 8201 or condition 8207 restricting study, condition 8401 requiring the holder to report as specified, and condition 8506 requiring the holder to notify the Department at least two working days before any change of address. Where departure is the ground of grant, conditions 8510 and 8511 may require the holder to obtain a passport and a ticket, and condition 8512 may require them to leave Australia by a specified date.

Breach of a condition exposes the visa to cancellation under paragraph 116(1)(b) of the Act, and cancellation of a Bridging E visa generally leads to immigration detention. The consequences of ignoring a reporting condition are therefore not administrative.

### Conditions cannot be varied on a visa already granted

Conditions on a bridging visa cannot be changed. This is the single most misunderstood mechanic in this area, and it applies to every bridging visa subclass, not only the Bridging E visa. There is no application to vary a condition. The only route is an application for a further bridging visa, made on Form 1005, which if granted is a new visa carrying new conditions and which ceases the earlier one.

### A finding of invalidity is not a reviewable decision

A decision to refuse to grant or to cancel a Bridging E visa is reviewable by the Administrative Review Tribunal. A finding that the application was invalid is not. Departmental policy directs officers to treat invalidity as a determination rather than a decision, and to tell the applicant in writing that it cannot be reviewed. That distinction decides whether a person has a review right at all, and it is worth checking carefully whenever a Bridging E visa application appears to have gone nowhere. The same analysis applies to the underlying refusal or visa cancellation that produced the unlawful status in the first place.

Work rights on a bridging visa

Work rights on a bridging visa are imposed by law, not chosen by the holder. Whichever conditions the relevant Division 6 of Schedule 2 prescribes attach automatically, and a condition that is not prescribed has no legal effect even if it is recorded against the person's record. Condition 8101 reads: "The holder must not engage in work in Australia."

The position differs by subclass. A Subclass 010 generally inherits whatever work condition was on the visa the person held, with nil conditions for protection visa applicants and for the instrument-specified onshore partner and parent applicants. A Subclass 020 inherits the conditions from the Bridging visa A or Bridging visa B the holder already had, under subclause 020.611(5). A Subclass 030 takes condition 8101 by default under clause 030.614. A Subclass 050 granted to a protection visa applicant takes condition 8101 under clause 050.613A unless the applicant falls within a class specified by legislative instrument.

### The compelling need to work test

Where condition 8101 applies, the holder cannot have it lifted. They must apply for a further bridging visa of the same subclass and satisfy the compelling need to work criterion: subclause 010.211(4) for a Subclass 010, subclause 030.212(3) for a Subclass 030, and subclause 050.212(8) for a Subclass 050.

The test is defined in regulation 1.08 of the Migration Regulations 1994, which provides that a non-citizen has a compelling need to work "if and only if" they are in financial hardship, or they fall within a narrow Subclass 457 nomination limb that is now of little practical application. For almost every applicant, therefore, compelling need to work means demonstrated financial hardship, and nothing else. A general preference to work, however reasonable, does not meet it.

Two restrictions are worth stating plainly. Subclause 010.211(4) does not apply to protection visa applicants at all, because paragraph 010.611(1)(b) already gives them nil conditions during processing. And a person holding a bridging visa granted on the judicial review ground cannot use the compelling need to work criterion, because the clause requires the bridging visa held to have been granted as a result of a valid substantive visa application, which a judicial review bridging visa was not.

For a Subclass 050 holder whose substantive application is a protection visa, subclause 050.212(8) adds a second requirement. The applicant must show both a compelling need to work and an acceptable reason for the delay in applying for the protection visa. Departmental policy accepts serious illness certified by a registered medical practitioner, caring for a seriously ill member of the family unit, departmental administrative error, and genuine sur place claims arising from recent and corroborated change in the country of origin. It does not accept ignorance of the process, limited English without evidence, or waiting on documents.

When a bridging visa ceases

A bridging visa ceases on an event, not on a date. The events are set out in section 82 of the Migration Act 1958 and in Division 5 of the relevant Part of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994. Subsection 82(7A) provides that where a visa ceases because a specified event occurs, it ceases immediately when the event occurs. A date printed on a grant notice is an estimate of when an event is expected, and nothing more.

The Schedule 2 events follow a consistent pattern. The bridging visa ceases when the associated substantive visa is granted. It ceases a short fixed period after the substantive visa application is refused, after the substantive application or the review application is withdrawn, after the application is found to be invalid, or after the Administrative Review Tribunal decides the merits review or determines that the review application was not made in accordance with the law governing the making of such an application. It ceases immediately when another bridging visa is granted for the same substantive visa application, and immediately if a substantive visa held at the time of grant is cancelled.

Two points about those periods deserve emphasis. First, for bridging visas granted on or after 19 November 2016 the clock runs from the decision itself, not from the date the holder is notified of it. A person who does not open their email does not get more time. Second, the periods are fixed by the Regulations and are strictly applied. Nobody has a discretion to extend them.

### The current clauses refer to the ART

The bridging visa cessation clauses in Schedule 2 no longer refer to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and they do not refer simply to "the Tribunal" either. They refer to "the ART", which section 5(1) of the Migration Act 1958 defines as the Administrative Review Tribunal. The Administrative Review Tribunal replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 14 October 2024. A great deal of published material still describes bridging visa cessation by reference to the AAT, and older departmental guidance retains AAT references in its historical tables dealing with bridging visas granted before 19 November 2016. Those are transitional history, not the current clause wording.

### Leaving Australia ends the visa, and the provision is subsection 82(8)

A bridging visa that is in effect ceases when the holder leaves Australia. The provision is subsection 82(8) of the Migration Act 1958. This is frequently and incorrectly attributed to subsection 82(3), which does something different: it ceases a bridging visa when another visa comes into effect. The distinction is not academic, because subsection 68(4) reactivation is available only to a bridging visa that ceased under subsection 82(3). A bridging visa that ceased under subsection 82(8) because the holder departed is gone for good, and the visa period itself has ended.

The Bridging visa B is the only exception, and only within its travel facility. Every other bridging visa holder who leaves Australia needs a fresh visa to return, and they will be applying for it from offshore, where their onshore application may no longer be capable of grant.

### Judicial review bridging visas run on their own clock

Bridging visas granted on the judicial review ground were not affected by the 19 November 2016 amendments and continue to run on their own cessation clauses, keyed to the completion or withdrawal of the court proceedings. Where a court remits a matter, the bridging visa continues until one of the ordinary Division 5 events occurs.

### Where a bridging visa problem is really an application problem

A bridging visa question is almost always a symptom of something in the underlying application. The bridging visa class was fixed at lodgement, the conditions were fixed by the clause that applied, and the cessation date is fixed by an event nobody can move. The decisions that are still open are decisions about the substantive application, the review, or the next application. Weiwei Zhang, Principal at My Migration Lawyers, advises on onshore partner and protection visa applications and on refusals and cancellations, and the firm acts for clients across Australia by video. To have a matter assessed, request a consultation using the online form.