Can You Work While Waiting for Your Subclass 820 Visa? Bridging Visa A Explained

Can you work while waiting for a subclass 820 visa?

Yes, in most cases. If you lodged your subclass 820 application onshore while you still held a valid substantive visa, you will usually be granted a Bridging Visa A, and a Bridging Visa A normally carries full and unrestricted work rights once it comes into effect.

That matters because the wait is long. The Department currently decides 50% of subclass 820 applications within 23 months and 90% within 29 months. Nobody can put their working life on hold for two years, and the bridging visa system exists precisely so they do not have to.

Two qualifications, both important.

First, work rights are attached to the bridging visa, not to the partner visa application. The application itself gives you nothing. What gives you the right to work is the bridging visa granted alongside it, and the conditions on that particular grant.

Second, not every bridging visa carries work rights. The general position for onshore partner visa applicants who held a substantive visa at lodgement is favourable, but there are situations where a bridging visa is granted with a work restriction or with no work rights at all. The only reliable way to know your position is to read your own bridging visa grant notice.

What a Bridging Visa A actually is and when it starts

A Bridging Visa A, commonly called a BVA, is a temporary visa that keeps you lawfully in Australia while a substantive visa application is being decided.

When you lodge an onshore subclass 820 application while holding a substantive visa, a BVA is usually granted automatically. You do not apply for it separately and there is no additional charge.

The timing is the part people misunderstand. The BVA is granted at or shortly after lodgement, but it does not come into effect immediately. It sits dormant and takes effect only when your current substantive visa ends. Until then you remain on your existing visa and its conditions continue to apply.

This has a direct consequence for work. If your current visa is a student visa with a work limitation, that limitation continues to apply for as long as the student visa is in effect. The BVA's work rights do not override it. You are bound by the conditions of whichever visa is actually in effect, and the BVA only becomes the operative visa once the earlier one expires.

So an applicant on a student visa who lodges an 820 does not suddenly gain unrestricted work rights on the day of lodgement. They gain them when the student visa ends and the BVA activates, assuming the BVA carries them.

When a bridging visa does not carry work rights

The favourable position depends on how and when you lodged.

If you held a substantive visa at lodgement, you will generally get a BVA with full work rights once it activates. This is the ordinary case for onshore partner visa applicants.
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If you did not hold a substantive visa at lodgement, the position is different. You are likely to be granted a Bridging Visa C or E rather than a BVA, and those are frequently granted with a work restriction or with no permission to work. Where a bridging visa carries no work rights, there is a separate process for asking that they be granted on the basis of financial hardship, which requires evidence rather than assertion. Applicants in this position are also dealing with Schedule 3, which is a much larger problem than work rights.
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If your substantive visa carried condition 8503, no further stay, you could not validly lodge the partner visa application at all until that condition was waived, so the bridging visa question does not arise until the waiver is dealt with.
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If your visa was cancelled rather than expiring, the bridging visa position depends on the circumstances of the cancellation and needs separate advice.
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The pattern across all of these is the same. The bridging visa you get depends on your status at the moment you lodged, and that status is fixed at lodgement. It cannot be improved afterwards.

Reading your bridging visa grant notice

Do not assume. Read the notice.

The grant notice states the visa subclass, the date it comes into effect, and the conditions attached to it. Work rights appear as a condition or as the absence of one. If you see no work related condition, you generally have unrestricted work rights. If you see a condition limiting hours or prohibiting work, that is what binds you.

You can also check your current visa conditions through VEVO, the Department's online entitlement verification service. Employers commonly ask for a VEVO check, and it is the document to give them rather than the visa application receipt.

If the grant notice and VEVO appear to disagree, or if the conditions are not what you expected, get that resolved before you start or continue working. Working in breach of a visa condition is a serious matter with consequences well beyond the partner visa application, including cancellation.

Keep the notice. You will need it repeatedly over two years, for employers, for Medicare, for a tax file number and for rental applications.

Travel is the trap, not work

Work rights get the attention. Travel is where onshore applicants actually come unstuck.

A Bridging Visa A does not permit travel. If you leave Australia while holding a BVA, it ceases and you have no visa to return on. To travel you must apply for a Bridging Visa B, which permits departure and return within a specified travel period, and which must be granted before you leave.

The Bridging Visa B has a defined travel period and you must be back inside it. If you return after it expires you may not be able to enter, and because a subclass 820 generally cannot be granted while you are outside Australia, an ill timed trip can jeopardise the application itself.

This catches people with family overseas, particularly where there is a death or illness in the family and travel is arranged quickly. Apply for the Bridging Visa B before booking, not after.

A Bridging Visa B is a separate application with its own charge, and it is not automatic. You have to give a reason for travel and the travel period granted is limited rather than open ended. If you expect to travel more than once during the wait, raise it early rather than dealing with each trip as it arises.

What else your bridging visa gives you

Work is not the only practical question over a two year wait.

Medicare. Once a valid onshore partner visa application has been lodged, you are generally able to enrol in Medicare. This is separate from the bridging visa itself and is one of the more significant practical benefits of the onshore pathway over the offshore subclass 309.

Study. A BVA generally does not restrict study, although you pay full fees as a temporary visa holder rather than domestic rates.

Driving. State and territory rules govern licences. Most allow a temporary visa holder to obtain or hold a licence, but the period of validity can be tied to your visa status, which creates administrative friction when a bridging visa has no fixed end date.

Government payments. Access is limited. Most Centrelink payments require permanent residence or a qualifying visa, and a bridging visa does not qualify for most of them. There are narrow exceptions.

Superannuation and tax. You work as anyone else does, with a tax file number and superannuation. Your residency for tax purposes is a separate question from your migration status.

Employment stability is the reason all of this matters commercially. An applicant whose bridging visa has no fixed end date, because it runs until the application is decided, sometimes struggles to satisfy an employer or a landlord who wants a visa expiry date. A VEVO check showing unrestricted work rights and a status of in effect until a decision is made is usually enough, and having the explanation ready avoids the problem.

One more thing worth knowing across the whole two years. Your bridging visa continues in effect until the partner visa application is finally determined, which includes any period of review if the application is refused and you apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal in time. A refusal does not automatically end your right to remain or to work, provided you lodge the review within the deadline. Missing the deadline does end it.

If you are not sure what your bridging visa allows, or you have been granted one without work rights, our partner visa lawyers can review the grant notice and the options. You can book a consultation online.