cwmtaboy

hi new to the forum, i have decided to move to oz with my partner and three year old daughter. the visa i will be applying for is a 136 skilled independant. could anyone tell me roughly how long the whole process takes and is it a good idea to use a migration agent. thanks

VikkiL

Hi and welcome to the forum,

How long is a piece of string? This is the question that comes to mind when wondering how long it takes to get your Oz visa!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 'powers that be' are officially stating that they are working on June 2006 applications but there are people on this site who have sent theirs off since then and now have their visas!! There does not seem to be any particular reasons why some people's 136 visas are fast-tracked (unless you are a doctor or nurse, which is fair enough), it really seems to be about which pile you end up in!!

We are going on 136 and are about to frontload meds and pcc's but are expecting a fair wait (maybe July?!) until we get our visa granted.
It will all be worth it in the end though!!

Vikki

VikkiL

Ooops, forgot to say that we used an agent and, usually, that a pretty good idea as they know the whole process etc but obviously that is completely up to you. We were quoted 6 months for the whole process but will actually take about 10 months (ish)

Vikki

curly

Hi, we also used an agent, we submitted our visa application end of june, we received our visa 1st feb
If you click on my name, you can click on 'profile' and see all the exact dates,inc. TRA etc.

Good luck.

grahampaula

Hello and welcome to the site. We applied for 136 Skilled Independent in Dec 05 and it took 9 months from start to finish. I suppose it all depends on how many applications they are dealing with, and also if there are no delays. We used www.1stcontact.co.uk as we did not want to do the TRA or application wrong and have to re-apply, which would have caused delay and additional expense. It all depends on how confident you are about doing the application yourself and also if you have the extra funds to cover the cost of the agent. We were charged £1500 plus V.A.T and at the time that we applied it was a "No Visa No Fee" service that they offered.
Good luck with you application

Willij

Hi,

Agree with the above. You don't have to use an agent but they do help to ensure that everything is correct before it is submitted.

I think the whole process (TRA and 136 visa) would have been a lot longer for us if we hadn't used an agent. It took just over 12 months but some of the delay was down to us - the more jobs / training you've done the longer it takes to collate all that information for the TRA.