Hi,

Activated visa 2 years ago and have 2.5 years left before the 5 year expiry period is reached and was wondering whether I can get an extension to this or whether it is a hard and fast rule?

Thanks


J

Read about Returning Resident Visa on immi.gov.au, it has a pretty straight forward set of rules.

There's no reason to get an extension when you still have 2.5 years left. You won't get an RRV until the visa is due to expire. You may not get one then but you can't apply for one until expiry. You have 2.5 years to move over, DIAC will not accept you cannot do the move within that timescale.

Actually, you can apply for an RRV at any time. I applied for one with 14 months still to go as I needed the certainty and it was granted (this was a five year one).

I presume the OP is talking about applying some time from now. But if not, there'd be no point applying any time soon, as he would not be entitled to a five year RRV as he has not been in Australia for 2 out of the last 5 years, so would only be granted a one year one, if at all (depending on links to Australia).

To the OP - whilst you may be given a RRV, it won't be for several years, so even if you qualify now (and we don't know what links you have to Australia), the rules may well have changed by that time (they have changed recently for someone in your situation to reduce a discretionary RRV's validity from 5 years to 1 year), so you would be taking a huge risk placing any reliance on getting one.

Given that we have no family in Australia and we have only spent 3 weeks there whilst we activated the visa, I think the likelihood of getting an extension is pretty slim. The only reason I was looking for an extension would be so that we could look to move out after my Daughter has finished her schooling in the UK, and that would take us over the 2.5 years remaining.

Decisions, decisions

If you are moving, might as well do her schooling here.