Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Just trying to figure out whether my husband and I are eligible to apply to apply for citizenship yet, our summary timeline is below;

1. Visited Australia on a e-visa for 2 weeks April 2009
2. granted 457 visa June 2011, arrived August 2011
3. granted permanent employer sponsored visa November 2013

I know for those who validate their visa' and then return a year or two later they only need to complete 3 years in country on a PR. Would this also apply with us visiting the country on a e-visa in 2009 before our residency visas?

My husband, in particular, has done a reasonable amount of overseas travel in the last 12 months - do we need to add that time on to the 12 month since PR grant before we can apply?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

I'm sure there are posts about first visits being on tourist visas still counting for citizenship (I plan on using the same rule if it doesn't change).

You are still not allowed more than 12 months out of Australia in the 4 years before applying, and not more than 90 days in the 12 months before applying. Not sure what you do if someone is working overseas and spending more than this amount of time out of the country.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

I think it then becomes like a Ministerial Discretion case, depending on whether the person is working for the Aus Govt, or an Aus employer, while abroad.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

The time out of country is actually 5-10 days at a time to usa/uk but has been about 3-4 times in the last 6 months.

It is good to know the tourist visa visit counts towards. Will do the calculations including the tourist visa too.

Thanks.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Assuming you mean an eVisitor visa, sorry I don't think it will count. I believe you have to have had a valid visa on the day four years prior to the date you apply for citizenship. So those people who have validated a PR visa will have had a valid visa throughout but your eVisitor visa would have expired after twelve months, so at the latest by April 2010 which is now more than four years ago. So I think the clock will have reset when you returned in August 2011.

ETA: See http://www.citizenship.gov.au/_pdf/acis-july-2014.pdf page 75, section 5.15.4.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Unless, by some chance, the ETA/eVisitor visa was renewed and kept valid throughout the time from last departure from Australia up to when the 457 was granted.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

I wondered about that. But the eVisitor page says "An eVisitor cannot be extended", whilst the citizenship instructions say "a visa granted offshore comes into effect when the person enters Australia on that visa". So I concluded that if the eVisitor visa could not be extended, any further eVisitor visa would be a new one and would not have come into effect until a later visit to Australia, which the OP would presumably have mentioned if there was one.

I'm reluctant to challenge our acknowledged guru, but are you sure about that JAJ?

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

As far as I can tell from the Migration Regulations, ETA/eVisitor visas, like other temporary visas, come into effect on the date granted. Although open to correction if something else has been missed. In practice, the new ETA/eVisitor would have to be granted before the expiry date of the old one, and that's probably quite unusual.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Ok if my understanding of louie and jaj is correct, the eVisitor visa would have had to be valid four years ago for us to be able to use that as part of our four years to citizenship. Will have to check when we applied for that but knowing when we visited I doubt it.

Never mind, only another 9 months to wait then.

It would have been nice though

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Does the citizenship wizard not help you? Just wondering if it takes all that into account. It would be good to know.

Australian Citizenship Wizard

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

The problem with the wizard is that you have to tell it "When did you first arrive lawfully in Australia" and getting that right for citizenship purposes is not necessarily straightforward.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

Ok. I thought as much.

I just did my whole citizenship application recently and they did ask all those questions which you have to fill in on the forms. Mine was fairly straight forward though, as I have been here most of the time.

Might be worth (Bikergirl) phoning them up and asking what the story is.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

I agree with the view that because there was a gap between the e-visitor and the 457 visa, when no visa was held, that OP is not eligible yet.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

If you do an online citizenship application, before you have to do anything involving payment, it will check your eligibility against their records and won't let you proceed if you don't meet the requirements. I'm guessing it does this check from your passport number which you have to provide.

Re: Are we eligible for Citizenship yet?
 

One would hope it would be like that. :thumbup: