Hello friends and fellow wanderers!
I know it has been a long time since my first (and only) post and to be honest, finding the time and inspiration to write a blog is much harder than I thought it would be, especially when life gets in the way.
My partner, Anthony, and I have been through a bit of a nerve-wrecking period lately and the reason for that was the fear of me having to leave Australia and having to return to Germany. I have been on a student visa for the past year and my studies have come to an end in February (hallelujah). But this also meant that my visa would be expiring at the end of March. Of course, we knew the day my visa was going to expire was slowly coming and we had already made plans to apply for a partner visa. But we had no freaking idea that applying for a partner visa would be so complicated and time consuming. Regardless, we finally did it! Yay! We finally lodged our application and I will not have to return to Germany just yet. There is still a lot of evidence to upload but at least we have already sent in the most important documents. And now the waiting game begins.
Which brings me to why I am writing this blog post. In the past 2-3 months, all I have been doing is thinking about is my visa. How boring, I thought. Nobody wants to read about that, right? Trust me, I would rather write about the best brunch spots in Melbourne and my favourite day trips in Victora and all the good and fun things in life. But as we all know, life is not always fun and definitely not always easy. Part of life as a traveller or expat is dealing with visa matters and ensuring you are legally allowed to stay in your country of choice. And then, the other day, my friend from Germany (shout-out to my Ginger spice Zeli) asked me for advice for her friend who would like to come to Australia for a gap year and so I thought this topic might actually be of interest to some of you after all.
Ever since coming to Australia, I have applied for three different visas (four, if you count the e-visitor visa I organised for my mum to visit me) and each process has been similar in some ways but very different in others. I know there is tons of information available on the internet about visa requirements, application processes and visa conditions but I would like to give you a little insight into my own experiences with each visa and difficulties to consider. Please note that obviously I am not a migration agent and this is just supposed to be general information based on my own experience.
I will try my best to keep it short and cover the following three visa types:
- In my first year I was here on a Working Holiday Visa (subclass 417).
- The second year I have applied for a Student Visa (subclass 500).
- And now, in my third year, after having found my soulmate and favourite human, I have applied for a Partner Visa (subclass 820) so I can stay here with him permanently.
The Working Holiday Visa (WHV)
A bit over two years ago, my journey started with the WHV. Besides the tourist visa, this one is probably one of the easiest ones to apply for if you are from an eligible country. I do know that some countries like Brazil or Austria do not participate in the working holiday program and are therefore not eligible. Since I am from Germany, and it is common knowledge that Mallorca is our 17th and Australia our 18th state, the working holiday visa was super easy to apply for and get. As with all Australian visa applications, you can simply apply online and just need to provide your identity documents and personal details as well as have to pay a fee of $450 AUD before you can submit.
I received my WHV immediately. I received it so fast in fact, that I did not even realise I had received the visa grant via email already and started stressing after a few weeks as I thought it might get declined. After double-checking my inbox, it dawned on me that I had already gotten the grant within two minutes of applying – silly me.
Once the visa is granted, you can enter the country any time within 12 months. The visa comes into effect on the day you enter Australia and allows you to stay for 12 months. It gives you full working rights with the only restriction that you cannot work with the same employer for more than 6 months. And if you can’t get enough of the beautiful country that is Australia, you can do your farm work for 88 days (different requirements for certain countries) and apply for the second WHV. Too easy, right? Except in my case, I didn’t plan on staying for a second year and ended up not doing my farm work. But then, when my first year was almost over I realised that I was not ready to go home yet. But by that time, it was obviously too late to do the farm work.
The Student Visa
Since I knew I was not eligible for the second WHV, I started looking for alternatives and the best one for me seemed to be a student visa. I actually got approached on Facebook by a marketing officer of the college I later ended up enrolling in and it all started from there.
Studying in Australia is generally quite expensive especially for international students. Before you decide to apply for a student visa you should therefore be aware that it is definitely a more expensive process than getting a simple WHV or doing the farm work for a second year visa.
I have decided to enrol at a college for a Diploma of Project Management, simply because I thought project management skills would be transferable to any kind of career I might want to pursue in the future. And I also chose a diploma because I could not justify doing my Masters in Australia for tens of thousands of Dollars while it is free in my home country.
The course I ended up enrolling in was $7000 AUD in total for one year. I had to pay $1300 AUD upfront and could pay off the rest on a monthly basis. Then there is also the student health insurance which was around $850 AUD. And then there is the application fee for the visa which is $575 AUD. I also hired a migration agent, simply because I did not want the headache and that cost me another $600 AUD. So in total, I paid around $9000 AUD to be able to stay in Australia for one more year (I know right? Should’ve done the farm work – sigh).
As to the process itself, I am sure it could have been done without a migration agent but my laziness got the best of me. Since my agent processed the whole application for me, I am not sure about all the steps but the main thing I do remember is having to send my agent a one page motivation letter explaining in detail why I would like to study in Australia, why I have chosen that particular institution and (as my migration agent emphasized) outlining my intention and plans to return to my own country (which at that stage I genuinely had). I was also asked to send him my travel history of my past travels and confirming that I had sufficient funds to support myself even if I did not find a job.
My migration agent explained to me that there are two main factors that determine whether the student visa gets granted or not. First, the country you are from. If you are from a so called “high-risk country” then the chances of getting a grant is lower. Second, the institution where you chose to study. Apparently, there are some colleges and schools that have a very bad reputation of just wanting to make money off of international students and do not actually provide any education in return. The Australian government is targeting those types of fraudulent institutions to ensure only genuine students abiding by the visa requirements are coming in to the country.
Applicants from certain countries are required to undertake a health examination and also provide proof of sufficient funding. In my case, I did not have to provide any further proof of funds or health and got the visa granted within 3 weeks or so after lodgement.
The student visa comes with one restriction that has been a major pain in my butt for the past year. You are only allowed to work up to 20 hours per week and it can be quite difficult to find a job in anything other than hospitality and retail. If you are thinking about only getting by with the money you earn after finding a job, let me tell you that is almost impossible (unless you do a cash-in-hand job, which some people do). Having enough savings is definitely a vital part of studying in Australia and if I could go back I would probably think twice before doing it.
The Partner Visa
And now ladies and gentlemen, let’s get to the ultimate pain in the butt, the notorious, the one and only: Partner Visa. Maybe I am being a bit dramatic but trust me you would be too, if you had to spend day and night researching the requirements, digging into every single detail of your own past, compiling relationship evidence and stressing about the uncertainty and outcome of it all.
Let me give you a quick summary of what the partner visa is and who can apply for it. A partner visa is, as the name suggests, a visa where your partner agrees to sponsor you, so you can both settle in Australia and live happily ever after (yay love!). When you apply for the partner visa (subclass 820) which will give you full living and working rights for 2 years, you are also automatically applying for a permanent visa (subclass 801) meaning after those two years you can be granted to stay in the country indefinitely. Sounds great, right?
But of course, as with any country, Australia will not allow just anyone to be granted this visa and there are a lot of hoops to jump through before a decision is made on your case.
Firstly, the visa application process is quite expensive. The application itself costs $7160 AUD (plus a surcharge based on payment method) and additionally you have to pay for documents such as police certificates and translations of documents from overseas etc.
Secondly, the process is confusing as hell. A lot of the instructions are vague, unclear and outdated and sometimes you even find contradicting information. It seems like immigration is still in the process of transitioning from a paper based application to a full online application but it has not yet updated all the instructions found online. In any case, it takes a lot of research (thank god for Facebook groups!) to understand what is actually required and what it is supposed to look like.
Thirdly, as I have already mentioned earlier, it is very time consuming. You have to fill out all the forms, find out exact dates of previous employments, addresses you have lived in as well as all travels in the past ten years. And you have to do all of that for both the sponsor and the applicant. You have to write relationship statements outlining every single aspect of your relationship, you have to compile photos and screenshots, joint bills and bank statements and the list goes on and on. Basically, you have to do everything in your power to prove to the case officer that you are in a genuine, continuing and committed relationship to the exclusion of all others. And a simple boyfriend-girlfriend type of relationship is not sufficient. You have to be in a defacto relationship meaning you must have lived together for at least 1 year and share household and financial responsibilities, pretty much like a married couple. But don’t think simply getting married will change much. You will still need to go through the same process as any other couple.
After filling in the online form and paying the fee, the application can be submitted and you get a bridging visa A. This bridging visa allows you to live in Australia, have full working rights and even apply for Medicare. But this is where the actual hard part starts. The uncertainty. Currently the processing time for the partner visa is between 21 and 28 months! During that time you stay on the bridging visa A and have to apply for a bridging visa B every time you want to leave the country. It is also difficult to find an employment on a bridging visa that is not just a job but a career. Many employers do not want to take the risk of hiring someone that could potentially have to leave the country any time once their visa gets declined or their relationship ends. A lot of big companies do not even consider anybody who is not a permanent resident or Australian citizen. You kind of have to come to terms that you might have to put your own professional life on hold and there is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about the future.
I never thought I would be here at this stage. I never planned this. When I first came to Australia, I intended to stay for nine months, then return just in time to enrol for my Masters with my spot already waiting for me back in Germany. Then nine months turned into a year, a year turned into two years and now I have decided to make this my forever home with my partner for life. The first year was easy, the second year not so much and the third year, I am sure will be even more difficult. But in the end, it is all worth it because I get to go through life with my favourite human in the world by my side. There is no place I would rather be.
If you are thinking about coming to Australia or are currently in the process of extending your stay here, feel free to ask me any questions you may have regarding the visa process! If you have already been through a stressful visa process I would love to hear your experiences with this!
I hope you guys like this post and hopefully I can move on to topics that are more fun than this one!
xoxo,
-Ekin
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