A visit to Australia, for business, tourism or even for studies, requires of course a careful attention to detail. It is imperative that you take the time necessary to complete the various administrative formalities that will enable you to successfully undertake your planned visit. Notably among these is an ETA authorisation that is required for you to travel to Australia. We therefore offer you the opportunity here to learn about the time it takes to obtain an eTA visa as well as read some advice on when to undertake this procedure.
Obtain a response to your eTA or eVisitor visa application in just a short while:
Compared to the visa application that was previously required to travel to Australia, an eTA or eVisitor visa application enables you to obtain an extremely rapid response. You simply need to take a few minutes to complete a questionnaire online such as that available on our website, providing personal information and your passport number, pay the transfer and processing costs and fees required to submit your eTA or eVisitor visa application and then simply wait for the response.
The response to your application will be transmitted by email to the email address stated in your application form. The time delay for the response can vary from a few minutes to several hours with a maximum delay of 72 hours.
It can therefore be tempting to apply for your eTA or eVisitor just a short time before your travel. However, we highly recommend that you apply well in advance to mitigate any possible refusal or problem regarding this procedure. It is also important to verify that your passport is valid at the time you apply for your ETA and indeed for your actual visit.
What to do if you have not received your eTA or eVisitor visa after 72 hours?
Several types of problems may intervene causing the non receipt of your authorization visa or its response, positive or negative, following your application online. The first concerns the email address whereby you made a mistake when entering it on your online application. If you have stated an incorrect email address or made a spelling mistake then you cannot receive your authorisation which, as you may remember, is only sent to you by email. In other cases, the response with the official document from the Australian authorities may be mistaken for spam and placed in your spam folder. It is therefore important to check this folder. If you cannot find the response in your spam folder then do not hesitate to check your eTA or eVisitor visa status online.
It may also be that a problem linked to the payment of the costs has hindered the submission of your file to the Australian immigration authorities concerned. You should therefore check your bank account and ensure that the €49 has been deducted from your account. If this is not the case then you need to repeat the procedure checking first that the necessary funds are available on your account.
When is the ideal time to apply for an eTA or eVisitor visa for Australia?
As you have just learned or confirmed, it is possible to obtain your eTA or eVisitor visa very quickly, in only a few hours, with a maximum of 72 hours. It can therefore be tempting to delay your authorisation application until just before your trip however we highly recommend that you complete it well in advance.
In fact, in certain cases, it may be necessary for you to reapply for an eTA or eVisitor or apply for a visa to ensure you can continue with your travel plans and you should therefore take into account this possible extra time delay.
For example, if your eTA or eVisitor is refused due to an error that you made while completing your form you may submit a new application but only after a minimum of 10 days after receiving the initial refusal notification.
In the case whereby your eTA or eVisitor is refused due to a particular situation which requires you to apply for a normal visa then you will need to take into account the time necessary to complete this extra procedure.
Another thing, it is however pointless to complete your application several months in advance as an eTA or eVisitor is valid for a year, this will thereby limit your opportunities to use it for further visits to Australia.
To summarise, the ideal time to complete your eTA or eVisitor visa application to be sure that you obtain it plenty of time in advance or be able to obtain a classic visa is a few weeks before your departure date, a month at the most. You will thereby have sufficient time to carefully prepare for your travel and stay in Australia.
What is the maximum time frame between entering and leaving the Australian territory with an eTA or eVisitor?
Another important timeframe that you should take into account before applying for an eTA or eVisitor for Australia or before using this electronic travel authorization is the time period during which you will be able to stay in Australia with it.
This is one of the differences between an eTA or eVisitor and visas as different visas exist with different authorized lengths of stay. Here, one of the conditions to be respected in order to travel to Australia with an eTA is respecting a short stay period which in reality relates to a tourist or professional stay.
According to the rules established by the eTA system set up by the Australian government, you can only stay for a maximum period of 90 days in the country's territory, which represents 3 consecutive months. In the event that you plan to stay longer in Australia, you will have to go through a classic visa application in order to have the legal possibility.
The eTA or eVisitor authorization has this restriction in order to reduce its use to only authorized travel purposes, namely a stay of a few weeks in the country or a stopover or transit through an Australian airport and to another destination. So be sure to follow this rule if you want to travel safely to Australia with this visa waiver.
For how long can an eTA or eVisitor visa be reused once obtained?
The last important deadline to know if you are applying for an eTA or eVisitor for Australia is the period of validity of the official travel document. As is the case for many other electronic travel authorizations, the eTA or eVisitor system allows you to make several trips on Australian soil with a single authorization, which avoids you having to systematically make a new request.
Once you've obtained your eTA or eVisitor visa, you can use it for its entire period of validity, i.e. for a total period of one year from the issue date. During this period, you'll have the right to enter Australian territory as many times as you wish, but only if your trips comply with the other rules defined by the system, whether in terms of duration or purpose of the trip.
Obviously, it's also important that the information mentioned in your first eTA or eVisitor request remain unchanged when you use the authorization again. If you have changed your passport or if some of the answers to the questions asked in the questionnaire are no longer the same, your authorization may deny you access for your new trip. In this case, you will have to apply for a new eTA online. It's also important to remember that the eTA or eVisitor is not automatically renewed at the end of its validity period.
Apply for eTA or eVisitor Australia
