DIY Australian Holiday Visa
[UPDATE 30 March 2010: The ETA is now FREE!]
Do it online!
You can get your 3-month tourist visa (known as an ETA — Electronic Travel Authority) online with instant confirmation (if your application is all OK) for just £9 for FREE(!) direct with the Australian government — so don’t let your travel agent con you into that ‘added service’ for their ‘small admin fee’ (sometimes £20!)…
Your travel agent’s ‘favour’ of organising your visa for £20 (or whatever they charge) isn’t always a help! You don’t need to have confirmed flights to get your ETA. The ETA is associated with your passport so you can get it before or after you book your flights.
It will take you the same amount of time to type in your details yourself online (if not quicker) as it will to read out all the information to your travel agent (and listen while they type it all in!). Instead you can just pay the AUS$20 on your credit card pay NOTHING here http://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ (at this week’s exchange rate of 2.2 that’s just over £9 still NOTHING).
An Australian tourist visa lasts for a year, and you can travel (each time in that year) for up to 3 months in Australia. If you are lucky enough to take 2 trips to Australia in a year (or more!), then you don’t need a new visa the next time (unless you get a new passport).
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[...] If travelling from the UK then every bub (no matter how small!) needs their own passport, and as it’s a ‘first’ passport you have to get photos signed and witnessed etc so bear that in mind if you are booking last minute. You also need to get a tourist visa for the baby, which you can easily do online – see previous post DIY Austrailan Holiday Visa [...]
28 Nov 2007 at 5:59 pm
My partner and I have a 5 month baby and by the time we travel he will be 1 year 5 months. We are looking into getting a work holiday visa for the year and then maybe a sponsorship were not sure yet. What kind of visa willl I have to get for the baby?
05 Sep 2009 at 4:43 pm
Hi Melissa
From what I know (and have just looked up!) about the Working Holiday Visa then you will be able to take dependent Children but they will need to be on their own Tourist Visa. You can get a Tourist Visa for a up to a year so this looks like what you’ll need to do. Here’s some more info about the working holiday visa: http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/417/eligibility-first.htm
and about a year’s tourist visa for little one: http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/676/
07 Sep 2009 at 10:47 pm