Beware - check your PR visa expiry date! You might need an RRV

[BriD]

Hi Lovely Peeps

 

I hope you are all well! I haven't been on here for ages, but I will try to be more regular.

 

I felt I needed to just drop in specially though to give a heads up to anyone that is in our position. We have been in Oz since Feb 2014, so we have just passed our 4 year mark here. And duly have submitted our citizenship applications. As many of you might know, there was a lot of questions in the government about whether citizenship requirements needed to change and as a result many applications became backlogged. This leaves us with a 16 months minimum wait to have our citizenship application processed...PAINFUL...but what can you do!

 

In the meantime we continue our lives and have some overseas trips planned within the next year. So the other day I was thinking that we will need to apply for returning residents visas because of the delay in processing of citizenship and I on the spur of the moment decided to double check the date our PR travel rights expire...I was sure it was May 2019. Anyways...I nearly had a small heart attack when I realized it actually expired in May 2018. The date of expiry is 5 years after the date the visa was granted. I had forgotten to take that into account.

 

So scarily...we were just in SA recently and arrived back in Oz on the 3rd May...had it been 2 weeks later we would have arrived at the airport and not been allowed to board the plane back home to Australia because of PR travel rights would have expired. And once that happens and you are outside of Oz, there is no guarantee you'll get that pr back!!!

 

I am so deeply grateful I checked it, and have now subsequently applied for all of us (aside from our Aussie Baby) to get Returning Residents Visa's. It was a very simple process, albeit an unexpected expense at $1600 for the 4 of us (ouch!!). Average processing time is 8-10 days...so I am hoping we will all be back to full travel rights in no time. 

 

For those of you that don't know how the RRV works, a brief summary for your info:

When you are granted PR you have permanent residency for life as long as you stay within Australian borders. Your initial PR visa also grants you unlimited travel rights in and out of Oz for a period of 5 years after the Visa is granted. On your grant notice you will see "must not arrive after"...that date is your expiry date for travel rights. If you are lucky you may have already received citizenship before this date is even reached...but that can only really be possible if you arrive very soon after that visa is granted. And even so with processing times of the citizenship application...you could still go over.

To be eligible for the RRV you need:

- to have been living in Australia for at least 2 years of the period of your visa

- to be a current Australian Resident

- to have a valid passport with at least 6 months validity on it

Costs are in the region of $400 per person (regardless of whether you are an adult or a child)

Applications can be done online through the immi account

All you will need in your passport details and general information

There must be a separate application for each person regardless of adult or child

 

I'm sure for most of us we want to be able to return to South Africa at the drop of the hat in a family emergency, and so these kinds of things need to be kept current. I would strongly advise anyone in the later stages of their residence to check their travel rights validity and be aware of what is needed. Honestly...you can leave Aus...but it is getting back in if it is expired that might become an absolute disaster.

 

I hope that this info has been helpful to someone, or at the very least will make people more aware of the travel rights status as they stand right now.

 

Will try to post a general update soon.

Bri

 

 

 

 

 

[Ta2Bryan]

Thanks for the heads up, we will keep it in mind.👍

[Rhyss]

This is very useful information as we (me) almost fell into the same trap. We were happily living in Aus on our PR with the idea of applying for citizenship when we get around to it. It was early October and I was planning to travel overseas on a business trip. I checked my visa and saw the PR entry expiry date was the following month! I contacted the dept. and inquired about the RRV and was informed that it takes a few weeks to process. They were very helpful and suggested that we apply for citizenship (this was back in 2006). We made an appointment and in record time, even going to a different municipality as opposed to our local one an we were all citizens by late November. Two weeks later we all had our Aussie passports and I traveled overseas as an Aussie for the first time. Only regret was that there was not enough time to apply to DHA in SA for the retention of our SA citizenship so we lost our SA citizenship because we did not apply for the permission letter to retain SA citizenship prior to obtaining our Aus citizenship. 

[AshB]

Wow - thanks a million we arrived a month later than you .... your information has really changed our plans. 

 

Much appreciated mate! 

 

Would really like to have a process on our citizenship application route though .

 

Does this have to be done online  as we now eligible to apply .

Edited June 17, 2018 by AshB

[trusting]

Hi Guys

 

I wonder if someone can help me regarding our RRV..i applied more than 16 weeks ago for our RRV..we are still waiting as i had to submit some extra information regarding our business interests in Oz which we did on the 4th April 2018 as we didnt see our 2 out of 5 years.

 

We are currently living here but need to get back to S.A for personal reasons only need to be there for 3 weeks..can i apply for a Bridging Visa until they make a decision and if so does someone know how long it takes and which Bridging Visa i can apply for. 

 

Thanking you in advance.

 

 

[Bonny]

8 hours ago, trusting said:

Hi Guys

 

I wonder if someone can help me regarding our RRV..i applied more than 16 weeks ago for our RRV..we are still waiting as i had to submit some extra information regarding our business interests in Oz which we did on the 4th April 2018 as we didnt see our 2 out of 5 years.

 

We are currently living here but need to get back to S.A for personal reasons only need to be there for 3 weeks..can i apply for a Bridging Visa until they make a decision and if so does someone know how long it takes and which Bridging Visa i can apply for. 

 

Thanking you in advance.

 

 

@trusting my husband applied online for his RRV and had it emailed within a matter of hours. Do you think something went wrong? I would try and call them because that sounds unusual.