Kirk Yan: Head of the Newstarsec Education & Migration Melbourne Branch, registered Australian migration agent. Kirk has years of experience and in-depth expertise in interpreting migration policy and forecasting regulatory changes. He is the editor-in-chief of the Australian Migration Weekly and is affectionately known as “K-God” among students.
As many of you know, in October last year the Department of Home Affairs waived the health examination requirement for onshore temporary visa applications.
This applied to temporary visas including the 407/408/482/485/500/590/600/870 subclasses (Figure 4).
However, the Department has just updated its website to confirm that this exemption will be removed from 1 November. This means that for onshore visa renewals lodged after 1 November, the Department will require health examination information to be submitted.
Just yesterday, we lodged an onshore temporary visa application for a client. As you can see in Figure 2, the ImmiAccount still showed “no examinations required”.
In theory, the 4005 health check requirement must be satisfied at the time the visa is granted. In other words, if your visa is granted before 1 November, a health examination will definitely not be required. However, if the visa is granted after that date, the Department reserves the right to request one. In my assessment, there is a strong likelihood they will not ask applicants to provide one retrospectively.
With only two weeks remaining until 1 November, lodging now may still not guarantee you fall within the exemption window. Nevertheless, if you were originally planning to lodge your visa application in November, I strongly recommend submitting it before 1 November. Prepare early — this could save you over $400 in medical examination fees and spare you the time spent queuing for an appointment.
If you have any questions about Australian migration, feel free to add Kirk on WeChat for a consultation.
