Does a Bridging Visa Take Effect Immediately After You Lodge? Bridging Visa Priority Explained!

After you lodge a new application onshore, in most cases the system automatically grants a Bridging visa A. Some readers, after reading their Bridging A grant letter, may notice that it states Bridging A visa – Not Active, and find it puzzling. This article takes a closer look at the topic.

Australian visas generally fall into two types. One is the so-called “substantive visa” — for example, student visas, visitor visas and the Subclass 485 visa are all substantive visas. The other is the “bridging visa”。

The purpose of a bridging visa is to let you stay in Australia lawfully while you wait for a decision on a newly lodged application — after all, most visas take time to process. Without a bridging visa, if your old visa expires before the new one is granted, you would become unlawful, and the bridging visa exists precisely to prevent this.

As you might guess, the substantive visa always ranks higher，and the bridging visa only takes effect once the substantive visa ceases.This is, of course, grounded in law. Take Bridging visa A as an example: under Clause 010.511(1)(a)(ii), the Bridging A only comes into effect once the substantive visa held by the applicant ceases:

In fact, the bridging visa grant letter also clearly states the effective date. Every bridging visa grant letter contains a section called the Bridging visa summary. As shown below, Xiaoming lodged a Subclass 190 application while holding a Subclass 485 visa and obtained a Bridging A. The Subclass 485 visa expires on 02 August 2025, so the bridging visa will only become active after that date:

The answer is: no, you cannot.The substantive visa you hold is linked to the bridging visa.Under Clause 010.511(1)(b)(vi) of the migration legislation, if the substantive visa you hold is cancelled, then the bridging visa only permits the applicant to remain until the moment of ‘that cancellation’（if you find the legislation hard to read, simply look at the blue-highlighted part of the image below):

This question comes up very often, for one of two reasons:

1. Not wanting to keep studying and paying tuition fees; or

2. Wanting the bridging visa’s work rights to take effect straight away.

Unfortunately, the reality is harsh: trying to cancel your current visa to make the bridging visa take effect earlier is completely blocked by law.

The Department of Home Affairs website also states this clearly. As shown at point 1 in the image below, the Department says the bridging visa only takes effect after your current visa expires, and you must comply with the conditions of your current visa until the bridging visa comes into effect. As shown at point 2, cancelling your existing visa will not activate your bridging visa; instead, it will also cancel your bridging visa and leave you in an unlawful status”:

The image above is sourced from the Department of Home Affairs website:

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/moving-between-visas

In most cases, yes — it only takes effect once the substantive visa you hold expires. However, if the bridging visa was obtained by lodging a PR application, then even before it takes effect, this bridging visa makes you eligible to apply for a Medicare card.

For details, see this article: “How to apply for a Medicare card after lodging a PR visa application”

That said, it is important to understand that “whether the bridging visa is in effect” and “whether you hold a bridging visa” are two different things.Even if the bridging visa is not in effect, you definitely still hold the bridging visa.

In addition, when applying for a Bridging visa B, you do not need to wait for the Bridging A to take effect before you can apply.

For example, Xiaoming’s Subclass 485 visa expires on 15 April 2023. Before it expired he lodged a Subclass 190 application and obtained a Bridging A. He plans to depart on 20 April and return to Australia on 10 May. He does not need to wait until 16 April to apply for a Bridging B — he can apply right now (20 March).

Yes, of course.

For example, suppose you lodge a Subclass 485 application while your student visa is still valid and obtain a Bridging A. Then, after your student visa expires but before the 485 is granted, you receive a Subclass 491 invitation. You can lodge a Subclass 491 application and obtain a Bridging C. As a result, you will simultaneously hold the Bridging A from the 485 and the Bridging C from the 491。

After that, suppose you also receive a Subclass 189 invitation. Once you lodge the Subclass 189 application, you will obtain another Bridging C from the 189.

You will then hold three bridging visas at once: the Bridging A from the 485, the Bridging C from the 491 and the Bridging C from the 189.

Interestingly, if instead of after your student visa expired you received the 491/189 invitation before it expired and lodged the application, then you would obtain a Bridging A from the 491/189, rather than a Bridging C.

Put another way, suppose that while your substantive visa (such as a student visa) is still valid， you lodge ten visa applications one after another — you would obtain ten Bridging As, and not a single Bridging C.

There is also a priority order between bridging visas. As a rule, Bridging B ranks highest, followed by Bridging A, then Bridging C.

But does a Bridging A always rank higher than a Bridging C? Not necessarily.If the Bridging A carries no work rights but the Bridging C does, then, in law, the Bridging C will rank higher than the Bridging A (though, however high, it still ranks below the substantive visa).

All of the above rules come from Reg 2.21 of the migration legislation. The original text is as follows:

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