How to apply for a student visa fee refund (and Working Holiday visa holders refund)
International students and working holiday visa holders have recently been given a special offer by Australian Government regarding the visa application fee refund.
It was announced by the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison on 19th January 2022 that student visa holders arriving in the next 8 weeks and working holiday visa holders arriving in the next 12 weeks will be able to apply for a visa application charges refund.
So, in this article, we are going to look into step by step information on how to apply for this refund.
Step 1 – Check your eligiblity
It is important to note that not all student visa holders and working holiday visa holder will be eligible. There are some eligibility requirements that you must meet in order to apply for this refund.
Let’s look at Student Visa Holders eligiblity:
To eligible for a student visa fee refund:
- you hold a valid Student visa (subclasses 500, 560, 570, 571, 572, 573, 574 or 575), and
- you must arrive in Australia between 19th January 2022 and 19th March 2022
Now, Working holiday visa holders
Elgibility for working holiday visa holder include:
- you hold a valid Working Holiday/Work and Holiday visa (subclasses 417 or 462), and
- you must arrive in Australia between 19th January 2022 and 19th April 2022
The good thing is you can apply until 31st December 2022 for your refund, so you don’t need to rush to apply it right away after arriving in Australia.
Step 2 – Collect your documents you need to apply
In order to apply for this refund, you must have few documents handy. This include
- Passport – For your personal details and passport number
- TRN (Transaction reference number) – For confirmation of your visa. You can find this number in your visa grant letter or in immii account, if you applied visa online.
- Bank Account or Credit Card details – For getting your refund back into your account
A quick tip for getting your refund quicker:
Provide your Australian Bank account rather than overseas bank account
Step 3 – Creating an account on immigration refund portal
For applying for this refund, you need to go to Department of Home Affairs’s Visa Refund Portal. You can go directly to the page for student and working holiday visa holder’s visa application charges here: https://studentandwhmrefunds.homeaffairs.gov.au/vrp
Here you can check further information on
- your eligibility
- how to claim
- other useful information
- getting help
You will need to create a new account here (unless you already have an account for refunds). For this, you will need to provide the following information:
- Email account
- Password
- First Name
- Last Name
- Password
- Agreement to privacy policy and security statement
Once your account is created, then you will get a confirmation email for your registration. Make sure to validate your email using the link in email.
Then you will redirected to login using your email and password.
Step 4 – Complete your refund application
Once logged into your dashboard, you will be welcome with a screen title “Visa application charge refunds for students and working holiday makers”. Read the page and go to the bottom and click “Submit New Request”
After clicking submit new request, you will enter the “Visa Request Refund” page where you will need to provide the followin details and press submit after that:
- TRN
- Application ID
- Visa Subclass
- Entry Date
- Given Name
- Family Name
- Date of Birth
- Passport Number
- Passport Country
- Email address
- Contact Number
- Did you pay for your own visa
- Bank account details
- Agreement to terms and conditions
Step 5 – After submitting your refund application
After completing and submitting your application, you will recieve a confirmation email regarding your application recieved from the Department of Home Affairs.
Then you will need to wait for the outcome of the application.
Department of Home Affiars mentioned that they will process the refund as quickly as they can but it can vary based on the individual applications.
If your application is approved then you will recieve the refund back into your nominated back account.
However, if they refuse your application, then you can apply for a review within 21 days of a refusal.
You can read more about this here.
If you liked this content, then you might also want to read on 10 best casual jobs for student in Australia here.
