How long will your visa really take?

Get a personalised processing time estimate based on your citizenship, visa type, and where you're applying from. We analysed 4.5 million visa decisions to give you answers the Department won't.

Get your estimate

How this tool works

The official processing times don't tell you the whole story. This tool uses data from 4.5 million visa decisions obtained through FOI to show what processing times actually look like for people in your situation. For planning and education only, not a guarantee.

What counts as 'processing time'?

Processing time is how long it takes from when you submit your application to when you get a grant decision. Our data only includes granted visas (not refusals or withdrawals), so these estimates reflect time-to-grant. We count calendar days, including weekends and holidays.

What we show you

Once you enter your citizenship, visa type, and where you're applying from, you'll see:

• Estimated processing times for people like you (shown as percentiles so you understand the range)• How your country compares to others for this visa type• An interactive timeline showing when similar applicants typically heard back

Where does this data come from?

We submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Home Affairs (Reference: DA25/10/00449) and obtained data on approximately 4.5 million visa grants from July 2024 to September 2025. This lets us break down processing times by citizenship, visa type, and whether you're in Australia or overseas. We update the data monthly when new information becomes available.

Data coverage: Jul 2024 - Sep 2025 (FOI DA25/10/00449)Last updated: Mar 2026

Can I check the Department's official times?

Yes. The Department publishes an official Global Visa Processing Times tool. Those figures are useful, but they're averaged across everyone, so they don't reflect how your specific citizenship or location affects your wait.

Why does personalisation matter?

Here's something the Department doesn't advertise: processing times can vary dramatically based on your passport. Two people applying for the same visa might wait weeks or months apart, purely because of where they're from. We show you estimates based on people like you, not just a global average.

How accurate is this estimate?

These estimates are based on what happened to similar applicants, but your case is unique. Your wait could be shorter or longer depending on things we can't see in the data, like how complete your documents are, whether you need health or character checks, or if the Department requests more information. All visa decisions are made by the Department of Home Affairs, not us.

The details (methodology)

Data source

Estimates are based on approximately 4.5 million visa grant outcomes obtained from the Department of Home Affairs via Freedom of Information request (Reference: DA25/10/00449).

How we group the data

We group cases by visa type, stream, citizenship, and whether the application was lodged onshore or offshore. This is what lets us give you a personalised estimate.

What the percentiles mean

Instead of just giving you an average, we show percentiles (25th, 50th, 75th, 90th). This tells you what proportion of similar applicants had a decision within each timeframe. For example, if the 75th percentile is 60 days, that means 75% of similar applicants heard back within 60 days.

When we estimate from similar countries

If we don't have at least 30 cases matching your exact citizenship and visa type, we look at countries with similar processing patterns for the same visa. This gives you a reasonable estimate, but we label it as medium confidence so you know it's not a perfect match.

Adjusting for current conditions

Processing times change over time. We scale historical data using the latest month's trends to make sure estimates reflect current conditions, not just what happened six months ago.

The timeline feature

The 'chance of decision by date' chart shows when similar applicants typically got their decisions. We use statistical interpolation between our data points to give you a smooth, useful timeline.

Sample size transparency

We always show you how many cases your estimate is based on. More cases means more reliable figures.

Confidence levels explained

We label every estimate by how it was calculated: direct match (high confidence), similar countries (medium), or overall averages (lower). This helps you understand how much weight to give the numbers.

Want to understand this better?

We wrote a detailed guide explaining how processing times work, what affects them, and how to read percentile-based estimates: Australian visa processing times guide