Visa time checker

Get a much more accurate processing time estimate for your Australian visa application, powered by Australian Government data.

Check your processing time

About this tool

Tern Visa's Visa Time Checker provides personalised processing-time estimates for Australian visas using a large historical dataset of visa grants obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI). It is intended for planning and education only.

What is 'processing time'?

Processing time is the number of calendar days between lodgement and a grant decision. The dataset includes grant outcomes only (not refusals, withdrawals, or pending cases), so estimates reflect time-to-grant among granted cases. Calendar days include weekends and public holidays.

How it works

Enter your citizenship, visa subclass/stream, and whether you are applying onshore or offshore. We then show:

• Estimated processing-time ranges for similar past cases (percentiles)• How outcomes differ by citizenship and location• An interactive timeline showing the estimated share of similar past granted cases that received a grant decision by a chosen date

Where does the data come from?

We use a dataset provided by the Department of Home Affairs in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request (Reference: DA25/10/00449), covering approximately 4.5 million visa grants from July 2024 to September 2025. The data is grouped by variables such as citizenship, visa subclass/stream, and application location. We update the dataset every month when new data becomes available.

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

Can I check processing times with the Department directly?

Yes. The Department publishes an official Global Visa Processing Times tool. Those figures are aggregated and do not reflect differences by citizenship or onshore/offshore location for a specific case.

Why are the results personalised?

Processing times often differ significantly by citizenship and application location. This tool provides estimates based on outcomes for similar cohorts (same subclass/stream, citizenship group, and onshore/offshore), rather than a single overall figure.

How should I interpret the estimate?

Estimates are based on historical grant outcomes and do not guarantee any grant decision date. Your case may take longer or shorter depending on factors not captured in the dataset (e.g., completeness of documents, health/character checks, requests for information, policy changes, caseload fluctuations). All visa decisions are made by the Department of Home Affairs.

Methodology

Data source

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

Cohort grouping

Data is grouped by visa subclass, stream, country of citizenship, and application location (onshore/offshore) to provide personalised estimates.

Percentile calculation

Processing times are presented as percentiles (25th, 50th/median, 75th, 90th) showing what proportion of similar applicants received grant decisions within each timeframe.

Similar country estimation

If we don't have enough outcomes for your exact country/subclass cohort, we use a fallback estimate derived from countries with similar processing-time profiles for the same visa type. This is a heuristic and is labelled medium confidence. To treat a cohort as an exact match the sample size needs to be at least 30.

Trend adjustment

Historic percentiles are scaled by an adjustment factor comparing the latest month's processing times to the historical baseline, ensuring estimates reflect current conditions. Trend adjustment uses the ratio of recent vs baseline median processing times for the same visa type. Adjustment factors are capped to prevent extreme swings when the latest month is noisy.

Timeline interpolation

The 'chance of decision by date' feature estimates the share of similar past granted cases that received a grant decision by each date. We interpolate (using a monotonic spline) between percentile points to show a smooth timeline.

Sample size transparency

The number of outcomes used for each estimate is displayed, allowing you to gauge the statistical reliability of the figures.

Confidence levels

Estimates are labelled by source: direct match (highest confidence), similar countries (medium), or overall monthly average (lower). This helps you understand how the estimate was derived.

Want to learn more?

Read our guide explaining how processing times work, what affects them, and how to interpret percentile-based estimates: Australian visa processing times guide