Bridging Visa A (BVA) (010)

The purpose of a Bridging Visa A (010) is to allow you to stay in Australia lawfully if you have a pending application with the Department of Home Affairs and your most recently held visa has expired.

In most circumstances, you will be granted a Bridging Visa A (010) if you are in Australia, hold a substantive visa and have made a valid application for a subsequent  substantive visa which requires you to be in Australia at the time of grant. You should not have a need to apply separately for a BVA because generally, your application for the subsequent substantive visa is also taken as an application for the associated BVA.

As mentioned above, you will have taken to have applied for a BVA if you meet all the three conditions above. The grant of the BVA is usually automatic (system generated) and the BVA grant letter should immediately follow the acknowledgement letter for the subsequent substantive visa for which you have applied.

Even though you will have received the grant of the BVA with the acknowledgement letter, the BVA is unlikely to be ‘active’. This is because your current visa will allow you to stay in Australia lawfully and the BVA will ‘kick-in’ only after the expiry of that visa. Once the BVA has become active, it will remain active until the subsequent substantive visa application it is associated with, has been decided.

There are no additional documents required for a BVA application. This is because the Home Affairs systems are able to automatically determine whether you will meet the three key requirements for the approval of a BVA i.e. you are in Australia, hold a substantive visa and have made a valid application for another substantive visa that requires you to be in Australia for a grant. That is the reason the BVA is generally a system generated auto-grant.

There is no additional fee associated with a BVA application because you will have already paid the fee for the subsequent substantive visa application.