Home Affairs Online Services Offline 25 to 26 September 2026: What Applicants Need to Do

The Department of Home Affairs will take a range of its online services offline for system maintenance from 8:00 pm AEST on Friday 25 September 2026 until 12 noon AEST on Saturday 26 September 2026. ImmiAccount, online visa lodgement and VEVO are all on the list, which means nobody will be able to lodge a visa application online for roughly 16 hours.^[1]

For most people this is a minor inconvenience. For anyone whose visa expires on Friday 25 September, it is a hard deadline that cannot be worked around once the outage begins.

Why the Timing Matters

Lodging a valid application for a further visa while your current visa is still in effect is usually what allows a bridging visa to be granted, keeping you lawful while the new application is processed. If your visa ceases before a valid application is lodged, you may become an unlawful non-citizen, and the options available from that point are narrower and harder.

The outage removes the usual safety margin of lodging late in the evening on the last day. In practice, anyone in this position should aim to lodge on Friday during business hours, not in the final hour before 8:00 pm, in case of a payment problem or an unexpected error. Our guide to Bridging Visa A conditions and work rights explains how the bridging visa works once an application is lodged.

Which Services May Be Unavailable

According to the Department's notice, published on 21 September 2026, the following online services may be unavailable during the maintenance window:^[1]

The Outage in Your Time Zone

The Department quotes the window in Australian Eastern Standard Time. Daylight saving has not yet started in the eastern states, so AEST applies. For applicants elsewhere in Australia and overseas, the equivalent times are:

Who Else Should Plan Around It

• •Applicants mid-lodgement: save your progress well before 8:00 pm AEST and avoid starting a payment close to the cut-off. A payment interrupted by the outage can leave an application in an uncertain state.
• •Employers: VEVO may be unavailable, so any right to work checks for weekend starters should be completed before Friday evening.
• •Applicants with health examinations: eMedical and My Health Declarations are affected, so avoid booking anything that depends on generating a referral during the window.
• •Anyone responding to a request for further information: if your deadline falls in the window, upload before it begins rather than relying on the system coming back in time.
• •People planning travel on a bridging visa: a Bridging Visa B cannot be lodged during the outage, so allow for it if you need to apply before departing.

If You See an Error Message

A "Service Temporarily Unavailable" message during the window is expected. The Department's advice is simply to try again after the outage. If you are still seeing a planned maintenance message after the outage has finished, the Department recommends clearing your browser cache and history and trying again, and it notes that a scheduled outage never runs longer than 24 hours.^[2]

Regular Maintenance Windows

This outage is in addition to the Department's routine maintenance periods, during which the same systems may be briefly unavailable:^[2]

The practical lesson is the same one this outage makes obvious: never plan to lodge in the last few hours before a visa expires.

Conclusion

For almost everyone, this outage is a scheduling note. For anyone whose visa ends on 25 September, it moves the effective deadline to 8:00 pm AEST that Friday, with no way to lodge online after that until noon on Saturday. If that applies to you or someone you know, act now rather than on Friday evening.

References

• [1]Department of Home Affairs, Systems maintenance 25 September to 26 September, published 21 September 2026. Outage window, affected services and guidance for visas expiring on 25 September. homeaffairs.gov.au
• [2]Department of Home Affairs, System maintenance and technical issues. Routine maintenance windows, error messages and the 24 hour maximum outage duration. homeaffairs.gov.au