Bridging Visa B (Subclass 020): The Complete Guide to Travelling While Your Visa Is Being Processed

A Bridging Visa A keeps you lawful in Australia while your substantive application is decided, but it carries no travel facility. If you leave Australia on a Bridging Visa A, you cannot use it to come back. The Bridging Visa B adds the missing piece: a defined window in which you may leave and return.

• It lets you depart Australia and re-enter within an approved travel period while your substantive application remains pending.
• Once granted, it becomes the bridging visa in effect and keeps you lawful on the same basis as the Bridging Visa A it replaces.
• It carries across the same work and study conditions that applied to your Bridging Visa A.
• It is available to people awaiting a decision on a substantive visa application and, in some cases, to those awaiting merits or judicial review.

For background on the visa it builds on, see our Bridging Visa A (Subclass 010) guide.

The Bridging Visa B is the only bridging visa in this group that carries a travel facility. That is its entire reason for existing.

To be granted a Bridging Visa B you generally need to:

• Hold a Bridging Visa A or an existing Bridging Visa B.
• Be in Australia when you apply and when the visa is granted.
• Have a substantive visa application still being processed, or be awaiting the outcome of an eligible review.
• Have a substantial reason for wanting to leave and return to Australia, supported by evidence.

You must explain why you need to travel and support it with evidence. The Department does not publish an exhaustive list, but reasons that are commonly accepted include:

• A family emergency, serious illness or bereavement overseas.
• Visiting family, particularly where there are compelling personal circumstances.
• Work obligations, including travel required by your employer.
• Study or research commitments that require you to be overseas.
• Medical treatment that is not reasonably available in Australia.
• Significant personal events such as a wedding or a religious obligation.
• Planned holidays, which can be accepted where the request is reasonable and well documented.

This is the single most misunderstood aspect of the Bridging Visa B, and getting it wrong has consequences that are difficult to fix.

• The length of the travel period is set by the Department based on your stated itinerary and reasons, and is commonly up to around three months.
• You must be back in Australia before the travel period expires in order to re-enter on that visa.
• The facility may be granted as single entry or multiple entry. Multiple entry allows more than one departure and return within the same period.
• Multiple entry generally needs to be requested when you apply. It cannot usually be added afterwards.
• If the travel period expires while you are in Australia, you remain lawful. You simply lose the ability to travel again without applying for a new Bridging Visa B.

The Bridging Visa B carries the same conditions as the Bridging Visa A it replaces. Applying for one does not change your work or study rights in either direction.

• If your Bridging Visa A allowed unrestricted work, your Bridging Visa B will too.
• If your Bridging Visa A carried a work restriction, that restriction carries across unchanged.
• Study rights are similarly inherited rather than reset.
• You should verify your actual conditions through VEVO rather than relying on assumption, particularly before starting new employment.

If you need work rights that your current bridging visa does not give you, a Bridging Visa B is not the answer. That is a separate question about the conditions attached to your existing bridging visa, and it needs separate advice.

Applications are lodged online through ImmiAccount while you are in Australia.

Bridging Visa B applications are usually decided quickly compared with substantive visas. Reported timeframes for 2025 to 2026 have generally sat in the range of a few business days to around two weeks, with genuinely urgent cases sometimes decided faster.

Those figures describe past performance. They are an indication only, not a commitment, and they change. Check the Department's own tool for the current position before you rely on any published number:

Department of Home Affairs visa processing times tool

• Complete applications with clear evidence are decided faster than ones that prompt a request for more information.
• Peak travel periods and holiday seasons can lengthen timeframes.
• Urgency can be explained in the application, but urgency created by leaving it too late carries little weight.

Documents not in English should be accompanied by an appropriate translation.

The increase from AUD 190 to AUD 575 took effect on 1 July 2026 and was among the steepest proportional rises in that year's changes, at roughly 200 per cent. Because each family member who needs to travel requires their own application, the cost for a family can add up quickly.

Charges change and individual circumstances vary, so confirm your own amount here rather than relying on any figure published on this or any other site: Department of Home Affairs Visa Pricing Estimator

This is the scenario worth understanding before you leave, because the options once it happens are limited.

• You lose the ability to re-enter Australia on that Bridging Visa B.
• A Bridging Visa B cannot be granted while you are outside Australia, so it cannot be extended or replaced from overseas.
• Returning would require a different visa, such as a Visitor visa, which has its own criteria and is not guaranteed.
• Some applications must be decided while you are in Australia. Where that applies, being stuck offshore can put the whole application at risk.
• Even where your application can be decided while you are away, you may be unable to return to be present for later stages.

• Your substantive application continues to be processed while you are away. Travelling on a valid Bridging Visa B does not pause it or move you back in the queue.
• The Department can still contact you and can still issue requests for further information with firm deadlines.
• Keep your contact details current and monitor both email and ImmiAccount while travelling.
• Notify the Department of relevant changes in your circumstances in the normal way.

A missed request for information is one of the more avoidable ways an application is refused, and being overseas is not treated as a reason for missing one.

The points in this section are our own practical commentary rather than Departmental requirements. They reflect what we see most often.

• Booking flights before the Bridging Visa B is granted, then facing pressure to travel on a visa that does not permit return.
• Leaving Australia on a Bridging Visa A by mistake, which ends the ability to return on it.
• Assuming the travel period runs from the grant date rather than from first departure, and building the trip around the wrong dates.
• Requesting a travel period with no buffer, leaving nothing in reserve if plans change.
• Forgetting to request multiple entry, then discovering a second trip is not possible.
• Applying while holding a Bridging Visa C or E, which is not eligible.
• Providing a reason with no supporting evidence attached.
• Applying a few days before departure and hoping for a fast decision.