About Visa Refusal Appeal
Visa Refusal Appeal explains one process carefully: what happens after an Australian visa refusal or cancellation, starting with the time limit to apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
Who writes it
It is written and maintained by the Visa Refusal Appeal editorial team. Nobody on the team is a registered migration agent or a lawyer giving advice through this site. No page is immigration assistance, legal advice, or a view on how a particular case will turn out. What the team does is read the ART's, the Department of Home Affairs' and the legislation's own published text, quote it accurately, and mark the places where a point could not be confirmed.
Visa Refusal Appeal is an independent information site operated by an Australian company that is not a registered migration agent or a law firm. It is not the Administrative Review Tribunal or the Department of Home Affairs. It does not give immigration assistance or legal advice, and nothing here has assessed your case. Your decision letter states your own time limit and review rights.
How a figure gets onto a page
Every deadline, fee, section number and quotation was read from the source page itself and recorded, with the address and the date it was checked, before it was written into a page. If a claim could not be traced to a primary source, it was left out, or the page says plainly that the point is not settled. Fees and time limits change, so sources carry a "checked" date.
The sources this site uses
- The Migration Act 1958, the Migration Regulations 1994 and the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, on legislation.gov.au, for the rules themselves.
- The Administrative Review Tribunal's own pages, practice direction and fee page, for how review works and what it costs.
- The Department of Home Affairs and the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA), for notices and for checking an agent.
- The Federal Circuit and Family Court, and legal aid commissions such as Legal Aid NSW, for court review and free help.
Every guide and article lists the sources it was built from, linking straight to the source rather than to a summary of it.
What this site will not publish
- Any statement that your decision can be reviewed, or that you are in or out of time. Your decision letter states that.
- Any prediction of how a case will turn out, or any success rate beyond what a cited ART statistic literally says.
- Any calculator, checker or quiz that produces a verdict on your situation.
- Any claim of special access to officials, or any promise of an outcome.
- Any suggestion that the ART can extend the time limit for most migration reviews.
- Any recommendation of a particular agent or firm.
Independence, and how the site may be funded
Visa Refusal Appeal is independent of the Department of Home Affairs, the ART and OMARA, and of every migration agent and law firm. In future, a sponsoring practice, meaning a registered migration agent practice or an Australian law practice, may pay a fixed fee to be shown on this site. If that happens it will be labelled "Advertisement", the practice will be named, and the page will say that the practice pays a fee. A fee will not change what the guides say. Right now no practice is shown and nobody pays to appear here.
Telling us something is wrong
The ART usually raises its fees each 1 July and can update a page at any time. If a quotation here no longer matches its source, email team@visarefusalappeal.com.au with the page and what you found. Corrections are made against the source, not against a recollection of it.