🇦🇺 Australia (Visitor 600) — Visa Documents for Indians

Step 1 of 6

Six streams, and only three are open to you

Subclass 600 is one visa with six streams, and from India only three of them are open to you: the Tourist stream applying from outside Australia, the Business visitor stream, and the Sponsored family stream. Three are not. The Approved Destination Status stream is for citizens of the People's Republic of China travelling with an organised tour. The Frequent traveller stream is restricted to citizens of China, Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam or Timor-Leste — India is not on that list, so the 10-year visa you may have read about is not available to you. And the second Tourist stream is for people already in Australia; to use the overseas one you must be outside Australia both when you apply and when the decision is made.

AUD 250 for the Tourist stream from outside Australia, and the same for the Business visitor and Sponsored family streams. For comparison, applying as a tourist from inside Australia costs AUD 630, and the Frequent traveller stream costs AUD 1,845 — neither is open to you from India. Budget beyond the fee too: health examinations, police certificates and biometrics are charged separately and are not included in any estimator. A cost concession starting 1 July 2026 applies to eligible Pacific Island and Timor-Leste passport holders, and not to India.

Source: Home Affairs

Step 2 of 6

What you must satisfy before you start

Six things are assessed, and money is only one of them. You must meet the health requirement and the character requirement, have repaid or arranged to repay any debt you owe the Australian government, have or have access to enough money to support yourself, and satisfy Home Affairs that you are a genuine visitor — that you intend only to stay temporarily and to obey the conditions and stay period attached to your visa. Where an applicant is under 18, the visa may be refused if granting it would not be in that child's best interests.

Two things are worth settling before you open the form. If your passport is close to expiry, renew it first — the application is tied to the passport you lodge with. Health examinations can be done either before you apply or later when Home Affairs asks, so you can choose; doing them early removes a wait at the end. And if you are paying anyone for help, only three kinds of people may lawfully give you immigration assistance: a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner, or an exempt person. The High Commission in New Delhi publishes a standing warning that anyone guaranteeing you a visa in exchange for money is running a scam.

Source: Home Affairs

Step 3 of 6

The documents — and Australia does list them

Everyone brings these

• The pages of your current passport showing your photo, your personal details, and the issue and expiry dates
• A national identity card, if you hold one
• Proof of a change of name where it applies — a marriage or divorce certificate, or change-of-name documents — plus anything showing other names you have been known by

This is where Australian applications are won and lost. You are asked to show you can pay for your stay AND for leaving, and the evidence named includes itemised personal bank statements covering a 3-month period, pay slips, audited accounts and tax records. Alongside money, show reasons to come back: a letter from your employer saying you are expected to return to your job, proof of study in India, immediate family here, or property and other major assets you own. If a relative or friend in Australia is inviting you, their letter should state how they know you, why you are visiting and for how long, and whether you will stay with them — and if they are paying for your trip, their own proof of funds goes in as well.

And these, if they apply to you

• For an applicant under 18: a birth certificate naming both parents, or failing that a family book, a government identity document, a court-issued identity document or a family census register — and proof of legal guardianship where someone other than the biological parents holds it
• Form 1229, the consent to grant a visa to a child under 18, from anyone with a legal right to decide where the child lives who is not travelling with them — a statutory declaration is accepted instead, and either way include a signed photo ID of the person giving consent
• Form 1257, the undertaking declaration, where a child under 18 will not be staying with a relative or legal guardian — signed by the person they will stay with
• If you are asking for a longer visa, say so in the application and evidence why — for a parent or step-parent, proof that your child is an Australian citizen or permanent resident
• Any military service record or discharge papers, if they apply to you — and a police certificate if Home Affairs asks for one

The translation rules are published exactly, and they are looser than the folklore. Every non-English document must be translated into English, and you submit both the original and the translation. A translator outside Australia does NOT need to be accredited — only translators inside Australia do — but on each translation they must give their full name, address and telephone number, and their qualifications and experience in that language, all written in English. And you do not need anything notarised or certified unless Home Affairs specifically asks you for it.

Scan or photograph every document in colour, English and non-English alike, and make sure it is clear and legible. Where a document runs to more than one page, save the whole thing as a single file rather than a page per file.

Build these files with the checklist above

Source: Home Affairs

Step 4 of 6

Lodging it, and the sentence that decides refusals

You lodge it yourself, online, through ImmiAccount — create the account or log in, attach your documents, and pay. Home Affairs will not begin processing until the fee is paid, so an application sitting unpaid is not a lodged application. The High Commission in New Delhi states the same route for applicants in India: lodge online and pay through ImmiAccount.

Every person needs their own application, including a child listed on your passport — you cannot add family members to yours. What you can do is submit the family's applications together, and Home Affairs asks you to. It reads like a contradiction and is not: one application per person, lodged as a set.

🔴 Home Affairs says it twice, and it is the most consequential sentence in the whole process: “We may decide your application without requesting further information from you.” There is no promise of a chance to fix a gap. An incomplete application is not held up pending a request — it can simply be decided on what is in front of the officer. Lodge it complete, and if something was left out, attach it in ImmiAccount as soon as you can rather than waiting to be asked.

Source: Home Affairs

Step 5 of 6

After you lodge

Home Affairs will tell you if you need to give biometrics; you are not expected to book them unprompted. They are collected at an Australian Visa Application Centre or an Australian Biometrics Collection Centre. Worth knowing where India stands: the High Commission in New Delhi lists Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as the countries in this region currently inside the biometrics programme, and India is not among them — so for most applicants from India biometrics are not the automatic step they are made out to be.

No number is published, and that is deliberate. Home Affairs publishes a processing time guide tool showing what recently decided applications actually took, and says plainly that it is a guide and not specific to your case. It differs by stream. Anyone quoting you a firm Australian processing time has made it up.

Source: Home Affairs

Step 6 of 6

What you get, and how long it lasts

Read this before you book anything. Home Affairs generally grants a stay of 3 months, not the 12 the visa is capable of — 12 months is granted in certain circumstances, decided case by case on how long you want to stay and why. The visa may be single entry or multiple entry, and you should check which you were given rather than assume. On this visa you may study or train for up to 3 months but you may not work. If you are the parent or step-parent of an Australian citizen or permanent resident, a visa valid longer than 12 months is possible, but you still cannot be in Australia more than 12 months in total in any 18-month period. One trap worth naming: if you take a round-trip cruise, that time counts as time spent in Australia — it does not reset your stay.

You cannot extend this visa to stay longer. If you want more time you apply for a new visa, and you can only do that if your current visa does not carry condition 8503 — No Further Stay — which is waived only in limited circumstances. The High Commission puts it flatly: the validity of a visitor visa cannot be extended.

There will be no sticker in your passport. The visa is linked to your passport digitally, and your grant letter carries the grant number, the start date and your conditions — keep a copy with you in Australia. To show anyone that you hold a visa, or to check your own conditions and when you must leave, use VEVO.

Source: Home Affairs