Get Australian Working Holiday Visa in just a day

• Backpackers wanting to come to Australia only need to wait a day for their visa application to be finalised.
• Working holidaymakers can now also stay with a single employer through the course of the visa.
• The Department of Immigration said it employed 400 staff to sift through the one million visa backlog in the system.

Backpackers outside Australia can expect their visa applications to be processed in less than a day as the federal government says it’s slashed the existing visa backlog. In a bid to improve working holidaymaker visa wait times (subclasses 417 and 462), 120,000 applications have been approved for offshore backpackers in time for Christmas.

The government also announced working holidaymakers can remain working with a single employer for the length of the 12-month visa, instead of a maximum of six months. The extension was supposed to expire on 31 December but will continue to be in force for another six months until 30 June 2023, to support Australian employers over the summer.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said 400 additional staff were hired since June to process nearly a million visa applications, culling the backlog to 600,000 by the end of the year.

To apply for this visa you need to be of a certain age and hold the passport of these countries:

• Belgium – 18 to 30 years
• Canada – 18 to 35 years
• Republic of Cyprus – 18 to 30 years
• Denmark – 18 to 35 years
• Estonia – 18 to 30 years
• Finland – 18 to 30 years
• France – 18 to 35 years
• Germany – 18 to 30 years
• Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (including British National Overseas passport holders) – 18 to 30 years
• Republic of Ireland – 18 to 35 years
• Italy – 18 to 35 years
• Japan – 18 to 30 years
• Republic of Korea – 18 to 30 years
• Malta – 18 to 30 years
• Netherlands – 18 to 30 years
• Norway – 18 to 30 years
• Sweden – 18 to 30 years
• Taiwan (other than an official or diplomatic passport) – 18 to 30 years
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – 18 to 30 years

^{Some content sourced from SBS}