Bridging Visa B: Travelling Overseas While You Wait in 2026

If you have applied for a substantive visa in Australia and are holding a Bridging Visa A, you cannot leave the country and return on it. To travel overseas while your application is still being processed and keep your place in the queue, you need a Bridging Visa B (subclass 020), granted before you depart. This post explains how the Bridging Visa B works, what you must prove, and the timing traps that leave people stuck offshore.

What a Bridging Visa B actually does

A Bridging Visa B is a travel-enabled bridging visa. It exists for one reason: to let a person who is waiting on a substantive visa decision leave Australia and return while that decision is pending, without abandoning the application.

The starting point is the Bridging Visa A (subclass 010), which most people are granted automatically when they lodge an onshore application. A Bridging Visa A keeps you lawful while you wait, but it has no travel facility. If you leave Australia while holding only a Bridging Visa A, it ceases the moment you depart. You would then have no visa to return on, and depending on the visa you applied for, you may not be able to be granted it while you are offshore.

The Bridging Visa B solves this narrow problem. It carries a travel facility, so you can leave and re-enter Australia during a defined travel period, and your substantive application keeps progressing in the background. The criteria for the subclass 020 visa sit in Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994.

You must show a genuine reason to travel

A Bridging Visa B is not granted on request. The decision-maker must be satisfied that you have a substantial reason for wanting to leave and re-enter Australia during the period the visa would be in force. That is the operative gate, and it is where applications can fall over if they are prepared carelessly.

In practice this means you should state clearly why you need to travel and provide supporting material. Common accepted reasons include a family emergency, a funeral, a wedding, medical treatment for a relative overseas, or business travel required by your employer. Vague statements such as “I want to go on holiday” are weaker than documented, specific reasons, and the more concrete your evidence, the safer the application.

You must also still hold, or have applied for, the substantive visa that the bridging visa relates to. The Bridging Visa B does not stand alone. It attaches to your pending application and lasts only while that application is undecided.

The travel period is the part that catches people out

This is the single most important thing to understand. A Bridging Visa B specifies a travel period, and you must re-enter Australia before that period ends. The travel period is set by the case officer. It is limited, and it is not the same thing as the life of your substantive application.

If you return to Australia after the travel period has expired, the Bridging Visa B will not let you back in. Your substantive application may continue to be processed, but you could be stranded offshore, unable to re-enter, and forced to wait for the decision from outside the country. For some visa subclasses, being offshore at the time of decision affects whether the visa can even be granted.

So before you book flights, confirm the exact travel period on your grant notice and plan to return with a comfortable margin. Do not treat the travel period as flexible. It is a hard limit, and Australian migration time limits of this kind are generally strict. The Federal Court has confirmed in other contexts that statutory time limits in migration are jurisdictional and cannot simply be extended out of sympathy, as the Court held in Khabra v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] FCA 1405. Treat every dated limit on your bridging visa with the same seriousness.

Apply early, and apply before you leave

The Bridging Visa B must be granted before you depart Australia. It cannot be applied for from overseas, because its entire function is to permit re-entry, and you must be onshore to lodge and be granted it.

Processing is not instant. You should lodge well ahead of your intended departure, ideally several weeks in advance, so there is time for assessment and for you to receive the grant before your flight. Leaving on a Bridging Visa A in the mistaken belief you can sort out the Bridging Visa B later is one of the most damaging errors a person in this position can make. Once you have departed on a Bridging Visa A, it has ceased, and there is no bridging visa to travel back on.

What it costs and what it does not change

The application charge for a Bridging Visa B is $575 (as at 5 July 2026; see the Department of Home Affairs current visa pricing). Confirm the figure on the Department’s pricing page before you lodge, because charges are reviewed periodically.

A Bridging Visa B does not change your substantive application in any way. It does not speed it up, slow it down, or alter the outcome. It does not give you additional work or study rights beyond those attached to your existing bridging arrangement. Its only effect is to let you travel and return during the travel period. If you need broader rights, those come from the substantive visa you have applied for, not from the bridging visa.

Practical checklist before you book flights

You are in the right position for a Bridging Visa B if all of the following are true. You have a substantive visa application that is still being decided. You are currently holding a Bridging Visa A or an equivalent bridging visa. You have a genuine, specific, and documented reason to travel. You can leave and, critically, return within the travel period the visa will specify.

If any of those is missing, get advice before you commit to travel. In particular, if your substantive visa is one that cannot be granted while you are offshore, leaving Australia at the wrong moment can jeopardise the application even with a valid Bridging Visa B in hand. The interaction between your travel plans and the grant requirements of your main visa is exactly the kind of point that is cheap to check in advance and expensive to fix afterwards.

Where a Bridging Visa B fits in your overall plan

Most people who need a Bridging Visa B are waiting on a longer application, such as a partner visa, an employer sponsored visa, or a skilled visa. The bridging visa is a bridge, not a destination, so it is worth keeping the whole pathway in view rather than treating the travel question in isolation. If you are waiting on a partner application, our overview of partner visas explains how the substantive stages work. If you are on an employer sponsored pathway, see employer sponsored visas, and for points-tested options see skilled visas.

Getting the timing of a Bridging Visa B right protects an application you may have spent months and thousands of dollars building. If you need to travel while your visa is being processed, or you are unsure whether leaving Australia will put your application at risk, Visa Plan Lawyers advises on the timing and the evidence and can prepare the application with you. Contact our team through the employer sponsored visas page or your relevant service page to discuss your situation before you book.