Has my permanent residence expired?

Almost certainly not. Permanent residence does not expire. What expires is the travel facility attached to it, which is the separate right to leave Australia and come back in as a permanent resident, and which usually runs for five years from the day your permanent visa was granted. If you are in Australia and never intend to travel, an expired travel facility changes nothing and you do not need to apply for anything. It only matters the moment you want to leave and return.

I have been overseas for years and my travel facility has run out. Is it too late?

Not necessarily, and this is the case a Resident Return Visa exists for. There is no limit on how many you can apply for and no cut-off that closes the door on length of absence alone. If you have spent two of the last five years in Australia you get the longest facility on arithmetic alone. If you have not, the question becomes what you can show about your ties to Australia and, where the absence has run past five years, why you were away. Both are answerable with documents.

What counts as a compelling reason for being away?

The Department gives examples: serious illness or the death of a family member overseas, work or study commitments of yours or your partner’s, an ongoing relationship or minor children overseas, lengthy medical treatment, legal proceedings whose timing you did not control, or a natural disaster, political upheaval or pandemic that prevented travel. What matters is that the reasons connect to the whole of the absence rather than to one year of it, so the explanation is usually a written statement with documents behind it.

How long will the visa let me travel for?

Five years, twelve months or three months, and you do not choose. Five years goes to people who meet the residence requirement of two years in Australia out of the last five. Up to twelve months goes to people who instead show substantial ties of benefit to Australia, or whose family member holds or has applied for one. Up to three months is the subclass 157, for people who meet neither but have compelling and compassionate reasons for the absence. One application is assessed against all of it.

Should I apply now or wait?

It depends entirely on what is left on your current visa, and getting this wrong is expensive. When a new Resident Return Visa is granted, whatever travel facility remained on your previous permanent visa is gone and is not refunded, so applying eight months early to be safe can leave you with three months instead of eight. It also cannot be extended or postponed once granted. Check your current travel facility expiry first, then decide.

Can I include my partner and children in the application?

No. Every permanent resident in the family lodges their own application and pays their own charge. You can ask for them to be processed together by telling the Department about each other in each application, which is usually sensible, and one family member who already holds or has properly applied for a Resident Return Visa can help the others qualify for a twelve-month facility.

How long does it take to be decided?

The Department publishes its own observation that straightforward applications meeting the residence requirement are generally decided within about five working days, and that applications which do not meet it take substantially longer, giving twelve weeks or more as its example. Those are its figures about its own workload on the day they were read, not a promise about any individual case. If you already have flights booked, treat the longer number as the planning assumption.

What if the answer is no?

There are other doors, and the Department names them itself. Australian citizenship ends the problem permanently for anyone who can meet its residence requirement. The Former Resident visa, subclass 151, reaches some former permanent residents on a different test. Beyond those, a partner, family or skilled visa means starting again on a harder road. Jenny will tell you which of these is realistic, and will say plainly when none of them is.

Resident Return Visa · subclass 155 and 157

Your permanent residence has not expired.

Q: What counts as substantial ties to Australia?

The Department groups them as business, cultural, employment and personal ties, and personal ties include family. Two words in the test do the work: the ties have to be substantial, and they have to be of benefit to Australia. A house nobody lives in is thin. An Australian partner and children, a business that trades here, a job waiting, a lifetime of records showing you treated this as home — those are the shape of it. It is proved with paper rather than argued in a paragraph.

Q: Can I just come back on a visitor visa and sort it out here?

It is rarely worth it, and it is not the neutral shortcut it looks like. The Department warns that returning on a temporary visa after your travel facility has expired can affect your entitlements as a permanent resident and your ability to meet the residence requirements for Australian citizenship or for a future Resident Return Visa. Arriving with no valid visa at all means being refused entry. Applying before you fly is almost always the cheaper path.

What expires is the travel facility on it — the separate right to leave Australia and come back in as a permanent resident, which usually runs five years from the day your visa was granted. A Resident Return Visa is how you get a new one. Even after ten or twenty years away, the door is generally not closed, and below is what actually decides it.

Check where you stand What is a travel facility?

What is a travel facility, and has yours run out?

It is the part of your permanent visa that lets you re-enter Australia, and it is the only part with an end date. Permanent residence itself does not lapse. If you are in Australia and never leave, an expired travel facility changes nothing about your life here and you do not need to apply for anything.

It matters the moment you want to travel. Your first permanent visa normally came with five years of unlimited travel in and out. Once that runs out, leaving Australia means you cannot come back in as a permanent resident until you hold a new Resident Return Visa, and arriving without one means being refused entry at the border. You can check your own expiry date on VEVO, and the Department emails a reminder about 60 days beforehand to people it has an address for.

Who can apply

You are an Australian permanent resident now.
You were one, and your last permanent visa was not cancelled.
You were an Australian citizen and lost or renounced that citizenship.

Who cannot

Australian citizens. You cannot hold this visa and you do not need one — you travel on the passport.
Former permanent residents whose most recent permanent visa was cancelled.
Some business visa holders whose visa was cancelled or was being considered for cancellation.

How long a travel facility can you be given?

Five years, twelve months or three months, and you do not choose — the Department decides from what you can show. One application is assessed against both subclasses at once, so if the subclass 155 tests are not met and the subclass 157 one is, that is what may be granted.

These are maximums, not entitlements — the Department's own wording throughout is "can only be given a maximum of". Requirements are set by the Australian Government and change. Source: Department of Home Affairs, subclasses 155 and 157, checked 23 August 2026.
You may get	If you can show	What that means in practice
5 years Subclass 155	You were in Australia for a total of at least 2 years out of the last 5, as a permanent visa holder or as an Australian citizen.	This is called the residence requirement, and it is arithmetic rather than judgement. The two years is 730 days added up, not two years in one stretch. The five years counts back from the day you lodge. The day you arrive and the day you leave both count as full days.
Up to 12 months Subclass 155	You do not have the two years, but you can show substantial ties to Australia that are of benefit to Australia.	This is the door most people who have been away a long time come through. It is a judgement about evidence rather than a sum, and if your absence has run past five years you also have to explain it. Where you are when you apply, and how long you have been gone, decide which version of this test you are measured against.
Up to 12 months Subclass 155	A member of your family unit already holds an RRV, or has lodged their own and meets the requirements.	The quiet one. It does not remove the need for your own application — everybody applies separately — but it means one strong case in a family can carry the others.
Up to 3 months Subclass 157	None of the above, but there are compelling and compassionate reasons for your absence, and you have not been away from Australia in the 5 years before you apply.	The last resort, and it is short. Three months is enough to come back and re-establish yourself, not enough to keep commuting. You do not apply for this one separately; it is what the Department may grant if the subclass 155 tests are not met.

What counts as substantial ties, or a compelling reason?

These are the two phrases that make people give up, and both are more ordinary than they sound. Ties are what you can show about your connection to Australia. Compelling reasons are why you were away. Neither is argued in a paragraph; both are proved with documents.

Substantial ties of benefit to Australia

Two words in that phrase do the work. The ties have to be substantial, and they have to be of benefit to Australia — a house nobody lives in is thin, an Australian family and a business that trades here is not. The Department groups them four ways: business ties, cultural ties, employment ties, personal ties, including family.

What that looks like on paper

Company reports, contracts, partnership agreements or business records showing what you actually do
Employment contracts, a letter of offer, recent payslips or an employee pass
Birth, marriage or citizenship certificates for an Australian partner, parent or child
Utility bills, bank statements, school records or a travel history showing a life lived here
Property purchase documents, school enrolments or moving receipts if you are coming back with your family
Publications, memberships or performance programs, where the tie is a cultural one

Compelling and compassionate reasons

The second door, and it opens when the absence has run long. What matters is that the reasons account for the whole of the time away rather than one year of it, so this is usually a written statement with documents behind it. The Department's own examples are unremarkable, which is the point:

The Department's own examples

Severe illness or the death of a family member overseas
Work or study commitments, yours or your partner’s
An ongoing relationship with a partner overseas, or minor children there
Complex or lengthy medical treatment, for you or for family travelling with you
Legal proceedings overseas where the timing was not yours to control
A natural disaster, a political uprising, a pandemic or a similar event that stopped you travelling

What goes wrong, and what it costs

This is an unusually easy visa to make yourself worse off with. Four things catch people, and the first one catches them hardest.

A new RRV wipes out what was left on the old one

Whatever travel facility remained on your previous permanent visa does not carry over, and there is no refund for losing it. Someone with eight months left who applies too early and is granted a three-month facility has made themselves worse off. Check what you already have before you apply for more.

You cannot extend it, postpone it, or generally get the money back

There is no extension of a travel facility in any circumstances. Once you meet the requirements the visa is granted and the clock starts, whether or not that suits your plans. And a refused application is generally not refunded.

Everyone applies separately

You cannot include your partner or children in your application. Each permanent resident in the family needs their own. They can be processed together if you tell the Department about each other, which is worth doing.

Coming back on a visitor visa can cost you more than the trip

If your travel facility has run out, returning on an ETA or a visitor visa is not a neutral workaround. The Department warns it can affect your entitlements as a permanent resident and your ability to meet the residence requirements for citizenship or for a future RRV. And if you arrive with no valid visa at all, you are refused entry.

How long a decision takes

The Department publishes two observations about its own workload. Applications that meet the residence requirement are generally decided within 5 working days of lodgement. Applications that do not meet it take longer — the Department gives 12 weeks or more as its own example. Those are its figures on the day they were read, not a promise about any individual application, and nobody can give you a date. If flights are already booked, plan on the longer one and check the current processing times yourself.

What if you cannot get one?

There are other doors, and the Department names them itself. Two of them are better than a Resident Return Visa for the right person, and one of them ends the problem for good.

Australian citizenship

The permanent answer, because a citizen never needs an RRV again. It asks for four years living in Australia on a valid visa immediately before you apply, a permanent visa for the last twelve months of that, and no more than twelve months total outside Australia across the four years, including no more than 90 days in the final year. For someone who has just come home, that is a plan for later rather than now.

Read the Department's page

Former Resident visa, subclass 151

A permanent visa for certain former permanent residents, and for some people who served in the Australian Defence Force. It turns on an age and long-residence test rather than on recent ties, so it reaches a different group from the RRV — often people who grew up here and left a long time ago.

Read the Department's page

Starting again on a family or skilled visa

If an RRV is refused and no other permanent route fits, the Department’s own advice is that you may have to apply for a permanent visa afresh — a partner or family visa if you have someone here, a skilled visa if your occupation carries you. It is a harder road than an RRV, which is exactly why the RRV is worth getting right the first time.

Read the Department's page

All of them, including the Resident Return Visa itself, also require you to meet the character requirement. The Department's overview of travelling overseas as a permanent resident sets out how the pieces fit together.

Questions people ask first

Coming home, answered plainly.

Before you book a flight, find out what you actually hold.

Tell Jenny when you last lived in Australia, how long you have been away, why, and what is still here — family, a house, a business, a job. Returning residents are work she takes often. She will tell you which test you fall under, what evidence it needs, and when the honest answer is that a different visa is the one to pursue.

Check where you stand

Indicative guidance only, not migration advice. Your details stay private.

Written and checked by Jenny Satya Graha, Registered Migration Agent MARN 0429372. Every requirement, travel facility length and exclusion on this page was checked against the Department of Home Affairs on 23 August 2026. Criteria and charges are set by the Australian Government and change often. Check the Department of Home Affairs page for subclasses 155 and 157 to confirm anything above, including the current application charge and the eligibility requirements that apply to you.