Australian Citizenship Application Processing Delays

Long Delays for Australian Citizenship Applications.

Many new migrants eventually will apply for Australian Citizenship after they have been granted an Australian Permanent Resident visa.

This application can be made after they have been legally in Australia for four years, and at least one year after they received their Permanent Resident visa.

Unfortunately, the processing time to get their Citizenship is not short, and for some it can be painstakingly long.

Ten years ago, it was possible to get Citizenship within a few months of first application, but now, the official times are a lot longer, with some taking over 2 years.

The proposed changes to Citizenship in 2018, where Citizenship Approvals were put on hold for a long time, has also caused a massive backlog of applicants, and these are now being processed, to reduce that backlog.

Unfortunately, that is still causing some delays.

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The Australian Citizenship Process.

• • Stage 1:
  • Application for Citizenship is Submitted
  • Application is checked, including character and national security requirement checks from other agencies.
  • Decision to proceed with Citizenship and passed on to arrange the Test Date.
  • Stage 2:
  • Test Date given to Applicant.
  • Applicant Takes Test.
  • Decision to proceed further with Citizenship and passed on to arrange the Ceremony Date with local Council.
  • Stage 3:
  • Local Council advises Applicant of the ceremony date.
  • Ceremony is done and the applicant becomes a Citizen.

Citizenship Processing time for May 2019 Finalisations

• Time between first application and date of approval (Stage 1) to allow a test date: 75% were done within 14 months and 10% took over 19 months.
• Time between date of approval to ceremony: 75% were done within 5 months and 10% took over 6 months.
• Total time between first application and date of ceremony: 75% were done within 16 months and 10% took over 20 months.

Circumstances that affect Citizenship processing times.

Some factors can affect how long it takes to finalise your application.

These include:

• whether you have provided a complete application, including all the supporting documents.
• how promptly you respond when asked for more information or documents.
• the time it takes to check the information you have provided.
• the time it takes to obtain information from other agencies, usually for character and national security requirements.

immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/…/citizenship-processing-times

Refusal Rate for Australian Citizenship.

During the 6 months July to December 2018; 64,015 out of 72,647 Citizenship Decisions were approved, with the remaining 8,632 either Refused (4,155), Invalid (4,091) or Withdrawn (386).
That is almost 12% of Australian Citizenship Decisions were NOT granted.

Interesting Facts on Citizenship Applications.

• 124,250 people applied for Australian citizenship by conferral during the period 1 July 2018 and 31 May 2019. That’s an average of about 11,300 per month.
• 18,366 people applied for Australian citizenship by other methods during that period, that’s another 1,670 per month.
• As at 31st May 2019, there were 221,695 Australian citizenship by conferral applications waiting, with another 2,591 Australian citizenship by descent applications waiting.

Worrying Statistics on Citizenship Applications.

• During the 6 months July to December 2018; 72,647 Citizenship Decisions were finalised. That is about 12,100 per month.
• During the 11 months July 2018 and May 2019; about 12,970 new Citizenship applications were made.
• That could mean more applications than finalisations, thereby INCREASING the queue..

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