Australia’s 1 November 2026 Visa Rule Changes: ART Protection Review Fee, Bridging Visa B and Bridging Visa E Conditions Explained

On 1 November 2026 the Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Regulations 2026 took effect. They are not one rule for every migrant. They make three separate changes, each aimed at a different group: an upfront fee for people asking the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) to review a refusal or cancellation of a Protection visa; a bar on the Bridging visa B for people with an undetermined Protection visa application; and discretionary conditions on some Bridging visa E grants.

This guide reads the regulations (F2026L01448), the Explanatory Statement and Home Affairs’ own pages. It explains who each change touches, which date decides it, and what the sources do not tell us. It is general information, not advice on a case, and it does not predict any outcome.

Home Affairs lists those providers on its Protection visa page. For the wider picture of how the visa works, who qualifies and how to apply, read our complete Australian Protection Visa guide. Two parts of that guide relate directly to these changes: the bridging visa rights comparison and the ART and court review timeline and fees.

Choose a measure to see what it does, who it is for, the provisions involved, when it applies, and the position before and after. Each measure is separate: the dates and the people affected differ.

• ART review fee. Who: people applying to the ART to review a refusal or cancellation of a Protection visa. What changes: a 50% fee, paid with the application. Where: regulation 4.31B. Which date decides: the date of the decision under review.
• Bridging visa B. Who: people with a Protection visa application not finally determined, including under review. What changes: no valid application and no grant while it is undetermined. Where: Schedule 1 item 1302; Schedule 2 clauses 020.212 and 020.224. Which date decides: the date the visa application was made.
• Bridging visa E conditions. Who: some people granted a Bridging visa E. What changes: the Minister may impose conditions 8564 and 8566. Where: Schedule 2 clauses 050.613, 050.613A and 050.616A. Which date decides: the date the visa application was made.

The Explanatory Statement is the Government’s account of its own purpose. It is not a neutral assessment, and we report it as the Government’s view.

• The fee. The Explanatory Statement says the old arrangement required payment only if a person was unsuccessful at the end of the process, and that “in practice, many of those who are unsuccessful do not pay the fee at all”. It calls the new upfront fee a “proportionate financial disincentive for unmeritorious applications” and says it is intended to cover some of the costs of review.
• The Bridging visa B. It says the aim is to reduce incentives to lodge unmeritorious Protection visa applications to gain access to the Bridging visa B, which carries a travel facility.
• The conditions. It says the discretion to impose conditions 8564 and 8566 was “unintentionally removed” by the Migration Amendment (Cessation and Grant of Bridging Visas) Regulations 2024, and that the change restores it.

The Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights, which is part of the same document, also records limits on the measures. It says the fee may provide “a barrier to access to merits review” and that the Government considers the limitation reasonable, necessary and proportionate. We leave those judgements to readers and to the people they affect.

The sequence

Four dates sound alike and mean different things: the date the instrument was made, the date it was registered, the date it commenced, and the date of your own decision or application. The last one decides which rule applies to you; the commencement date only tells you when the rules began. Item 16501 of Schedule 13 says so in two parts:

• The fee amendments “apply in relation to an application for review of a decision made on or after the commencement”. Regulations 4.31B and 4.31C as they stood “continue to apply” to reviews of decisions made before. The Explanatory Statement says the amendments “do not operate retrospectively”.
• The Part 2 amendments (the bridging visa changes) apply “in relation to an application for a visa made on or after the commencement”.

What the fee is

Regulation 4.31B now says the prescribed fee for an application to the ART for review of a reviewable protection decision is 50% of the fee mentioned in subregulation 4.13(1), as indexed. The Explanatory Statement describes a reviewable protection decision as including a decision to refuse or to cancel a Protection visa. It states the fee as $1,863.50 at commencement, and Home Affairs’ Protection visa page gives the same amount, noting that it is indexed each year.

It is a percentage, not a flat sum. Because it is half of the regulation 4.13(1) fee, it moves whenever that fee is indexed. Illustration, with invented numbers: if the regulation 4.13(1) fee were $4,000 after a future indexation, the protection review fee would be $2,000. The ART publishes the current amount on its fees page.

When it is paid

The fee must accompany the application. Under the old rule, in regulation 4.31B as it stood, the fee was payable within 7 days of being notified of the ART’s decision, and no fee was payable if the ART remitted the matter. The Explanatory Statement says an applicant who does not pay and does not have a waiver “will not be able to access merits review”, and Home Affairs’ page says the same: if the fee is not paid, the ART will not be able to conduct a review.

The fee, step by step

1. Find the date of the decision. The new rules apply to reviews of decisions made on or after 1 November 2026. For an earlier decision, regulations 4.31B and 4.31C as they stood continue to apply, whenever the review application is lodged.
2. Check the two waivers. A waiver means the fee is not payable at all. It is not payable if the application is made by a non-citizen in immigration detention, or if it is combined, under regulation 4.31A, with another application for which the fee is paid. Regulation 4.31B lists no others.
3. Otherwise the fee accompanies the application. It is 50% of the regulation 4.13(1) fee as indexed: $1,863.50 at commencement. The Explanatory Statement says that without payment or a waiver, merits review cannot proceed.
4. After the application, check whether the fee must be refunded. A refund returns a fee that was paid. The regulation says the whole fee “must be refunded” in the circumstances in the table below. It does not set out how a refund is requested, and the sources we could read do not either.

An ordinary withdrawal is not on the list in regulation 4.31B(3). We have not resolved how regulation 4.14(2), which deals with refunds on withdrawal for other review fees, interacts with it. Nor is an unsuccessful review: Home Affairs says that if the ART agrees with the decision to refuse, “you will not get this money back”. The regulation does not use the words “invalid application”. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are the nearest listed circumstances, and the sources we read do not say how they apply to an ART decision that an application is invalid.

One small point on the sources. The regulation refers to a conclusive certificate under section 339 of the Act. The Explanatory Statement’s description says section 399. The existing regulation 4.14 also says section 339, so we treat 399 as a typographical error in the Explanatory Statement, and we rely on the regulation. A second small difference: the Explanatory Statement’s savings paragraph speaks of a review “made before commencement”, while item 16501(2) speaks of a decision made before commencement. We follow the regulation.

What the Bridging visa B is

Home Affairs says the Bridging visa B (subclass 020) lets a person leave and return to Australia in a defined travel period while a valid substantive visa application is processed. Home Affairs defines a substantive visa as any visa that is not a bridging visa, a criminal justice visa or an enforcement visa.

The change, in two layers

The amendments work at two stages, and the difference matters:

• Whether an application is valid (Schedule 1, item 1302). New paragraph (baa) requires either a valid application for a substantive visa other than a Protection (Class XA) visa that has not been finally determined, or judicial review, brought within the time limits, of a decision on that kind of application. New paragraph (bab) requires that the applicant has neither a valid Protection visa application that has not been finally determined or withdrawn, nor a valid Protection visa application with judicial review not yet completed.
• Whether the visa can be granted (Schedule 2). The two grounds in clause 020.212(2) and (3), which are about wanting to leave and re-enter Australia, now apply only to substantive visa applications other than Protection visa applications. New clause 020.224 adds that, at the time of decision, neither of the same two Protection visa situations applies.

The Explanatory Statement says the effect is that a person “may only access the BVB in association with a valid application for a substantive visa other than a Protection (Class XA) visa”, and that this includes people “where they have more than one substantive visa application under consideration”.

Three further points from the provisions and the Explanatory Statement:

• Clause 020.211 also requires the applicant to hold a Bridging visa A or B. The Explanatory Statement says the change is aimed at people who would otherwise use a Bridging visa B to travel while a Protection visa application is pending.
• Subclauses 020.212(4) and (5), the Partner (Class BC) grounds, are not amended. But new clause 020.224 applies to every applicant seeking to satisfy the primary criteria, so a pending Protection visa application stops those applicants meeting the criteria too.
• The Explanatory Statement says clause 020.212(3)(c)(ii) now also stops a family member who made a combined application with a person seeking judicial review of a Protection visa refusal.

What was true before

Before the change, clause 020.212(2) allowed a grant where the applicant had made, in Australia, a valid application for a substantive visa of a kind that can be granted if the applicant is in Australia, had not had it finally determined, wanted to leave and re-enter Australia during processing, and the Minister was satisfied the reasons were substantial. A Protection visa application could be that substantive application. Item 1302 had no equivalent of paragraphs (baa) and (bab).

What Home Affairs says

Home Affairs’ Bridging visa B page, last updated on 1 November 2026, says that from that date Protection visa (subclass 866) applicants can no longer apply for a Bridging visa B to travel overseas and return. It says the change does not affect Bridging visa B applications lodged before 1 November 2026, which continue to be processed, and that a person whose Bridging visa B travel facility has expired cannot apply for another or request further travel.

What the instrument does not change

The instrument amends only the provisions listed above. It does not change who is eligible for the Bridging visa A, C or E; for the Bridging visa E it only adds two conditions, as explained next. A person with a Protection visa application may still hold, or be eligible for, those visas on their own terms.

A warning from Home Affairs. Its Protection visa page says a person who applies for a Protection visa is granted a Bridging visa A, C or E, and that none of these lets them return to Australia if they leave. It says they cannot apply for a Bridging visa B to travel, and that if they leave Australia for any reason while the application, or a review, is being processed, they may not be able to return.

The conditions, in the Migration Regulations’ words

• 8564: “The holder must not engage in criminal conduct.”
• 8566: if the person has signed a code of behaviour that the Minister has approved and that is in effect when the visa is granted, “the holder must not breach the code.”

Condition 8566 therefore does nothing unless a code of behaviour has been signed and is in effect.

What the amendment does

Three clauses of Schedule 2 list the conditions the Minister may impose on particular Bridging visa E grants, and say that list is the only one. The regulations add 8564 and 8566 to each:

• Clause 050.613(1): a grant to an applicant who meets 050.212(6A) or (8). In our simplified reading, these are two specific situations in which the Minister is satisfied the applicant has a compelling need to work; the clause text has more conditions than this summary.
• Clause 050.613A(2): a grant to an applicant for a Protection visa who is not in a class of people the Minister has specified.
• Clause 050.616A(1): a visa granted by the Minister personally under section 195A of the Migration Act.

The Explanatory Statement says the 2024 regulations had unintentionally closed off these two conditions for these three kinds of grant, and that this amendment restores the Minister’s discretion.

What it does not do

It does not impose the conditions automatically. The Explanatory Statement says they “will apply only in specific circumstances where the Minister decides to impose them on the particular BVE at the time of grant”. It also says the discretion “may allow the Minister to grant a BVE with conditions imposed in circumstances where the BVE would not otherwise be granted”.

What the sources say about a breach

The Explanatory Statement says a breach “may provide grounds for visa cancellation, with the individual circumstances of the case taken into account”. It also says cancellation is discretionary, and that before a Bridging visa E is cancelled the holder is sent a Notice of Intention to Consider Cancellation and has the chance to respond. The Statement adds that, for a person who holds no other visa, cancellation may leave them an unlawful non-citizen who may be liable for detention and removal, and that a person with a valid Protection visa application would not be removed until their claims had been assessed according to law. We do not go further than the Statement: what would happen in any one case depends on that case.

Bridging visa E holders can find their own conditions in their grant notification and in VEVO. Home Affairs says a Bridging visa E ends immediately if the holder leaves Australia.

Only the groups the provisions actually reach are listed here.

• People asking the ART to review a refusal or cancellation of a Protection visa, where the decision was made on or after 1 November 2026: the upfront fee, the waivers and the refunds.
• People with a Protection visa application that is not finally determined or withdrawn, including one under merits or judicial review, who want a Bridging visa B: the new application and grant rules, for applications made on or after 1 November 2026.
• People with other substantive visa applications who want a Bridging visa B: the same paragraphs apply. A pending application other than a Protection visa application is what paragraph (baa) looks for, but a pending Protection visa application as well will stop the application.
• People in judicial review proceedings about a substantive visa decision: paragraph (baa)(ii) refers to judicial review of a decision on a substantive visa application other than a Protection visa application. For a Protection visa decision, judicial review not yet completed is one of the things paragraph (bab) excludes.
• Bridging visa E applicants and holders in the three grant situations above: the possibility of conditions 8564 and 8566.

The instrument does not amend employer sponsorship or any other visa subclass, so we do not describe an employer impact.

One table cannot describe three different rules, so each measure has its own.

ART review fee, protection decisions

Bridging visa B

Bridging visa E conditions

Every person below is invented. The scenarios show how the provisions interact. They do not assess any real situation, and they do not say what the outcome of any application would be.

These are the facts on file that decide how the changes apply, and where each can be found. Getting advice early helps.

• Decision date and review deadline: in the decision notification. Home Affairs says a refusal letter tells you your review rights and the time limit for applying for review.
• The current ART fee: on the ART’s fees page. It is indexed each 1 July.
• Which applications are pending: your own records and ImmiAccount. A pending Protection visa application matters for the Bridging visa B.
• Your visa conditions: your grant notification and VEVO.
• Advice: Home Affairs says to get professional advice before applying for a Protection visa, from a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner, who are the only people allowed to charge for migration advice. It also says free, confidential advice is available from specialist government-funded refugee and immigration legal providers, listed on its Protection visa page. You can check an agent on the register of migration agents.

We read the instrument, the Explanatory Statement, the Migration Regulations as they stood before the change (to describe the “before”), and Home Affairs’ pages. Statements here restate those sources. Where we add a plain-language observation we say so, and every scenario is hypothetical.

• The ART’s own pages. We could not retrieve the ART’s website, so we do not rely on it for anything. We point to its fees page for the current amount.
• The fee before the change. We have the base amount in the old regulation ($2,151, indexed each 1 July) but not a current indexed figure from an official page, so the comparison does not give one.
• Grants made without an application. The application rule in item 16501 refers to applications for a visa. The sources do not say how it applies to a Bridging visa E granted by the Minister without an application.
• Existing Bridging visa B holders. The instrument applies to applications made on or after 1 November. The sources we read do not say what happens to a travel facility already granted, so we do not.
• Indexation of the old fee. The instrument repeals regulations 4.31BA and 4.31BB, the old indexation rules, and the savings provision keeps only 4.31B and 4.31C. The sources do not say how the old fee is indexed for a saved review.
• The review time limit. It is set by the Act, which we did not check. Home Affairs says a refusal letter states it.
• Review by a registered migration agent is pending.

• Australian Protection Visa (subclass 866): a plain-English guide
• ART review: refusal and cancellation decisions

If you are not sure which of these changes, if any, relates to your situation, the dates on your own decisions and applications are the place to start.

Want to talk through how these changes may apply to your situation? Book a consultation or contact our migration team.

This is general information, not personal migration advice. Fees are indexed each year and the regulations can be amended; the figures above are as at 2 November 2026. Global Migrations is the trading name of Global Migration & Education Solutions (ABN 22 998 014 414); our registered migration agent is Ranbir Singh, MARN 1069570. We are not part of the Australian Government.