By Chang Min Park
Accredited Specialist in Immigration Law · Legal Practitioner Director of Park & Co Lawyers
A processing time on a webpage is the question people ask when they have already lodged and nothing seems to be happening. It answers a different question from a deadline. A percentile describes cases the Department has already finished. It does not say when your file will be decided, and it does not move the date on a notice.
The useful comparison is between the visa you lodged and the month the Department last published its global processing times. Those published figures move about once a month. A line that stays flat for several weeks is what the series does between releases. It is not, by itself, evidence that your application has stalled.
Put the nomination and the visa on separate rows
A sponsored application is often two cases. The nomination has its own processing history, and the visa application has another. Watching only the visa row hides a nomination that has not moved, and the reverse hides a visa that is still in queue after the nomination was decided. On the processing-time page you select the stream, and you can pin more than one. Pin the nomination and the visa, or the two visas in a family, rather than one blended label.
The page checks each morning whether Home Affairs has replaced the published series. The underlying global visa processing times themselves are updated on the Department’s monthly cycle. Use the 50th percentile as the middle of recently completed cases, and the 90th as the long tail. Neither figure is a service standard, and neither is a date you can diary as “my grant day”.
What to enter
- The visa stream you actually lodged, not the visa you hope to hold later.
- A separate pin for a nomination, if there is one.
- The lodgement date, so the page can show how long you have already waited against the published percentiles.
If you are comparing a sponsored visa with a points-tested visa, or a student visa with a partner visa, use the category switch on the chart. The comparison is still a comparison of completed cases. It becomes useful when you can see that one stream’s 90th percentile is many months longer than another, and you can plan documents and bridging arrangements for that difference.
A notice of intention to cancel, a tribunal deadline, or a dismissal deadline is not on this chart. Those dates are counted from the notice. If you have one of those letters, calculate that date first. The processing-time page tells you about the queue. It does not extend a statutory period.
Read the percentile against the application you lodged
Pin the nomination and the visa separately, and send the lodgement dates if you want those rows read against a bridging visa or a notice you have also received.
Check the published processing time
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Sources and further reading
Sources checked on 7 November 2026. This article provides general information, not advice about an individual application. Check the law and official guidance that apply to your circumstances, and the dates on any notice you hold, before you act.
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