ImmiAccount system outage from 7 pm on 30 June, credit card and PayPal surcharge increases from 1 July 2020
/As is pretty much routine this time of year, a planned system outage to many online services provided by the Department of Home Affairs (Home Affairs) including ImmiAccount and VEVO will occur from 7 pm (AEST) 30 June 2020 until 9 am (AEST) 1 July 2020. While there has been no sight of any increase to visa and citizenship application fees, the surcharges for paying Internet applications by credit card and PayPal will be slightly bumped up.
System outages are important for Home Affairs to maintain existing IT infrastructure and to add further capabilities where required. Over the years, many new and existing visa and citizenship applications were shifted from paper-based applications to Internet applications lodged through ImmiAccount. There has been no news of any such transitions this year as legislation on visas has been relatively settled in recent months.
Another usual occurrence on 1 July, being the first day of Australia’s new financial year, is an increase in application charges and fees, but this will probably not happen this year. The reason is likely that the Federal Budget, which is generally handed down in May, has been deferred until 6 October 2020. It would not be surprising if fees increase at the beginning of the next calendar year instead.
An increase in fees that will occur on 1 July 2020 is for certain credit card and PayPal surcharges. These changes are made by powers under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), the Customs Act 1901 (Cth), and the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth), amending their respective regulations.
The legislative instrument will, on 1 July 2020:
Increase the credit card surcharge for Visa and Mastercard from 1.32% to 1.4%, and
Increase the PayPal surcharge from 1% to 1.01%.
Payments made by American Express or Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) at 1.4%, Diners Club International at 1.99%, and China UnionPay at 1.9%, remain unchanged.
There are few exceptions to the credit card and PayPal surcharges. These involve payments made in local currency in Singapore and New Zealand.
Those wanting to avoid paying any surcharge when making an Internet application can pay by funds transfer through BPAY, however, this comes with one very important warning.
Regarding the payment aspect of making a valid application, migration and citizenship applications are only valid if the correct payment has been made and the payment has been confirmed. For credit cards and PayPal, these must be confirmed by the issuer of the specific credit card and operator of the PayPal system, respectively. For funds transfers, payment must be electronically matched to the applicant's Internet application form.
In a very recent Federal Court case, and perhaps the only case on payments for Internet applications, a Subclass 186 – Employer Nomination Scheme visa applicant submitted and paid the visa application charges by BPAY the day before his visa expired, however, his payment was not electronically matched to his visa application until the day after his visa expired. Although the application was submitted when he held a valid visa it was not technically lodged until he was an unlawful non-citizen, a person who did not hold a visa at all. Because a 186 visa applicant must hold either a substantive visa or a Bridging visa A, B, or C to validly lodge a 186 visa application in Australia, at the time the applicant’s application was lodged, he did not.
This ended up being disastrous, and excessively more costly than paying the surcharge, as his submitted application was deemed invalid and two legally represented federal court challenges did not assist him in overturning this decision. The legal precedent of a valid application and the issue with electronically matching payments seems to now be established.
It is not known whether such payment-matching issues are prevalent with credit card or PayPal payments, however, this author’s experience is that confirmation of payment is generally instantaneous.
The lesson this case presents is that for those who must lodge an application due to a deadline, whether that is because of a visa expiring or a change in application fees, the surcharge is well worth the money.