The Section 48 Bar: What You Can and Cannot Apply For Onshore After a Refusal
After a visa refusal, most people ask what they should apply for next. The more important question, and the one that comes first, is whether you are allowed to apply for anything at all while you remain in Australia. Section 48 of the Migration Act answers that. It is not a penalty and it is not a judgment about you. It is a procedural bar that switches on automatically in defined circumstances, and it cannot be waived. There is no compelling circumstances argument against the bar itself, no discretion for a case officer to exercise, and no submission that makes it go away. What there is, and what most people miss, is that whether it applies to you at all turns on a single date, and that the escape route most commonly recommended has a condition attached that almost nobody mentions.
Quick Answer
The section 48 bar applies if, since your last entry to Australia, you have had a visa refused or cancelled while not holding a substantive visa. If it applies, most onshore applications become invalid, but a short list of prescribed visas can still be lodged. Partner, protection, child, medical treatment and 444 visas are on that list, and since 13 November 2021 so are the 190, 491 and 494 skilled visas. The critical detail: whether the bar applies depends on whether you held a substantive visa at the moment of refusal, not on the refusal itself.
This article is the third in our Cluster on refusals, appeals and cancellations. Our companion guides on how the ART appeal process works and visa cancellation under s116 and s501 cover the review and cancellation frameworks. This article covers what you can lodge next.
Refused Onshore and Not Sure What You Can Apply For Next?
Whether the section 48 bar applies to you depends on a single date. If your current visa was still valid on the day of the refusal, you are not barred. If it had lapsed, most onshore applications are now invalid. Speak with a migration professional before lodging anything, because an invalid application costs you the fee and, more importantly, the time.
The One Date That Decides Everything
This is the most useful thing on this page, and it is the point where a great deal of unnecessary panic gets resolved.
The bar applies only where you did not hold a substantive visa at the time of the refusal. A substantive visa is any visa that is not a bridging visa, a criminal justice visa or an enforcement visa. If your student visa, working holiday visa or 485 was still valid on the day your next application was refused, the bar does not apply to you.
Two examples make the difference concrete.
Working holiday visa still valid at the time of refusal
You hold a working holiday visa with four months left. You apply for a student visa. It is refused two months later, while the working holiday visa is still valid.
You held a substantive visa at the time of refusal. You can lodge again onshore.
Working holiday visa expired one month before refusal
The same refusal arrives, but your working holiday visa expired last month and you are on a bridging visa when the decision lands.
Most onshore applications are now invalid. The bar has switched on.
Same refusal, same person, entirely different outcome, decided by the calendar.
Lodging Early Is What Keeps Your Options Open
The practical implication is significant and it is forward-looking rather than backward-looking. If you are currently holding a substantive visa and thinking about your next application, lodging early matters enormously. An application decided while your current visa is still valid leaves you unbarred if it fails. The same application decided a month later, after your visa has lapsed and you are on a bridging visa, can close off your onshore options entirely.
Most people leave it late because processing seems slow and the deadline feels distant. The gap between a refusal that leaves you unbarred and one that bars you is often just a few weeks of timing.
When the Bar Does Apply, and What It Stops
Three conditions have to be present. You are in Australia. Since your last entry, a visa application was refused or a visa was cancelled. And you do not currently hold a substantive visa.
If all three are true, most new visa applications lodged onshore are simply invalid. Not refused, invalid, meaning the Department will not consider them at all. People sometimes lodge anyway, pay the fee, and wait, before discovering the application never legally existed.
The Bar Does Not Remove Your Review Rights
One clarification worth making, because it causes confusion. Being under a section 48 bar does not remove your review rights. If your refusal carries a right of review, you can still go to the Administrative Review Tribunal, and if the Tribunal sets aside the refusal, that changes the position. The bar restricts new applications. It does not close the door on the decision you are already challenging. Our guide on how the ART process actually works covers the review pathway, including the deadlines that apply to your notice.
The Prescribed Visas You Can Still Apply For
Regulation 2.12 of the Migration Regulations lists the visa classes that can still be lodged onshore by someone under a section 48 bar. The common ones:
The list is amended from time to time. Check your exact subclass against the current regulation rather than relying on any summary, including this one.
The Catch in the Skilled Exemption That Almost Nobody Mentions
The 190, 491 and 494 additions in November 2021 are presented everywhere as the good news of this area, and for some people they are. But there is a condition sitting behind the 190 and 491 that is rarely stated plainly.
The Commonwealth Exemption Is Real. Whether You Can Actually Use It Depends on the States.
Both the 190 and 491 require state or territory nomination. Section 48 exemption is granted by the Commonwealth. Nomination is decided by the states, and each state sets its own criteria. Some states will not nominate applicants who are subject to a section 48 bar.
So the exemption can be entirely theoretical. You are legally permitted to lodge, and no state will nominate you, which means you cannot lodge in practice. Anyone considering the 190 or 491 route needs to check the current policy of the specific state or territory before building a plan around it, because that policy, not the Commonwealth regulation, is the real gate.
The 494 is different in that it is employer sponsored rather than state nominated, which removes that particular obstacle while introducing the requirement to find a sponsoring regional employer.
The Bridging Visa Travel Trap
A strategy circulates in community groups and it does not work. The idea is to obtain a Bridging Visa B, leave Australia briefly, return, and treat yourself as having made a fresh entry that resets the bar.
Section 48(3) forecloses this directly. If you leave and re-enter Australia while holding a bridging visa, you are deemed to have remained continuously in Australia. The trip changes nothing.
Attempting the Travel Reset Can Strand You Outside Australia Permanently
There is a second and more serious problem with attempting it. Only Bridging Visa A holders can apply for a Bridging Visa B to travel. Bridging Visa C and Bridging Visa E generally carry no travel rights at all. Someone on a BVE who leaves Australia usually cannot come back, which converts a failed strategy into a permanent departure. Confirm your exact bridging visa type and its travel conditions before any plan involves leaving Australia.
How the Bar Actually Lifts
- Grant of a substantive visa. The bar no longer applies while you hold that visa. This is why a prescribed visa such as a partner visa is so valuable. It is both an exemption and, if granted, a reset.
- Leaving Australia and applying offshore. The bar is about onshore applications. An application lodged from outside Australia is not affected.
- A successful review. If the Tribunal sets aside the refusal, the basis for the bar can change. Advice is needed on the specific facts.
Going Offshore: The Honest Version
Leaving and lodging from another country is often the cleanest solution, and it is what many practitioners recommend. It is also frequently presented too casually.
Three Things Need to Be True Before Offshore Is a Real Plan
Before treating going offshore as the plan, three things need to be true. You need to be able to leave, which depends on your bridging visa type. You need somewhere to go and the means to wait there through processing. And the new application needs to be genuinely stronger than the one that failed, because a second refusal on your record is worse than the first, and public interest criteria dealing with prior refusals and non-compliance can create exclusion periods that affect future applications.
Departing Australia in order to lodge a weak application from overseas is not a strategy. It is a delay with a worse ending.
The Order to Work Through This
- Establish whether you held a substantive visa on the day of the refusal or cancellation. This single fact determines whether the bar applies at all.
- If you did hold one, the bar does not apply. Move to deciding what to lodge and lodge it while you still hold a valid visa.
- If you did not, identify whether any prescribed visa fits your circumstances, starting with partner if you have an eligible relationship. See our guide on lodging an 820 partner visa from a student visa for the typical onshore partner pathway.
- If you are considering the 190 or 491, check the current nomination policy of the specific state before anything else.
- Confirm what bridging visa you currently hold, because it determines whether leaving Australia is even possible.
- Check whether your refusal carries review rights and what the deadline is. The bar does not remove them. Our guide on the ART appeal process covers what happens at the Tribunal stage.
- Get advice before lodging anything. An invalid application costs you the fee and, more importantly, the time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Refused Onshore and Uncertain What You Can Lodge Next?
A migration professional can confirm whether the section 48 bar applies to you at all, identify which prescribed visa fits your circumstances, and tell you whether an offshore application is realistic given your bridging visa type.