Is the Subclass 151 Application Charge Refunded After Refusal in 2026?
No. If your Former Resident visa (Subclass 151) application is refused, the application charge is not refunded. The Department of Home Affairs states this directly on its official Former Resident visa (Subclass 151) page: "We will not refund the application charge if we refuse your application." That reflects the official page as at August 2026. What you receive instead of money back is a written decision explaining why the application failed and whether the decision can be reviewed.
Why a refusal still costs you the full charge
The charge is tied to the assessment, not to the result. Subclass 151 sits in the Migration Regulations 1994, and a decision maker has to work through the criteria at both the time of application and the time of decision: whether you are a long residence applicant or a defence service applicant, the public interest criteria, the special return criteria, and — for family members included in the same form — the same tests again. Under the "one fails, all fail" rule that applies to members of the family unit, a single family member who does not clear health or character can bring down the whole application.
That work happens whether the outcome is a grant or a refusal. A file can be well prepared and still fail on one criterion, which is exactly why the official page describes the charge in terms of payment before lodgement rather than as a deposit against success.
What the refusal letter has to tell you
The official page confirms that the decision is given in writing. Where the visa is refused, the letter tells you two things: why the visa was refused, and whether you have a right to a review of the decision.
Those two lines are the whole practical value of a refusal. The reasons tell you whether the problem was curable — for example, thin evidence of continuing ties to Australia — or structural, such as being 45 or over at the time of application as a long residence applicant, or having acquired Australian citizenship at some point. The review line tells you whether the decision is reviewable at all; where a review right exists, the Migration Act 1958 provides for review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), with a time limit commonly stated as 21 days from the day you receive the refusal notification, so the letter and the tribunal's own published guidance control.
What a Subclass 151 refusal usually turns on
The refusal reasons you are likely to see map back to the criteria themselves:
- Not qualifying as either a long residence applicant or a defence service applicant under the regulations.
- For long residence applicants: not showing that the greater part of life before turning 18 was spent in Australia as a permanent resident, having acquired Australian citizenship at any time, not keeping business, cultural or personal ties, or being 45 or over at the time of application.
- For defence service applicants: service that does not meet the continuous Australian defence service requirement, or a discharge that is not medically attributable to that service.
- For applicants in Australia: not meeting the Schedule 3 time-of-application requirement after a substantive visa has ceased.
- Health: offshore long residence applicants face the stricter standard, while onshore long residence and defence service applicants fall under the standard where a waiver can be considered.
- Character, and any family member failing a health, character or passport requirement.
Is there any route to getting the money back?
Nothing in the official page creates one. The money mechanics it describes all run in the other direction: you pay the application charge in ImmiAccount before you send the paper Form 47SV application to the Sydney office; the Department will not process the application until the correct charge is paid; and it will tell you if you have paid an incorrect charge. Adding a family member after lodgement also carries an additional application charge.
A separate situation is invalidity. If lodgement steps are incomplete, the application may be invalid, and the Department does not process invalid applications — it notifies you and, if requested, returns your application. That is a return of the paperwork, not a refund of the charge.
What is actually worth doing after a refusal
Suppose an applicant is refused because the evidence of ties to Australia was thin — correspondence, visits, property or economic interests not documented across the whole period overseas. That is a document problem, and the reasons in the letter identify it precisely enough to fix. Suppose instead the applicant was over the age limit at the date of lodgement, or had acquired Australian citizenship earlier in life; no volume of extra evidence changes that, and paying another charge for the same application would not change it either. Reading the reasons first is what separates those two cases.
If the letter says a review right exists, the review and any new application are separate tracks with separate consequences, and a fresh application means paying the charge again as the official page sets out. Your decision between them should follow from what the reasons actually say, not from hope that the money can be recovered.
This article is general information about published rules, not advice on any individual case, and it carries no promise about how a decision will go. Visa outcomes turn on your own documents, history and circumstances, so rely on the Department's current official information and, where your situation is complicated, on qualified professional advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Subclass 151 application charge refunded if my application is refused?
No. The Department of Home Affairs states on its official Former Resident visa (Subclass 151) page that it will not refund the application charge if the application is refused. The refusal still produces a written decision setting out the reasons and whether a review right exists.
How much is the Subclass 151 application charge?
The official page requires the correct charge to be paid in ImmiAccount before you send the paper application, and says the Department will tell you if you paid an incorrect charge. The official page does not state an amount, so the current figure should be confirmed on the Department's own charges information.
What exactly will the refusal letter contain?
The decision is given in writing, and a refusal letter tells you why the visa was refused and whether you have a right to a review of the decision. If the visa is granted instead, the letter gives the visa grant number, the start date and any visa conditions.
Can I get my documents back if the application is invalid rather than refused?
If any lodgement step is incomplete, the application may be invalid and will not be processed. The Department notifies you if this happens and, if requested, returns your application — but that is a return of the paperwork, not a refund of the charge.
If I withdraw my Subclass 151 application, do I get the charge back?
The official page describes withdrawal as something you can do in ImmiAccount, but it does not publish any refund rule for withdrawal. Its only explicit refund statement is that no refund is made when an application is refused, so any other refund position should be checked against the Department's current official information.
Can I simply apply again after a refusal?
A fresh application is possible, but it goes through the same criteria and requires the charge to be paid again as the official page sets out. Whether that is worthwhile depends on the reasons in the refusal letter: evidence gaps can be addressed, while structural disqualifications such as the age limit cannot.