There are currently 111 visas in Australia. The visas were traditionally grouped into ‘Class’ of visas and expanded into ‘Subclass’. Of late, the Australian government broke-down the structure of subclasses into ‘Stream’. Generally, there are 2 types of visas:

Substantive Visas
Bridging Visas

Visas allow for non-citizens to remain lawful in Australia either permanently or temporary. To allow an easy overview of the visa program in Australia, we categorized the visas into, what we’d like to refer as, “The 12 Families”.

The 12 Categories (12 Familia of Visas)

BRIDGING VISAS

Bridging Visas are not substantive visas. The purpose of those visas is to provide lawful status for non-citizens who are currently dealing with other visa matters. There are 7 bridging visas in Australia.

WORK VISAS
(SPONSORED)

In order to temporarily work in Australia, non-citizens who have do not have work right may seek sponsorship from their employers. There are 5 temporary work visas and 2 permanent visas in Australia, under which they are further broken down into streams within each subclass of visa.

VISAS WITH WORK PERMISSION

There are 8 types of permanent and temporary visas that allow work, all of which do not require to be sponsored by an employer.

Some of these visas break down into further streams.

GENERAL SKILLED MIGRATION

This migration program is designed to capture certain skills Australia has a shortage. It operates of a Skilled Occupation Lists and an applicant’s skills (education & work experience). There are currently 3 permanent visas and 3 temporary visas. They are further broken into streams.

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BUSINESS/INVESTMENT VISAS

There are currently 7 provisional and permanent visas.

They are further broken down into streams

FAMILY VISAS

There are 24 provisional and permanent visas to reunite family members. They are grouped into 4 main categories:

Partners
Children
Parents
Relatives

STUDENT VISAS

There are only 2 visas under this category:

Student
Student Guardian

However, there are specific assessment levels to the student visa category.

VISITOR VISAS

There are 4 main visas in this category. They are further broken into down into streams to cover the following activities:

tourist
business
medical
visit family

HUMANITARIAN VISAS

Offshore Applications

There are 5 visa subclasses for offshore application. There a different pathways in each subclass of visa, similar to ‘streams’.

Onshore Applications

There are 3 main visas for onshore applications. They are further broken down into different categories within what appears to be similar to ‘streams’.

FORMER RESIDENT / RESIDENT RETURN VISAS

There are 4 main visas in this category:

Special Eligibility - Subclass 151
5 Year Resident Return - Subclass 155
3 Month Resident Return - Subclass 157
Provisional Resident Return - Subclass 159

ACT-BASED VISAS

It is not always that act-based visas are classified into “subclass”. At current, there are 7-act-based visas found in the Migration Act 1958:

Absorbed Person Visa
Ex-citizen Visa
Criminal Justice Visa
Enforcement Visa
Maritime Crew (Temporary) - Subclass 988
Special Purpose Visa
Crew Travel Authority - Subclass 942

MISCELLANEOUS VISAS

There are 5 other visas that were not specified in the categories above. They are:

Transit Visa - Subclass 771
Border Visa - Subclass 773
Confirmatory (Residence) Visa - Subclass 808
Diplomatic (Temporary) Visa - Subclass 995
Referred Stay (Permanent) - Subclass 852