I applied for a 417 Working Holiday Visa on the 5th of July, and as far as I can tell that application remains untouched to this very day. 100% decision ready, proper passport scans and everything; all a visa officer would have to do is click on “grant”.

I kinda understand that my application couldn’t be automatically granted because I’ve been to Australia on a different visa in the past and they have to compare details and such, fair enough but that shouldn’t take over a month in my opinion.

So I filled out a convoluted form asking what the hell is going on about 2 weeks ago. No reply, not even an automated one.

So I called the Department of Home Affairs directly and the operator was actually pretty helpful; asked me about my passport number and said he attached some sort of flag to my application to maybe get things moving. Great, finally something.

It’s now a week after that and my visa still hasn’t been granted. So I called again just to verify that the flag has been set and this time the operator couldn’t tell me anything, he seemed more like he wanted rid of me as fast as possible.

I heard that the processing of 417 visas has been slowed down recently (long after I applied mind you) and that applications from 24 countries (not including Germany) have been paused, I suspect they altered the scripts afterwards.

I’ve also heard of other applicants from Germany who applied at the end of July and have their grant already, so what gives?

Am I just impatient? I made it clear every time that I was planning to move in September but that didn’t make a difference, maybe predictably. I’m kinda starting to go crazy.