I often hear from people who have been an Australian Permanent Resident, but have ‘lost’ their Permanent Residence.
Generally speaking, there are two parts to a permanent visa. The first part allows the holder to live in Australia ‘permanently’. The second part allows the holder to travel to Australia, for a certain period of time. This second part is often called the ‘travel facility’ of the visa’. When this period ends, if the visa holder is in Australia, and have no intention of leaving Australia, they do not need to get a new visa. Their original permanent visa allows them to remain in Australia indefinitely.
That said, if such a permanent visa holder would like to travel out of Australia (for any period of time) and then return to Australia, they need to apply for a new visa. The visa that they would usually apply for is called a ‘Resident Return Visa’.
Naturally, if a permanent visa holder leaves Australia without a firm intention to return to Australia to live, they may not think about how the expiry of their visa’s travel facility could affect their ability to live in Australian permanently, and access all the benefits that this brings.
In such cases, it isn’t too difficult to ‘lose’ the ability to live in Australia permanently.
If you used to have the ability to live in Australia permanently, and feel you have ‘lost’ it (and regret this), I recommend reaching out to a Registered Migration Agent at the earliest opportunity. The law around re-gaining the ability to enter Australia as a permanent resident is complex, and requires careful analysis on a case-by-case basis.
That said, regaining permanent residence, either through a new skilled migration or family/partner migration application can be a very expensive task, which may be more difficult that the first time, due to changes in law since your original visa application.
Therefore, if there is a possibility to regain permanent residence through a Resident Return Visa application, it is often worth investigating.
If you would like to talk about regaining permanent residence in Australia, through a Resident Return Visa application, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
