How the Department calculates average visa processing times.

• Visa application processing times are represented as percentiles, calculated from all visa grant and refusal decisions for primary applicants in the previous month or requested reporting period,

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• For all visa subclasses, except second stage partner, the processing time is calculated from the date of lodgement to the date of the decision. Second stage partner visas are calculated from date of eligibility to date of decision.

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• On the Home Affairs website, visa processing times overview page, the department publishes the median (50th percentile) processing times.

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• Visa processing times usually reflect the time it takes to process a complete application. However, the smaller number of complex and/or incomplete visa applications will take longer which can distort the time it takes to process the typical application. Median is a much better measure at showing how long it takes to process a typical complete visa application as the median is not distorted by the complex and/or incomplete visa applications.