Australia Skilled Visa Application Fee: The Full Cost in AUD and VND for Vietnamese Applicants

The Australian skilled visa application fee is one of the largest single payments most Vietnamese families will ever make outside of a property purchase. At roughly 4,715 AUD for the primary applicant — approximately 81,000,000 VND at 2026 exchange rates — the Visa Application Charge (VAC) comes as a shock to applicants who focused their budget planning on skills assessment and English test costs, which are much smaller in comparison.

And that figure only covers a single adult. Add a spouse and one child, and the total can exceed 140,000,000 VND. This guide breaks down the complete fee structure, explains the common payment problems Vietnamese applicants encounter, and gives you the practical information you need to pay without having your transaction declined.

The Visa Application Charge (VAC) for Skilled Visas

The Australian Department of Home Affairs sets visa fees that are updated periodically (usually July 1 of each financial year). The fees below are current as of 2025–2026:

Approximate VND equivalents (at 17,200 VND per AUD):

Note that the VAC is non-refundable once lodged. If your application is refused, you do not get the money back. This is one reason why ensuring your documentation and points calculation are solid before lodgement matters so much.

What the VAC Does Not Cover

The VAC is the visa application fee paid to the Department of Home Affairs. It does not include — and is separate from — the other major costs in the migration process:

Skills assessment fees (paid to the assessing body):

• ACS (ICT professionals): AUD 530–1,000 depending on standard vs. priority
• Engineers Australia: AUD 1,000–1,600 depending on application type
• VETASSESS: AUD 850–1,250
• ANMAC (nurses): AUD 1,000–1,500

English test fees (paid to IELTS/PTE):

• IELTS Academic: 4,664,000–5,252,000 VND per sitting
• PTE Academic: ~4,600,000 VND per sitting

Medical examination (paid to an authorized panel physician):

• IOM Health Assessment Centers in Hanoi and HCMC: USD 104 per adult (~2,700,000 VND)
• Additional chest X-ray or tests if TB scarring is detected: variable

Translation and certification:

• NAATI-certified translation of Vietnamese documents: 500,000–2,000,000 VND per document
• Notarization (công chứng): 200,000–500,000 VND per document

Total out-of-pocket budget for a single Vietnamese applicant (no family members):

For a family of four, the total budget rises to 160M–200M VND or more before relocation costs.

The Payment Problem: Vietnamese Bank Limits

The most stressful moment in the visa application process for many Vietnamese applicants is attempting to pay the VAC. The Department of Home Affairs' payment gateway accepts major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard), but Vietnamese-issued bank cards routinely fail or are declined for several reasons:

Daily transaction limits: Vietnamese banks (Vietcombank, Techcombank, VPBank, MB Bank) typically impose daily international transaction limits of 50,000,000–100,000,000 VND on standard card products. A VAC payment for a family application can exceed this limit in a single transaction.

Foreign transaction fees: Vietnamese banks apply a 1.4% credit card surcharge plus a 3–4% currency conversion fee. On a 4,715 AUD payment, these fees can add 5,000,000–7,000,000 VND to the actual cost charged to your card.

Card security blocks: The Vietnamese banking system's fraud detection can flag a large, first-time international payment to a government agency as suspicious and block it. The transaction fails, the applicant panics, and the application sits in an incomplete state until payment is resolved.

How to solve this:

1. Call your bank 24 hours in advance. Contact your bank's international transactions department (not general customer service) and specifically request a limit increase for a "large international government payment." Provide the merchant name (immi.homeaffairs.gov.au), the approximate amount in VND, and your card number. Most major Vietnamese banks will accommodate this with 24 hours' notice.

2. Have a backup payment method ready. If your card fails, the application stays open for a short period while you resolve the payment. PayPal is an accepted alternative on the Department's payment gateway and can bypass the direct card failure issue.

3. Consider paying in two stages if lodging secondary applicants later. You can sometimes lodge the primary applicant's application first and pay the main VAC, then add secondary applicants later — check current procedures on ImmiAccount before relying on this.

Subclass 190 Processing Time After Lodgement

After you pay the VAC and lodge the visa application, the wait for a decision begins. Current Department of Home Affairs data shows the following approximate processing times for 2025–2026:

These are indicative timelines. Individual applications that trigger health undertakings (from TB-related medical findings) or character follow-up (from complex police records) can take 18 months or longer. Straightforward applications from Vietnamese professionals with clean health and character profiles often land at the faster end of these ranges.

There is no mechanism to expedite the processing of a standard skilled visa application once lodged. Unlike the skills assessment priority service, there is no fee-based fast track for the visa itself. The best way to minimize delays is to ensure your application is complete and all supporting documents are uploaded correctly at the time of lodgement.

One Last Budget Note: The 81,000,000 VND Reality Check

Vietnamese applicants often complete months of preparation — achieving Superior English, obtaining a positive skills assessment, planning their state nomination strategy — without having thought concretely about the financial mechanics of paying 81,000,000 VND (or 140,000,000+ for a family) to a foreign government website.

Given Vietnamese bank limits and currency conversion fees, it is worth treating this payment as a logistics task requiring preparation, not just clicking "pay." Confirm your card limits, check your PayPal account balance, and have a plan B in place before the 60-day ITA window opens and you are under time pressure.

The full cost timeline — from skills assessment through to visa grant — including which costs are refundable and which are not, is broken down step by step in the Vietnam to Australia Skilled Migration Guide.

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