Moving to Australia as a GP: Your Visa Questions Answered

If you’re considering moving to Australia as a GP, chances are you have plenty of questions about visas.

Do you need permanent residency before you move? Is it better to start on a temporary visa? Can your partner work? What happens if you’re over 45? And what are the options if you’d eventually like your parents to join you?

Visa pathways can feel complicated, particularly when you’re also trying to coordinate medical registration, secure the right GP position and plan an international move with your family.

At Transition Medical, we work with GPs throughout this process, so we know the questions and misconceptions that come up time and again.

We recently caught up with Richard Field, an experienced Australian Registered Migration Agent, to put some of those questions directly to him.

Meet Richard Field

Richard was a solicitor in the UK before making the move to Australia himself in 2007. He subsequently became a Registered Migration Agent and has worked in Australian migration for close to 15 years.

His combination of professional expertise and personal experience of relocating from the UK makes him ideally placed to answer some of the questions we regularly hear from GPs.

What should I do first when preparing my Australian visa?

Richard’s advice here is simple: get organised early.

Visa applications require supporting documentation and some of it can take time to obtain.

Richard recommends thinking about requirements such as police checks early in the process. Depending on your circumstances, certificates may be needed from countries where you’ve previously lived, and requirements can also apply to family members included in an application.

🎥 Getting visa-ready: Richard’s first steps

The smoother your preparation, the easier it can be to coordinate your visa with the other important parts of your move, including AHPRA registration, your employment arrangements and your intended start date.

Temporary or permanent visa: which is better for GPs?

It’s easy to assume that securing permanent residency before you move must be the best option.

Richard takes a different view.

For many GPs, initially moving on a temporary work visa can give you valuable time to experience life in Australia before making longer-term decisions.

You can settle into your new area, get children established at school and, importantly, find out whether your new practice and location are genuinely right for you.

The practice also gets an opportunity to get to know you.

Richard makes the point that arriving in Australia as a permanent resident doesn’t automatically mean that everything else, the practice, location and lifestyle will be the right fit.

🎥 Richard explains: Temporary or permanent visa?

For many overseas GPs, the Skills in Demand subclass 482 visa can provide a way to begin their Australian journey without obtaining permanent residency first.

Your first Australian visa doesn’t necessarily have to be your forever visa.

What about the 186 permanent residency visa?

The subclass 186 Direct Entry visa can understandably be attractive to GPs looking to secure permanent residency from the outset. However, recent changes to Australian Government visa processing priorities have made the offshore 186 pathway a less predictable option.

Offshore healthcare applications no longer receive the same priority processing they previously did, which means processing times can now be considerably longer and much harder to estimate.

For GPs planning an international move, this uncertainty can make it difficult to coordinate medical registration, employment and a realistic start date.

For this reason, we are currently encouraging many overseas GPs to consider the 482 Skills in Demand visa as a more practical route to Australia, with permanent residency explored once they are established and working in the country.

Can I bring my parents to Australia?

For GPs planning a long-term move, it’s natural to think about whether other family members could eventually join you.

Parents aren’t simply included on a 482 visa in the same way as eligible immediate family members. Parent migration has separate visa pathways and eligibility requirements.

Richard can discuss requirements that apply to permanent parent migration, including the Balance of Family Test, as well as the importance of your own Australian residency status when you reach this stage of your application.

🎥 Can my parents move to Australia too?

There can also be temporary parent visa options for some families, so if having your parents nearby is an important part of your long-term plans, it’s worth getting individual immigration advice early.

What about my partner?

Your move to Australia isn’t only about your career.

If you’re relocating with a partner, their ability to work and build their own life in Australia can be a major part of the decision.

Richard advises that eligible partners accompanying a GP on a 482 visa can have work and study rights. You also don’t necessarily need to be married: a de facto partner may be eligible, provided the relevant relationship requirements are met.

This is why we encourage GPs to think about the move as a family decision, rather than simply a job move.

Visa rules change — make sure your advice is current

One final point is particularly important.

Australian migration policies and processing priorities can change.

Whilst migration legislation may remain relatively stable, policies and occupation priorities can change much more quickly. What applies when you first start considering Australia may therefore be different six or twelve months later.

Thinking about moving to Australia as a GP?

Finding the right GP position is an important part of what we do, but we know that an international relocation involves much more than finding a job.

We can support you through the recruitment and medical registration process, help you understand the different stages involved in your move and connect you with appropriate specialist advice when required.

Helping GPs move down under.

The information in this article and accompanying videos is general in nature and does not constitute individual migration or legal advice. Australian visa requirements, eligibility criteria, government policies and processing priorities can change. Always obtain current advice appropriate to your individual circumstances.