Reconsideration, Appeal or Reapply? The Review Route After a Visitor Visa Refusal

After a refusal, most people ask for "an appeal". In visitor visa cases that word usually describes one of three very different routes, only some of which exist for your destination.

The three routes, plainly

• Reconsideration — a request asking the deciding authority to look at the same decision again, usually because a document was overlooked or a fact was misread. It is discretionary. There is often no deadline, no fee and no guaranteed response.
• Appeal or merits review — a separate body re-examines the decision. It exists only where the law grants a right of appeal, and for visitor visas that right is limited or absent in most cases.
• Judicial review — a court examines whether the decision was made lawfully and reasonably, not whether it was the nicest outcome. It has strict deadlines, real cost, and normally requires a lawyer.

What a reconsideration request can and cannot do

It can correct an error in how your existing file was read. It cannot make a weak file strong. If the refusal says the officer was not satisfied about your ties or your funds, no letter will fix that — because the letter cannot change your circumstances, and reconsideration is not an opportunity to submit the evidence you should have sent the first time.

So use it when you can finish this sentence with a document reference: "the decision states X, but page Y of the enclosed Z, which was submitted on [date], shows the opposite." If you cannot, reapply instead.

Country by country — what generally exists

The detail below is general and changes over time. Always confirm the current position on your own refusal letter and on the authority's official site, because your letter states the routes available to you.

Canada

• There is no formal appeal against a visitor visa (TRV) refusal.
• A reconsideration request may be sent through the official web form, and the officer's notes on your file can usually be obtained to understand the reasoning.
• Judicial review at the Federal Court exists, with short filing deadlines and legal cost.
• In practice, a rebuilt fresh application is the route that resolves most TRV refusals.

United Kingdom

• Standard Visitor Visa refusals normally carry no right of appeal and no administrative review, except in narrow circumstances such as human rights grounds.
• The refusal notice states what, if anything, is available to you — read it before assuming a route exists.
• The usual answer is a new application that answers each reason in the refusal notice directly, with a cover letter that does so ground by ground.

Australia

• For a Subclass 600 refused while you are outside Australia, merits review rights are generally not available to the applicant.
• Where the application was sponsored by an eligible person, or refused while you were in Australia, a review right may exist and belongs to a specific person named in the decision record.
• The decision record states whether review is available, who may apply, and the deadline — which is short and strict.

New Zealand

• Temporary visa decisions do not carry a general merits appeal.
• A statutory reconsideration route exists for certain temporary entry decisions, with a short time limit and conditions attached — including where the applicant is at the time.
• Offshore visitor visa applicants are usually best served by a new, better-evidenced application.

United States

• A visitor visa refusal under section 214(b) cannot be appealed.
• There is no reconsideration procedure in the sense used elsewhere; the remedy is to apply again.
• A new application only makes sense once something substantive has changed in your circumstances — not merely a new appointment date.

If you do file a reconsideration request, write it like this

1. 1 One page, or two at most. No emotion, no pressure, no reference to hardship unless it is legally relevant.
2. 2 Open with your reference numbers, the decision date and one sentence saying what you are asking for.
3. 3 Take each refusal ground in the order the letter gives it, as its own short paragraph.
4. 4 For each: quote the ground, state the fact, name the document and page that proves it, and note the date it was submitted.
5. 5 Attach only what is directly relevant, indexed, in the order you refer to it.
6. 6 Close with one sentence asking for the decision to be reviewed in light of the above. Nothing more.

How to choose in five minutes

1. 1 Read the refusal letter and note whether it names a review right, a deadline, and who may use it.
2. 2 Ask whether your objection is "you misread my file" or "my file was thin". The first may justify reconsideration; the second needs a new application.
3. 3 Check whether your travel dates still work. If they have passed, the itinerary changes anyway — so reapply.
4. 4 Pick one route and commit to it. Overlapping submissions on the same file cause confusion and delay.
5. 5 Where a deadline is involved and the stakes are high, take proper legal advice rather than consultancy advice.

Related reading on this blog: how to reapply after a visitor visa refusal, the eight reasons visitor visas get refused, and our Canada-specific guide to reconsideration requests.

Want this checked against your own case?

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