Australian Citizenship

Citizenship test & interview

As part of the citizenship process, after lodging your online citizenship application, you are required to undertake a citizenship test and interview. This should be a fairly simple process (especially if you speak English and more information can be found here.)

The time and location of your test:

Generally speaking immigration will create and write to you with the date, time and place of your appointment. The time you have to wait from when you apply to your appointment date will vary.

Citizenship appointments are held at:

• department offices in most Australian capital cities
• some Department of Human Services offices in regional areas

Please note if you apply for the citizenship whilst you are inside Australia, you will need to be in Aus to attend the interview.

Citizenship ceremony

The final step of the citizenship process the citizenship ceremony. Generally speaking you will be required to attend a ceremony and celebrate becoming an Australian citizenship with your family and friends. 4 weeks before the ceremony you will receive an email/letter from immi informing you of the dates.

Processing Times

Below you can see the approximate processing times listed by immi. As you can see 75% of applications are processed from lodgment to ceremony is 20 months.

75% of applications processed in

• Conferral – lodgement to decision* ​17 months
• Conferral – approval to ceremony** ​5 months
• Conferral – lodgement to ceremony** 20 months

90% of applications processed in

• Conferral – lodgement to decision* ​21 months
• Conferral – approval to ceremony** ​5 months
• Conferral – lodgement to ceremony** 22 months