How to pay your Australian visa fee from the US (surcharges, cards, refunds)
US-issued Visa and Mastercard cards work on ImmiAccount, but there are two separate costs stacked on top of your visa fee. What the ImmiAccount surcharge actually is, which cards can remove the other cost, and how refunds work. Figures as at September 2026.
Read the full guide, with official sources →
Watch
Chapters
- 0:00 Two costs stack on top of your visa fee
- 0:17 ImmiAccount's surcharge
- 0:34 Diners Club is not accepted
- 0:56 Cards that can waive it
- 1:09 It matters most on a bigger fee
- 1:30 Subclass 601 ETA: a flat $20 service charge
- 1:41 Rarely declined — usually one of three reasons
- 1:55 Refused doesn't usually mean refunded
- 2:09 Where to read more
Transcript
Paying an Australian visa fee from the US? Your Visa or Mastercard works fine on ImmiAccount. But there are two separate costs stacked on top of the fee itself, and only one of them is set by Home Affairs.
The first is ImmiAccount's own surcharge. It's one point four zero percent on Visa, Mastercard, American Express and JCB — the same rate for debit and credit. UnionPay is one point nine zero percent. PayPal is one point zero one percent.
ImmiAccount also takes BPAY. One card network it doesn't take at all: Diners Club.
The second cost is separate, and ImmiAccount has nothing to do with it. Many US credit and debit cards charge their own foreign transaction fee on top of the exchange rate, set by your card issuer, not by Home Affairs.
Some US cards waive that fee entirely. Check current terms for cards such as the Chase Sapphire range, Capital One Venture and Quicksilver, several Discover cards, and Bank of America Travel Rewards.
That matters most on a higher fee. A Visitor visa, subclass six hundred, runs about two hundred and fifty dollars offshore. A Student visa, subclass five hundred, is about two thousand five hundred. A Partner visa, subclass eight two zero and eight zero one, is about eleven thousand seven hundred and ten.
The ETA, subclass six oh one, is different again. It's a flat twenty dollar service charge, not a visa application charge, so it isn't indexed the same way.
US cards are rarely declined at ImmiAccount. When they are, it's usually a fraud alert on an unfamiliar foreign merchant, an insufficient credit limit on a high-value visa, or expired card details.
The one thing people get wrong: assuming a refused visa means the fee comes back. Refunds are limited. You request one on Form 1424, and Home Affairs states there's no standard time frame for processing it.
The full guide, with the official sources, is on migratio.com.au. The link is in the description.
Short versions
- The exact surcharge on your US card (0:35)
- The second fee ImmiAccount doesn't charge (0:34)
- Visa refused? Here's the refund reality (0:27)
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