Which Documents Could Expire While We Wait for Our 491 Grant?
Our application has said “Received” since 11 May. When the grant arrives depends on a queue I cannot see. But some of our documents have clocks on them, and those clocks keep ticking whether anyone has looked at our file or not.
Take our Japanese police certificate. It carries an issue date of 18 March 2026. That raises a question every applicant should ask: if the grant takes a year or more, will the documents we lodged with still be accepted?
I am not a migration agent, and I do not have the answer for our own file yet. This post is the dates, what I could verify on the Home Affairs website, and the questions I think are worth asking an agent.
In short: health examination results are valid for 12 months, and Australian police certificates for 12 months from issue. I could not find a clear age limit for overseas certificates, so that is a question to ask your agent. Put every 12-month mark in your calendar.
What I could verify on the Home Affairs pages, checked on 13 October 2026.
Our Documents and Their Dates
These are our real dates, and the “12-month mark” column is my own arithmetic, not an official statement from anyone.
| Document | Date | 12 months later |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese police certificate | Issued 18 March 2026 | 18 March 2027 |
| Canadian (RCMP) police certificate | Applied 3 April, arrived by post 17 April 2026 | About April 2027 |
| Visa application | Lodged 11 May 2026 | Already lodged |
| Health examinations (me and our son) | 12 May 2026 | About 12 May 2027 |
| Health examination (my husband) | 21 May 2026 | About 21 May 2027 |
The Japanese certificate is the earliest of these, and the first one to cross the 12-month line.
What Home Affairs Says About Health Examinations
The Home Affairs page called “After your health examinations” (last updated 25 September 2026) says that the results of your health assessment are valid for 12 months from the time you completed your examinations. If the department asks you to sign a health undertaking, that is valid for 6 months. It also says that, depending on the outcome, you may be asked to complete further health examinations, and that your visa processing officer will tell you if you need them.
The department’s “Applying for a skilled visa” page (last updated 30 September 2026) repeats that health examination results are generally valid for 12 months.
What Home Affairs Says About Police Certificates
The same page says you must give police certificates for yourself and family members over 16, for every country where you have lived for 12 months in the past 10 years since turning 16. A certificate that is not in English needs a certified translation. The 491 visa page adds that Australian police certificates are valid for 12 months from the date of issue.
What I could not find on those pages is a clear statement about how old an overseas police certificate can be, or whether the age is measured on the day you lodge or the day a decision is made. I do not want to guess, so that is one of the questions below.
Why This Matters for Us
I do not know when our grant will come. In the official processing time guide, the fastest quarter of applications are decided in roughly three to seven months, the middle group takes longer, and the slowest take sixteen months or more. I wrote about where we stand in our waiting update, and I hope construction being in the top priority group helps us. But hope is not a plan.
If the grant came in early 2027, our health results and certificates would still be inside their 12 months. If it took longer, some might cross the line. I do not know what Home Affairs would do in that case, and I do not want to assume either way.
The Order We Did Things In Matters
Our order of events. The earliest documents are the first to age.
Looking at our dates side by side, one thing stands out. The 491 process has you gather police certificates before you lodge, but the health examinations come after. In our case, the police certificates were collected in April, we lodged on 11 May, and our health examinations followed the next day for me and our son, and ten days later for my husband.
That means the certificates we gathered first are our oldest documents, and the health results are our newest. If you are about to lodge, it is worth knowing which of your documents will be the first to age.
Other Clocks to Keep in Mind
Documents are not the only things with dates on them:
- Passports. Check the expiry date of every passport in the family against the time you might travel. A passport that expires soon is easy to forget about while you are focused on the visa.
- Our dog’s blood test. The rabies antibody test result for our dog also has its own 12-month clock, which I explain in our post on bringing her to Australia.
- The wait itself. If it runs long, plans such as a lease end, a school year or a job end date can shift, so it helps to have a flexible plan.
Questions Worth Asking Your Agent
Three questions worth putting to your agent.
- Does the age of our Japanese and Canadian police certificates matter now that we have already lodged, or only on the day we lodged?
- If our health results pass 12 months before a decision, would the department tell us to repeat the examinations, and how would we find out?
- Should we do anything before being asked, or wait until the department requests it?
Doing a health examination again for a family of three is not cheap, as I wrote in our medical exam post, so it is worth getting an answer before spending any money.
What Is Worth Doing in the Meantime
- Put each 12-month mark in your phone calendar, with a reminder a month before
- Keep the original certificates, scans and the health examination paperwork in one folder
- Check your ImmiAccount and email regularly, so you do not miss a request
- Keep your contact details up to date
Dates to Put in Your Calendar
- List every document you lodged, with its issue or exam date
- Add 12 months to each, and put the result in your calendar
- Read the current Home Affairs health and police certificate pages, not an old article
- Ask your agent how the dates are treated after lodgement, not just at lodgement
- Keep originals and scans in one place
- Check your ImmiAccount and email often
Where to Go Next
For the stage that created these dates, read how we lodged our application, and for the full order of events, see our month-by-month timeline.
This reflects our own situation and my reading of Home Affairs pages checked on 13 October 2026. It is not migration advice. Validity rules and processing times change, so confirm current details with the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent.
