Visiting Australia on a 601 visa? Overseas Visitor Health Cover (OVHC) can insure you for unexpected medical costs. Compare OVHC policies below, from just $55.50/month.
The 601 visa lets you visit Australia for up to 3 months at a time.
It requires you to have adequate health insurance for your entire trip.
You can pick up OVHC to cover that requirement in just a few minutes.
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Pricing is based on a single live in the State of New South Wales on a visa , and is not from a country that Australia has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA) with and is not eligible for cover under Medicare. Prices are accurate for 2024 but are subject to change.
Do I need health insurance on a 601 visa?
Yes, you need health insurance on a 601 visa. The 601 visa is subject to condition 8501, which requires travellers to have adequate health insurance while they're in Australia. This can come from an OVHC policy or a reciprocal health care agreement, if you're from one of the countries that has one.
To qualify for a 601 visa, you must need to visit Australia for genuine tourism or business purposes. You must not work while in Australia (although you can conduct business visitor activities, such as attending conferences and negotiating contracts) and you must not study for more than three months. Acceptable tourist activities include holidays and seeing family and friends.
To be eligible for a 601 visa you must also hold a passport from one of the following countries or regions:
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong (SAR of China)
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Malta
Monaco
Norway
Portugal
Republic of San Marino
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan*
The Netherlands
United Kingdom – British Citizen
United Kingdom – British National (Overseas)
United States
Vatican City
The Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA)
Australia has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA) with the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, The Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Norway, Slovenia, Malta and Italy. If you're from one of these countries, you can access the public health system Medicare.
However, Medicare doesn't include everything. For instance, it doesn't cover ambulance fees or out of hospital services like dental, optical and physio – but health insurance can. For that reason, it's still a good idea to have some additional coverage - either an OVHC policy or a good travel insurance policy.
What does OVHC pay benefits towards?
If you're not covered by an OVHC policy during your Australia trip, you could be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical expenses if things go wrong. A few of the benfits that OVHC can pay for include:
Hospital treatment, accommodation and theatre fees
Doctor, surgeon and specialist fees
Emergency ambulance transportation fees
Prescriptions and General Practitioner (GP) consultations
How to provide evidence of your health insurance arrangements
"If applicants are required to provide evidence of their health insurance arrangements, any the following may be considered acceptable, unless a particular visa subclass instruction requires other specific information:
a copy of the insurance policy;
a written letter or cover note from an acceptable insurance provider, certifying that the primary visa applicant and any accompanying family members immediately upon visa grant or their arrival in Australia, are, or will be, covered by insurance that is at least as comprehensive as the prescribed adequate level of cover;
evidence that the visa applicant has lawfully enrolled with Medicare via Reciprocal Health Care Agreements (RCHA);
evidence that the primary visa applicant and any accompanying family members immediately upon visa grant or their arrival in Australia, are, or will be, covered by health insurance that is at least as comprehensive as the adequate level of cover required under policy, with the understanding that the applicants will either enrol with Medicare under a RHCA or enrol in a private insurance arrangement after arrival; or
for citizens from the Republic of Ireland that may access RCHA, evidence that they hold an Irish passport.
Family members applying separately from the primary visa applicant or visa holder must produce evidence as per above, which clearly indicates that they, as dependant applicants, will be covered upon arrival in Australia by a policy with an adequate level of cover."
— Kaku Caro is a lawyer in LegalVision's Corporate Immigration team. He has previous experience in the areas of commercial litigation, corporate and personal immigration. He also has experience advising on visa eligibility and preparing visa applications such as partner visas, employer-sponsored work visas, parent visas, and general skilled migration visas.
FAQs about the 601 visa
Yes but you'll usually need to add extras cover to your policy. This can also cover you for out-of-hospital services like optical, physio and chiro.
Several Australian private health funds offer policies specifically designed to meet the cover needs of overseas visitors. These policies are known as Overseas Visitors Health Cover (OVHC) and they include cover for things like hospital accommodation and treatment, inpatient pharmaceuticals and emergency ambulance.
The table below includes a brief rundown of the OVHC options available from Australian health funds.
Health fund
Overseas Visitor Health Cover policy features
Find out more
HIF offers two competitive cover options for foreign visitors on non-working visas: Visitor Saver and Visitor Value. Both policies cover:
Emergency ambulance
Shared-room hospital accommodation
Inpatient medical bills
Theatre fees
Pharmaceutical drugs
Surgically implanted prostheses
Visitor Value also includes shared-room accommodation in a private hospital, as well as cover for out-of-hospital expenses such as x-rays and GP visits.
Australian Unity OVHC offers protection against health care costs all around Australia. Depending on the OVHC policy you may be covered for some or all of these services:
nib provides four levels of OVHC to visitors: Budget Visitor Cover, Visitor Cover, Basic Visitor Cover, Mid Visitor Cover and Top Visitor Cover. All policies include cover for:
Ambulance services
Hospital accommodation and treatment
Theatre fees
Inpatient pharmaceuticals and repatriation
Top and Mid policies also include extras cover for services like optical and dental.
Bupa offers Standard Visitors Cover and Guardian Plus Visitors Cover to foreign citizens visiting Australia. Both policies include cover for inpatient medical services such as:
Hospital treatment and accommodation
Theatre fees
In-hospital pharmaceuticals
Doctor’s fees
Both policies also include cover for GP visits and outpatient pharmaceuticals, while Guardian Plus Cover also includes extras such as dental, optical, physio and natural therapies.
HBF offers two levels of cover of visitor health insurance: Standard Overseas Visitor Cover and Comprehensive Overseas Visitor Cover. Both policies cover more than 5,000 procedures in addition to providing cover for:
Shared-room hospital accommodation
Theatre fees
Gap cover
Emergency ambulance
The Comprehensive policy also includes expensive procedures such as heart treatment and cataract surgery, as well as repatriation and out-of-hospital medical costs.
The subclass 601 visa is more commonly known as the Electronic Travel Authority (ETA). This electronic document allows foreign citizens to travel to Australia on short-term visits for tourism or business. Depending on your circumstances, you may need to consider a 600 visa instead.
The ETA replaces the need for visitors to receive a visa label or stamp in their passport and also removes the requirement for application forms. In most cases the ETA can be issued electronically by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection via travel agents and airlines around the world.
Once you have been granted an ETA, you are authorised to travel to and enter Australia. The ETA is automatically linked to your passport and it allows you to enter Australia as many times as you want in a 12-month period. The maximum duration of any one stay is three months.
The visa application requirements for the 601 visa vary depending on your country of origin. Contact your nearest immigration office for information on the details and documentation you need to provide during the application process. All documents you provide must be certified copies of original documents.
You must be outside Australia when you apply for an ETA and you must apply at least two weeks before you travel. Passport holders from a select few countries – Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States – are eligible to apply for an ETA online, while all other passport holders will need to apply at either an immigration office outside of Australia, a travel agent or an airline.
Gary Ross Hunter was an editor at Finder, specialising in insurance. He’s been writing about life, travel, home, car, pet and health insurance for over 6 years and regularly appears as an insurance expert in publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and news.com.au. Gary holds a Kaplan Tier 2 General Advice General Insurance certification which meets the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146). See full bio
Gary Ross's expertise
Gary Ross has written 644 Finder guides across topics including:
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