Melb User

@IWTsai, In general, after an in-person ceremony is cancelled, you don't have to do anything. It's the responsibility of Home Affairs to work with the local council to schedule another in person or Virtual ceremony. Current Ceremony processing time from Date of Approval is 6-8 months as mentioned in the Home Affairs site. So, if you contact Home Affairs before that, most likely they will ask you to wait. But, if you have any urgent reason for an early ceremony, they will factor that in. After my in-person ceremony was cancelled for the 2nd time, I checked with my council(Melbourne City Council) on Virtual Ceremony. They mentioned they are in the process of doing it, but did not give any dates. After some weeks, I then contacted Home Affairs when I was nearing the 8 month timeline (after approval). I got the Virtual Ceremony soon after. Good luck!

Thanks mate:) I got the invite for Virtual ceremony today only via Email. But, for inperson ceremony invites (in Aug & mid Sep) which got cancelled due to lockdown, I got invite both by Email and Post. The Email was sent by Department of Home Affairs and the Post by local Council.

I had my Virtual Ceremony today and am now Australian Citizen:), it's been a long 21 month wait. I'm part of Melbourne City Council. Timeline: Citizenship Application: 07 Jan 2020 Test Date & Approval: 05 Feb 2021 (Original test date was in March 2021 & I preponed it) InPerson Ceremony Invite 1: 18 Aug 2021, Cancelled due to lockdown InPerson Ceremony Invite 2: 15 Sep 2021, Cancelled due to lockdown Virtual Ceremony: 28 Sep 2021 On my Virtual ceremony, it was not a group event, just the presiding officer and myself. My Citizenship processing times coincided with 75% of applicants processing times mentioned in Immigration Website. This can keep changing and you can check immigration website for latest. Further your council can influence the ceremony date as well. Good luck everyone!

@Mmmbop Just to Clarify , its @Aus2021 user who mentioned they had requested Virtual Ceremony before and had the ceremony recently.

Just wanted to share an update, I got when contacting City of Melbourne: They confirmed that there was no online ceremony yesterday. So, as suspected @Aus2021 ceremony would have been directly done by Department of Home Affairs, since he had requested a Virtual Ceremony few months back. City of Melbourne mentioned they are currently in the process of creating multi-candidate online citizenship ceremonies and will email invitations once they are ready. If we have queries regarding when we will be selected for an online Citizenship ceremony, they mentioned we need to contact the Department of Home Affairs. Hope everyone gets their ceremony invite soon. I will also update if I get any invite.

@Aus2021, Thanks for the info. From your other response, where Ceremony had only presiding officer and yourself, it looks like the council did not conduct it and its directly from immigration. Usually Council ceremonies will have more candidates in Virtual ceremony is what i heard. I will check this out.

Congrats Mate! You are lucky. I got mine approved on 5 Feb 2021 and still waiting from to hear back from City of Melbourne. They did schedule 2 inperson ceremony invites in mid August & 15 Sep, but both got cancelled due to lockdown. When did you get your Virtual Ceremony invite? Did you separately request for it?

Yes, I received email for rescheduled ceremony for 15th September, but it also got cancelled due to lockdown extension and they sent another cancellation mail for this. So, 2 ceremony invites and subsequent cancellations for both of them, due to lockdown. I suggested Virtual Ceremony to them for overall event as there seems no end to lockdowns, and they told they are considering it. I will update again if I get any invite.

Update related to Melbourne city council invite: My Citizenship application was approved on 05 Feb 2021. I got Ceremony invite (Melbourne Town Hall) for 18th August which got cancelled due to Covid lockdown. It got rescheduled for 15th September and this also got Cancelled due to lockdown. The council mailed they are considering Virtual Ceremony now, haven't heard back from them after that.

@RoEire, @elderberry, Congrats on your ceremony invite! In your invite letter, is there any mention of how many guests you can take?

I agree that there should be a digital option for citizenship ceremony given ceremonies are getting delayed due to covid lockdown and number of participants restrictions. It's going to be close to 6 months for me since Approval, not heard back on Ceremony dates (I'm part of Melbourne City Council). I wish there was an option to ask for Virtual Ceremony or I like idea you mentioned that they can just accept the the pledge in facility such as Centrelink, Post office etc. Now, coming to what we can do about it: Maybe we can start a petition in sites such as https://www.change.org/start-a-petition https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions or contact some news channel and bring up the plight of long wait time or some similar option so immigration team in charge of Citizenship hears about it and takes some action. Just contacting immigration phone number alone does not help, you get the standard answers asking to wait for more time.

Are guests(spouse, child) being allowed now for Citizenship ceremonies post COVID? I know they used to allow before, but due to COVID, not sure if any limitations have been placed. Mine is Melbourne City Council and awaiting my Ceremony date. Applied: 7 Jan 2020 Approved: 5 Feb 2021 Ceremony: Not yet got date

@Julies450, @AlmostOZ Once you pass Citizenship test, Approval status is updated Online first in your ImmiAcount, you can check it by logging in to https://online.immi.gov.au You won't get any email for this and a physical approval gets sent by postal mail after few weeks of status being updated online. I did not take my test at Centrelink, so issue in your case may be different. But just wanted to let you know that online update is few weeks before the actual approval letter getting mailed.

Thanks RoEire for the update.

Hi Everyone I'm from Melbourne CBD(part of Melbourne City Council) and currently awaiting my citizenship ceremony. It's been more than 5 months since my application got approved, but have not heard back on the ceremony date. Any one in similar situation? It looks Melbourne City Council has lot of baclog for ceremony dates. Here is my timeline for Citizenship Applied: 7 Jan 2020 Approved: 5 Feb 2021 Ceremony: Not yet got date Thanks!