Visitor health insurance for 601 visa holders
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.
Key takeaways
- The 601 visa lets you visit Australia for up to 3 months at a time.
- Health insurance isn't a condition of the 601 visa, but unless you're from a country with a reciprocal health care agreement you can't use Medicare, so it's worth having cover for your trip.
- You can pick up OVHC in just a few minutes.
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Finder Score for overseas health insurance
To make comparing overseas health insurance even easier, we developed the Finder Score. Factors like price, hospital cover, extras cover, emergency travel, and more are weighted and scaled across 50+ policies from 15+ providers to produce a score out of 10. The higher the score, the more competitive the policy.
Pricing is based on a single person living in the State of New South Wales on a 601 visa who 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 subject to change.
Do I need health insurance on a 601 visa?
No, health insurance isn't a condition of the 601 visa. The 601 isn't one of the visas subject to condition 8501, which requires some visa holders to keep adequate health insurance while they're in Australia. But unless you're from a country with a reciprocal health care agreement, you can't use Medicare, so you'd have to pay for any medical or hospital treatment yourself.
More broadly, it's always a good idea to have solid health insurance when you come to Australia. Overseas Visitors Health Cover (OVHC) policies are designed specifically for visitors.
Countries that can get a 601 visa
To qualify for a 601 visa, you must be visiting 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 benefits 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.
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