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Visas, Immigration and Refugees

Attaching Documents to a Resident Return Visa Application

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This information offers you guidance in attaching documents to your Resident Return Visa (RRV) online application.

If you have already read the information below, you can now attach documents to your application.
See: Attach documents to a RRV application

File naming tips

When naming your files to be attached to an eVisa application only use numbers 0–9 and letters A–Z (upper and lower case), dashes '–' and underscores '_'.

You must avoid using spaces ' ', periods '.', ampersand '&', hash '#', star '*', exclamation marks '!', quotations ‘’ "" and any other character that is not a letter, a number, a dash or an underscore.

Compressed files

The department is not able to accept files that have been compressed. A compressed file is a container for documents, programs or other files that have been packaged together and reduced in size.

A common example are files compressed using WinZip® with a ‘.zip’ file extension. If the document you are attempting to attach is too large we recommend that you create a PDF document.
See: https://createpdf.adobe.com/

What can you attach?

The department is only able to accept the following file formats:

Extension File type
.BMP Bitmap image file
.DOC Microsoft Word 2002 or older document
.DOCX Microsoft Word 2007 document
.DOT Microsoft Word 2003 template
.GIF Graphics Interchange Format image or graphics file
.JPEG JPEG image file
.PDF Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format file
.PPT Microsoft PowerPoint presentation document
.RTF Rich Text Format document
.TXT Text file
.XLS Microsoft Excel spreadsheet document

The following table details the maximum number, size and allowable formats of files you are able to attach to the eVisa system:

Form type Maximum number of files Maximum size each file Formats allowed
Resident Return 30 5MB DOC, .DOCX, .DOT, .XLS, .PPT, .RTF, .TXT, .GIF, .JPG , .BMP, .PDF

Tips for reducing file size

The following table contains tips for reducing the size of your attachments:

Extension File type Tip to reduce file size
.BMP Bitmap image Use a freeware graphics program to convert .BMP files to .JPG files.
.DOC Word document Remove unnecessary images, formatting and macros. Save the file as a Word 5.0/95 version. If the file is still too large, create a PDF document.
See: http://createpdf.adobe.com/
.DOCX Word 2007 document Remove unnecessary images, formatting and macros. If the file is still too large, create a PDF document.
See: http://createpdf.adobe.com/
.DOT Word template Remove unnecessary images and macros. If template functionality is not necessary, save the file as a .DOC or .RTF file.
.GIF GIF image Reduce the file size of a .GIF image by setting the resolution to 96 DPI (dots per inch).
.JPG JPG image Reduce the file size of a .JPG image by setting the resolution to 96 DPI (dots per inch).
.PDF Portable document format Reduce the file size of a .PDF document by:
  • Recreating the PDF with Distiller set to 'lowest file size'.
  • Ensuring that all images in the PDF are set to 96 DPI.
  • Deleting all unnecessary images.
  • Saving the file as a RTF or TXT document (this will effect formatting).
.PPT PowerPoint Save the file as a RTF or DOC file or create a PDF document.
See: http://createpdf.adobe.com/
.RTF Rich text format Remove any unnecessary graphics, links or formatting.
.TXT Text file If a bare text file is over 500KB, it will be physically too long to be useful. Consider splitting the document into more useful parts or removing unnecessary data.
.XLS Excel Spreadsheet Remove unnecessary images and macros. Save the file as an Excel 5.0/95 version.