Family & Spouse Visas in Australia

Sponsoring a partner, children, or parents

Partner, child and parent visas are grouped under the family stream, which operates on planning-level places rather than a points test. Partner visas are granted in two stages, temporary then permanent, carry one of the highest visa application charges anywhere in the world, and commonly take a long time to process. Parent visas exist in contributory and non-contributory forms, and the queues attached to them are extraordinary by any comparison.

How partner visas are structured

A partner application is lodged once and assessed twice. The applicant is first granted a temporary visa, and the permanent visa is decided some years later, commonly around two years after lodgement, on evidence that the relationship has continued. Applications made in Australia and applications made offshore run on parallel subclass numbers with broadly the same logic.

Married spouses and de facto partners are both covered. De facto applicants are generally expected to show a period of cohabitation before lodgement, with limited exceptions, and registration of the relationship in a state or territory can substitute for part of that requirement in some circumstances.

Evidence is assessed across the financial, social, household and commitment aspects of the relationship, and applications are commonly weakened not by doubt about the relationship itself but by thin documentary coverage of one of those four aspects.

Cost and time are the defining features

The partner visa application charge is an international outlier and is payable up front for both stages together. It is largely non-refundable if the application is unsuccessful, which makes the quality of the initial evidence unusually consequential.

Published processing times for partner applications are commonly measured in a year or more, and have at times been considerably longer. Applicants inside Australia usually hold a bridging visa during processing, which typically carries work rights, while applicants offshore generally wait outside the country.

Parent visas and the queue problem

Parent visas divide into contributory versions, which cost a very large amount per parent and are processed comparatively faster, and non-contributory versions, which are far cheaper and attract waiting periods that the department itself describes in terms of many years.

Both are constrained by the annual number of places allocated to the category, which is why the queue rather than eligibility is the binding constraint. A balance-of-family test also applies, requiring that at least half the applicant's children, or more of them than live anywhere else, are settled in Australia.

Sponsored parent temporary visas allow long visits without granting residence, and are the practical alternative many families use while a permanent application waits.

Sponsorship obligations

• The sponsor must generally be an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen, and must be approved as a sponsor before or alongside the visa decision.
• Sponsors are subject to character checks, and there are limits on how often and how soon a person can sponsor successive partners.
• An assurance of support, a financial commitment backed by a bond, applies to several family visas including the contributory parent categories.
• Because paid immigration assistance in Australia may only be given by a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner, this page describes the published rules and does not assess any individual's eligibility.

Official sources

• Family visas — Department of Home Affairs
• Partner visa (subclass 820/801)

Checked against these pages in September 2026. Fees and processing times change without notice — confirm before you act.

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