Family & Partner Visas

Partner Visas (Subclasses 820/801 & 309/100)

For partners of Australian citizens, permanent residents, or eligible New Zealand citizens. The onshore stream (820/801) lets you apply and remain in Australia while your application is processed, while the offshore stream (309/100) is for partners applying from outside Australia. Both are two-stage pathways: a temporary visa is granted first, followed by the permanent visa once the relationship is shown to be genuine and continuing. We help you gather relationship evidence across the financial, social, household, and commitment aspects the Department assesses.

Fiancé / Prospective Marriage Visa (Subclass 300)

For people who intend to marry their Australian partner. The Subclass 300 visa allows you to travel to Australia and marry your prospective spouse within the visa validity period, after which you can apply for a Partner visa. Applicants generally need to have met in person and provide evidence of a genuine intention to marry. We advise on timing, eligibility, and the transition to a Partner visa after marriage.

Parent & Child Visas

For families seeking to reunite parents or children with relatives in Australia. Parent visa options range from contributory pathways with shorter processing times to non-contributory streams, each with its own cost, waiting period, and balance-of-family considerations. Child visas allow dependent, adopted, or orphaned relative children to join a parent who is an Australian citizen or permanent resident. We help you identify the right subclass for your circumstances and prepare the sponsorship and supporting evidence required.

What “genuine and continuing” means in practice

Partner visas turn on a single question: is the relationship genuine and continuing? Assessors weigh evidence across four aspects — financial (joint accounts, shared liabilities, how expenses are divided), household (living arrangements, how domestic life is organised), social (how the relationship is known to family and friends, joint invitations, travel together), and the nature of the commitment (the history of the relationship, knowledge of each other’s lives, plans made jointly). No single document is decisive, and there is no checklist that guarantees a grant. What matters is that the evidence, taken together, tells a consistent story over time. Thin coverage in one aspect can be explained. Contradictions between aspects cannot.

The sponsor’s side of the application

Every partner application has two halves, and the sponsor’s half is examined too. Sponsors must meet character requirements — police checks are standard — and accept formal obligations. Sponsorship limits also apply: broadly, a person may sponsor a partner no more than twice in their lifetime, at least five years apart, with exceptions for compelling circumstances. A sponsor’s own history — a previous sponsorship, a refusal — can shape the strategy before anything is lodged.

Timing, stages, and the wait

The onshore 820/801 and offshore 309/100 pathways are each a single application assessed in two stages: the temporary visa first, then the permanent stage, generally assessed from two years after lodgement. Processing measured in months to years is normal, and the waiting period is not dead time — the relationship continues to be assessed, and material changes such as a new address, a child, or a separation must be notified. Onshore applicants usually hold a bridging visa with work rights while the 820 is decided.

When the relationship has complications

Real applications are rarely tidy. A previous marriage not yet dissolved, long periods spent apart, family disapproval, little photographic evidence in cultures where a relationship is not publicly documented — none of these is fatal on its own, but each needs to be addressed rather than left for the assessor to wonder about. This is the kind of matter the practice most often takes on: not the tidy case, the true one.

If a partner application has been refused, read about reviews and appeals →