The Australia partner visa enables the spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or qualified New Zealand citizen to live, work, and establish a life together in Australia. It is one of the most popular and demanding immigration procedures in the country, with application fees surpassing $9,000, processing delays that sometimes last more than a year, and documentation requirements that many applicants underestimate. If you're looking into Australia partner visa eligibility, processing times, and processes, this guide has everything you need to put together a good, well-organized application.
This post is intended for readers considering sponsorship options from anywhere in the globe, therefore in addition to the visa procedure, we have provided practical advise on evidence, expenses, and sponsorship requirements that partners in Australia should be aware of.
What Is the Australia Partner Visa
A partner visa permits the spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or qualified New Zealand citizen to live in Australia. It is relationship-based and intended exclusively for couples in a real and enduring relationship. In most situations, the process consists of a temporary stage followed by permanent residency if eligibility is maintained at the second stage, which implies that practically every candidate goes through two separate visa permits rather than gaining permanent status right away.
Which Partner Visa Pathway Applies to You
There are three primary partner visa pathways, and which one applies to you depends on where you are located and the nature of your relationship.
- Onshore Pathway, Subclass 820 to 801: If you are in Australia at the time of lodgement, you apply for the onshore pathway, Subclass 820 leading to Subclass 801, and you are automatically granted a Bridging Visa A while you wait, which gives you the right to stay and work. You must be in Australia when the temporary visa is granted.
- Offshore Pathway, Subclass 309 to 100: If you are outside Australia at the time of lodgement, you apply for the offshore pathway, Subclass 309 leading to Subclass 100, and you are generally required to be outside Australia when the initial visa decision is made.
- Prospective Marriage Visa, Subclass 300: If you are engaged but not yet married and have not lived together for twelve months, the Prospective Marriage Visa is the starting point, giving you up to nine months to marry your partner in Australia, after which you apply for the onshore 820 to 801 pathway.
Both the onshore and offshore pathways lead to permanent residence if eligibility continues at the second stage, and the permanent partner visa grants indefinite stay and may create a pathway to Australian citizenship, subject to meeting residence requirements.
Australia Partner Visa Eligibility Requirements
Eligibility centres on your sponsor's status and the nature of your relationship, along with a set of character, health, and evidence requirements common to most Australian visa categories.
Sponsor Eligibility
Your sponsor must be an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen. If that applies to your partner, you may be eligible for the visa whether you are married or in a de facto relationship with them.
Relationship Eligibility
If you are married, you can apply immediately, provided your marriage is legally recognised in Australia. If you are in a de facto relationship, you generally need to have been in the relationship for at least twelve months immediately before the application, unless you are registered as de facto partners with an Australian state or territory, or compelling circumstances exist.
Australia recognises both de facto and same sex relationships for partner visa purposes, which reflects the country's broadly inclusive approach to relationship recognition within its migration system.
Evidence of a Genuine Relationship
This is the area where most applications succeed or fail. Approval depends on proving your relationship is genuine across four areas, namely financial, household, social, and commitment, and the stronger and more consistent your evidence, the better your outcome. The Department wants to see a pattern of joint life across financial, household, social and commitment aspects, and providing only two or three documents per evidence category is generally not enough, since thin evidence tends to lead to requests for further information, refusals, or both.
Consistency between what you and your sponsor state matters just as much as the volume of documents you submit. If you state you started living together in a particular month and your sponsor states a different month, a case officer will notice this discrepancy, so it is essential to cross check every form and statement carefully before you lodge your application.
English Language Requirements
For the temporary stage, whether 820 or 309, there is no English language requirement. For the permanent stage, whether 801 or 100, the government encourages what is described as functional English, and more flexible testing options are now available to help applicants meet this standard if required.
Step by Step Procedure for the Australia Partner Visa
While the exact process differs slightly between onshore and offshore applications, it generally involves lodging a combined application covering both the temporary and permanent stages. Below is the complete step by step process most applicants follow.
Step 1: Confirm Your Pathway and Sponsor Eligibility
Determine whether you will apply onshore or offshore based on your physical location, and confirm your partner meets the sponsor eligibility criteria as an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen.
Step 2: Gather Your Relationship Evidence
Begin compiling documentation across the four key evidence categories well before you plan to lodge your application. Strong applications typically include joint bank statements, shared lease or property documents, correspondence addressed to both partners at the same address, photographs spanning the relationship timeline, statements from friends and family, and evidence of shared future planning such as travel bookings or joint financial commitments.
Step 3: Complete Health Examinations and Police Clearances
Additional costs and steps include health examinations and police certificates, which can vary depending on your country and personal circumstances. It is worth arranging these early, since pending police checks from overseas and medical examinations requiring follow up are among the most common causes of delay once an application has been lodged.
Step 4: Lodge Your Combined Application Through ImmiAccount
Applications are lodged online through the Department of Home Affairs ImmiAccount system, covering both the temporary and permanent stages in a single submission. In recent years the Department of Home Affairs has moved firmly toward a decision-ready approach, meaning there is very little margin for error, since one missing document or a single date inconsistency can delay your application, extend separation, or even lead to refusal.
Step 5: Receive Your Bridging Visa or Wait Offshore
From the day you lodge an onshore application, you hold a Bridging Visa A automatically, giving you full work rights and lawful stay in Australia while your temporary visa is assessed. If you need to travel internationally before the 820 is granted, you must apply for a Bridging Visa B first, since leaving without one causes your bridging visa to cease, meaning you cannot return on it.
Offshore applicants under the 309 pathway do not receive a bridging visa and must wait outside Australia until the Subclass 309 is granted, at which point they are free to travel to Australia and begin living there.
Step 6: Temporary Visa Assessment
Stage 1 involves assessment of the temporary visa, either Subclass 820 for onshore applicants or Subclass 309 for offshore applicants, and if the Department of Home Affairs is satisfied that you are in a genuine relationship with your sponsoring partner, you are granted the temporary visa. This allows you to live, work, and study in Australia, access Medicare, and travel in and out of the country while your permanent visa is being assessed.
Step 7: Maintain Your Evidence File While You Wait
During the waiting period for the permanent stage, it is important to keep your evidence file active by submitting updated financial records, recent photographs, and any new joint commitments through ImmiAccount periodically, since the Department wants to see an ongoing, living relationship rather than a snapshot taken two years earlier.
Step 8: Permanent Visa Assessment
Approximately two years after lodging your application, you become eligible for assessment for the permanent visa, either Subclass 801 or Subclass 100, and the Department will check that your relationship is still genuine and continuing. If satisfied, the permanent visa is granted, giving you the right to live in Australia indefinitely, sponsor eligible relatives, and apply for Australian citizenship.
Step 9: Fast Track Option for Long Term Relationships
If you have been in a relationship with your partner for at least three years at the time you apply, or two years if you have a dependent child together, you may be granted both the temporary and permanent visas at the same time, skipping the two-year waiting period entirely. This is a significant advantage for established couples who can demonstrate a long relationship history from the outset.
Australia Partner Visa Cost
The partner visa is among the more expensive visa categories in the Australian migration system, and the exact figure has shifted over recent fee cycles. As of the 2025 to 2026 financial year, the base visa application charge for an Australia Partner Visa, covering Subclasses 820 and 801 or 309 and 100, is AUD nine thousand three hundred sixty five, plus additional fees for dependents, health checks, police clearances, and biometrics. More recent published figures place the government application fee at AUD eleven thousand seven hundred ten for the main applicant, covering both the temporary and permanent stages in a single payment rather than two separate charges, so it is important to check the exact current fee on the official Department of Home Affairs website before you budget, since this charge is reviewed periodically.
This fee is not refundable if the application is refused, and additional charges apply for any dependent child applicants included in the same application. Once migration agent fees, typically ranging from two thousand to five thousand dollars or more, along with health and police clearance costs are added, the total cost of a partner visa application for a couple can exceed fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars.
Australia Partner Visa Processing Time
Processing times are one of the most closely watched aspects of the partner visa, since they directly affect how long couples spend apart or in limbo. As of early 2026, partner visa processing time ranges from approximately twelve months to over twenty four months for the temporary stage, whether Subclass 820 or 309, with the median for a Subclass 820 sitting at around seventeen months.
The permanent stage, whether Subclass 801 or 100, is assessed roughly six months after it becomes eligible, which is approximately two years after the original lodgement date. The Department of Home Affairs reports that fifty percent of Subclass 820 onshore and Subclass 309 offshore applications are processed within fourteen to seventeen months, though individual cases can fall well outside this range.
It helps to understand the shape of the distribution rather than relying on a single average figure. A quarter of onshore 820 applicants wait fifteen months or less, but one in ten waits two years, which shows how much variation exists even within the same visa category. Processing typically takes eight to twenty one months for the temporary 820, then another six to sixteen months for the permanent 801 once you become eligible, roughly two years after your initial application. For offshore applicants, processing times tend to run nine to sixteen months for the 309 and thirteen to thirty two months for the 100.
It is worth remembering that the two year eligibility clock for the permanent stage begins at lodgement, not at the moment your temporary visa is actually granted. If your temporary visa takes eighteen months to be decided, you may have less than six months before the permanent stage becomes eligible for assessment, so the overall timeline can feel faster than expected once your temporary visa finally comes through.
The Department introduced live queue position tracking and a personalised target decision date that updates daily through ImmiAccount, which gives applicants a clearer, real time sense of where their case sits in the queue rather than relying solely on general published averages.
What Causes Partner Visa Delays
Understanding common delay triggers can help you avoid them in your own application. Delays commonly occur due to missing evidence, inconsistent information between the applicant and sponsor, additional verification requests, or outstanding health and character checks. The most common specific reasons include an incomplete application at lodgement, pending police checks from overseas, medical examinations requiring follow up, and a formal Request for Further Information from the Department.
Since a stricter decision-ready approach was introduced, incomplete files now take significantly longer to process, since the Department strongly prefers to make a decision without needing to issue a Request for Information, which can otherwise add several months to the overall wait time.
Bridging Visas While You Wait
For onshore applicants, understanding your bridging visa conditions is essential for planning travel and daily life during the wait. While waiting, the applicant is generally granted a Bridging Visa A, which allows them to remain in Australia lawfully with work rights. If you need to travel overseas during the waiting period, you must apply for a Bridging Visa B before departing, since leaving the country without one will cause your existing bridging visa to lapse.
What Happens After You Receive Permanent Residency
Once you hold the permanent partner visa, either 801 or 100, you become eligible to apply for Australian citizenship after meeting the residency requirement, which generally means one year as a permanent resident within four years of lawful residence in Australia. Meeting the character, basic English language, and residency requirements is also part of this final step toward citizenship.
What to Do If Your Partner Visa Is Refused
A refusal is a setback, not necessarily the end of the process. If the temporary 820 visa is refused, you can seek review at the Administrative Review Tribunal within twenty one days, and the Tribunal conducts a fresh assessment and allows new evidence to be submitted, meaning many refusals are overturned at review stage with proper preparation. Engaging a registered migration agent to strengthen your evidence base before lodging an appeal can significantly improve your chances at this stage.
Partner Visa Subclasses Compared
The table below summarises the main partner visa pathways so you can compare eligibility, location requirements, and general processing expectations side by side. Figures are indicative and change periodically, so always confirm the current fee and processing time directly with the Department of Home Affairs before lodging.
| Visa Subclass | Stage | Applicant Location Required | Typical Processing Time | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subclass 820 | Temporary, onshore | Must be in Australia at lodgement and grant | Around 12 to 24 months, median around 17 months | Work rights, Medicare access, travel rights via bridging visa |
| Subclass 801 | Permanent, onshore | Assessed after the two year eligibility period | Around 6 to 16 months after eligibility | Permanent residency and pathway to citizenship |
| Subclass 309 | Temporary, offshore | Must be outside Australia at lodgement and grant | Around 9 to 24 months | Right to travel to and live in Australia once granted |
| Subclass 100 | Permanent, offshore | Assessed after the two year eligibility period | Around 13 to 32 months from original lodgement | Permanent residency and pathway to citizenship |
| Subclass 300 | Prospective Marriage, single stage | Must be outside Australia at lodgement and grant | Around 12 to 24 months | Entry to marry within 9 months, then apply for 820/801 onshore |
Practical Tips for a Stronger Partner Visa Application
- Build evidence across all four categories, financial, household, social, and commitment, rather than concentrating on just one or two areas
- Cross check dates and details between your own statement and your sponsor's statement before lodging
- Arrange police clearances and health examinations early, since these are common sources of delay
- Submit a genuinely complete file at first lodgement, since the current decision-ready approach means incomplete applications face significantly longer waits
- Keep your evidence file updated throughout the waiting period, particularly in the lead up to the permanent stage assessment
- Apply for a Bridging Visa B in good time if you need to travel while your onshore application is pending
- Consider engaging a registered migration agent for complex cases, such as long distance relationships, short relationships, or periods of separation
Getting Started With Your Australia Partner Visa Application
The Australia partner visa rewards early preparation, thorough documentation, and consistency between what you and your sponsor submit. Confirm which pathway applies to your situation, start building your evidence file well ahead of lodgement, and budget realistically for both the government fee and the additional costs of health checks, police clearances, and any professional assistance you choose to engage.
When you are ready to begin, you can start your application directly through the official Department of Home Affairs partner visa page, where you will also find the current fee schedule and document checklists for your specific pathway.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between the onshore and offshore partner visa?
The onshore pathway, Subclass 820 leading to Subclass 801, is for applicants who are physically in Australia when they lodge their application, and they receive a Bridging Visa A with work rights while waiting. The offshore pathway, Subclass 309 leading to Subclass 100, is for applicants outside Australia, who generally must remain offshore until the temporary visa is granted.
Do I have to be married to apply for an Australia partner visa?
No. You can apply as a married spouse or as a de facto partner. De facto partners generally need to show the relationship has existed for at least twelve months before applying, unless the relationship is registered with an Australian state or territory, or other limited exceptions apply.
How much does an Australia partner visa cost?
The government application charge for the main applicant is over nine thousand dollars, covering both the temporary and permanent stages in a single fee. Additional costs include health examinations, police clearances, document translation, and professional fees if you engage a migration agent, which can bring the total cost for a couple well above fifteen thousand dollars.
How long does the Australia partner visa take to process?
The temporary stage, Subclass 820 or 309, typically takes around twelve to twenty four months, with a median of roughly seventeen months for onshore applications. The permanent stage, Subclass 801 or 100, is generally assessed about two years after the original lodgement date, with a further six to sixteen months once eligibility begins.
Can I work in Australia while waiting for my partner visa?
Yes, if you apply onshore. Lodging an onshore partner visa application automatically grants you a Bridging Visa A with full work rights, allowing you to live and work in Australia lawfully while your application is processed. Offshore applicants do not receive work rights in Australia while waiting outside the country.
What evidence do I need to prove a genuine relationship?
You need to demonstrate your relationship across four areas, financial, household, social, and commitment, using documents such as joint bank statements, shared leases, correspondence addressed to both partners, photographs, statements from friends and family, and evidence of shared future planning. A thin evidence file in any one category increases the risk of delay or refusal.
What happens if my partner visa application is refused?
If your temporary visa is refused, you can seek review at the Administrative Review Tribunal within twenty one days of the decision. The Tribunal conducts a fresh assessment and allows new evidence to be submitted, and many refusals are overturned at this stage with proper preparation and strengthened documentation.