When Is the 801 Assessed? The Two-Year Eligibility Point

The Department of Home Affairs puts it this way: "You are eligible for consideration of a permanent Partner visa two years after you first applied for the temporary and permanent Partner visas." The date that matters is the date of lodgement, which is shown in ImmiAccount — not the date the temporary visa was granted, and not the date you started living together.

Where does the two-year date come from?

From the Migration Regulations 1994. The standard pathway to the subclass 801 requires, among other things, that at least two years have passed since the application was made. The Regulations attach that period to the making of the application, which is why the grant date of the 820 is irrelevant to it. Two consequences follow, and they surprise people in opposite directions.

If your 820 was granted quickly, the two years still run from lodgement, so you will hold the temporary visa for roughly two years before the permanent stage opens. If your 820 took a long time to decide, the eligibility point arrives almost immediately afterwards, or has already passed by the time the temporary visa is granted. Neither situation is a mistake, and neither can be brought forward by asking.

A separate rule applies where the 820 was granted following a ministerial intervention decision: there the two years run from the date of that decision. And the wait is removed entirely for applicants who were in a long-term partner relationship with their sponsoring partner when the application was made — see long-term relationship exemption.

How do I find my own date?

Open ImmiAccount and look at the application. The Department says the date you applied is shown there, and that is the date to add two years to. If your application was lodged by a representative, the date is also in the acknowledgement of receipt the Department sent when the application was made. Write it down and treat it as a deadline rather than a milestone, because it is the point from which everything else is measured — the evidence period you need to cover, and the processing time the Department publishes.

What does the Department do at the eligibility point?

It normally writes to you asking for updated information and evidence that the relationship has continued. The request comes through the channel you nominated when you lodged: your ImmiAccount, the email address recorded for correspondence, or your authorised recipient if you appointed one. The Department notes that it may still contact an applicant directly even where another address has been nominated, so check both.

Two practical points follow. First, contact details must be current — an email address abandoned two years ago is a common reason people miss the request, and Form 929 covers changes of address or passport details. Second, requests carry deadlines; if you cannot meet the date, that is something to raise before it passes, not after. See requests for more information.

What is usually asked for?

Evidence that the relationship has continued since lodgement, and updated personal documents. In practice that means a fresh statement about the relationship over the two years, financial evidence such as joint accounts, shared liabilities and how you divide expenses, evidence of your household and living arrangements, evidence of how you present socially as a couple, and updated statutory declarations from people who know the relationship. The same four areas apply at both stages; only the period they cover changes.

Personal documents expire. Police certificates are valid for 12 months from the date of issue for immigration purposes, and health assessment results are valid for 12 months, so either may be asked for again. 801 stage documents goes through the second-stage list, and relationship evidence covers what each category is meant to show.

When does processing actually start?

At the date of eligibility. The Department is explicit: "The processing time for a permanent Partner visa starts from the date of eligibility. This is two years after you applied for the temporary and permanent Partner visas." The two years spent holding the 820 are the qualifying period, not processing time.

Applications are processed according to Ministerial Direction 117, which sets family visa processing priorities, and the Department publishes indicative times for recently decided applications in its visa processing times guide tool — a guide only, in its words, and not specific to any individual application. The figures move, so no number is quoted here. See 801 processing time.

What if circumstances have changed?

Tell the Department, in every case. Relationship status, the birth of a child, a change of address, a new passport and anything else relevant to the application are all changes the Department asks to be told about. Form 1022 covers changes in circumstances and Form 929 covers address and passport details. Concealing a change adds a credibility problem to whatever else is going on.

If the relationship has ended, there is a Notification of Relationship Cessation form in ImmiAccount. The Migration Regulations allow the permanent visa to be granted after a relationship has ceased in defined circumstances — family violence committed by the sponsoring partner, the death of the sponsoring partner, or arrangements concerning a child of the relationship — but each is a set of criteria to be established, not a general discretion. If the relationship ends and family violence provisions set out what those routes involve and where support is available. Time limits in this area are short.

Build the evidence across the two years, not at the end

The Department's own advice during the temporary stage is that, because partner applications can have long processing times, "you should update your documents and evidence of your relationship regularly through ImmiAccount". That is the single most useful thing to do between the two stages. Evidence assembled in a fortnight at the two-year mark looks like evidence assembled in a fortnight: the bank statements start late, the photographs cluster around holidays, the joint lease begins after the 820 was granted. Evidence added as it happens covers the period continuously, which is what the Department is actually looking for. How much evidence to provide explains what a continuous record looks like.

An application taken through the permanent stage with an Australian migration lawyer is more likely to succeed, and the value here is mostly in timing and completeness. The deadline easiest to blow is the response date on the Department's request for further evidence, and the evidence usually thinnest is the financial and household record for the middle of the two years, when life was ordinary and nobody was keeping documents. Working with a migration lawyer explains how to check a lawyer's practising certificate.

Next, work through 801 stage documents, and if your relationship was already long-standing when you lodged, check whether the long-term relationship exemption applies to you.

Keep reading

801 Visa Documents and Evidence Update

What to provide at the 801 stage — updated relationship evidence for the whole period since lodgement, fresh statements, and what not to redo unprompted.

Read the guide →

Long-Term Relationship Exemption: Going Straight to the 801

If you were in a long-term partner relationship when you applied, the Migration Regulations remove the two-year wait for the permanent subclass 801 visa.

Read the guide →

801 Visa Processing Time

How long the permanent subclass 801 takes, why the clock starts at the two-year eligibility point, and where to check the Department's current published times.

Read the guide →