Helping someone prepare a visa application, advising them on it or dealing with the Department of Home Affairs on their behalf is immigration assistance under s 276 of the Migration Act 1958. For a partner visa, get it from an Australian migration lawyer: a legal practitioner who holds a current practising certificate. The Department publishes guidance on its Who can help you with your application page and on using a legal practitioner.
What counts as immigration assistance?
Immigration assistance is a defined activity, not a general word for help. Part 3 of the Migration Act 1958 restricts who may give it, and section 276 defines it: broadly, using knowledge of migration procedure to assist someone with a visa application or a review — preparing it, advising on it, representing them before the Department or a tribunal. An Australian lawyer gives it under their practising certificate.
Unregistered agents
An unregistered agent who gives immigration assistance is acting illegally (Migration Act 1958 s 280). They carry no professional indemnity insurance, so if their mistake costs you a refusal, your fees or your pathway, there is no insurer to claim against. A practising Australian lawyer must hold that insurance.
A translator, an interpreter or a person who simply helps you find a form is not giving immigration assistance at all, and can help freely.
Australian legal practitioners
An Australian legal practitioner has been admitted to the legal profession in an Australian state or territory and holds a current practising certificate issued by that jurisdiction's legal body. Since 2021, a lawyer with an unrestricted practising certificate no longer needs a separate migration registration in order to give immigration assistance. That change ended the old double-registration arrangement, and it is why an experienced immigration lawyer may have no registration number at all. It is not a red flag; you verify a lawyer with their state or territory legal body.
What does a migration lawyer actually do on a partner visa?
On an onshore partner application, the work is:
- An eligibility assessment before anything is paid. Whether you can validly apply at all — whether you hold a substantive visa, whether a no-further-stay condition or a previous refusal stands in the way, and whether the relationship meets the legal definition of spouse or de facto partner.
- An evidence strategy. Deciding what actually needs to be proved, what the gaps are, and how to fill them over the months before lodgement rather than in a panic afterwards. See relationship evidence.
- Drafting. The relationship statements, the supporting statutory declarations, and the written submission that tells the case officer how the evidence meets each criterion.
- Lodgement. Getting a valid application in, on the right day, with everything the law requires attached at that moment.
- Responding to the Department. Answering requests for more information and natural justice letters within the time allowed, and preparing you for an interview if one is called.
- Review if it is refused. Lodging at the Administrative Review Tribunal within the deadline and running the case there. See appealing at the ART.
A lawyer's scope also goes beyond the visa itself. Only an Australian legal practitioner can act in court proceedings — judicial review of a tribunal decision in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, for example — and lawyers ordinarily handle requests for ministerial intervention, criminal matters that feed into the character requirement, and family law questions that sit alongside a partner application. If your situation already involves a court, a lawyer is the only adviser who can act for you there.
How do you check a lawyer before you pay?
Check the individual who will do the work, before money changes hands.
- Search the register. Ask which state or territory admitted them, and search that jurisdiction's register of practitioners. The register shows whether the practising certificate is current and whether any conditions apply to it.
- Get the name. Confirm who will personally do the work. A firm's reputation is not a practising certificate.
A practising certificate is held by a person, not a business. A website, a company name or an office does not tell you whether the person preparing your application is permitted to do it.
What should the costs agreement say?
Get it in writing before the work starts, and read it. A workable agreement sets out the services covered, the fee for each stage and when it is payable, what is excluded, what happens to money already paid if you end the engagement, and how complaints are handled. It should distinguish the lawyer's fee from disbursements — the visa application charge, medical examinations, police certificates, translations — which are paid to someone else and are not the lawyer's income.
Two points people miss. Ask specifically whether the quoted fee includes responding to a request for more information and whether it includes review at the tribunal if the application is refused; often it does not. And ask what happens at the permanent stage, roughly two years later, because the 820 and the subclass 801 permanent visa are one application but the second stage is more work. What these fees typically cover is set out on migration lawyer fees.
Form 956 is the separate, formal step: it is the Department's form appointing your lawyer (or another authorised adviser) to act for you, and once it is lodged the Department recognises that person and usually corresponds with them. Signing Form 956 is not the same as agreeing a fee, and neither one replaces the other.
Why is a prepared application more likely to succeed?
No one can promise you a visa, and anyone who does is telling you something they cannot deliver. But an application prepared by an Australian migration lawyer is more likely to succeed, for reasons that are concrete rather than reassuring.
- The criteria are technical. The visa turns on defined terms — spouse, de facto partner, substantive visa, sponsorship limitations — that do not mean what they mean in ordinary speech. See 820 visa requirements.
- One missed validity requirement makes the application invalid. The Department warns that where an applicant does not hold a substantive visa, an application lodged without the sponsorship form, evidence of the sponsor's status and at least two statutory declarations made within the last six weeks may be deemed invalid. An invalid application is not a weak application; it is nothing at all, and the charge is not refunded.
- Evidence is judged against four defined matters, not against how much you love each other: the financial aspects of the relationship, the nature of the household, the social context, and the nature of your commitment to each other. Applications are refused with photo albums attached and nothing addressing the household or the finances.
- Deadlines are short and cannot be extended. A request for information and a natural justice letter each give a period to respond, and the Department can decide without you if you miss it. Tribunal deadlines after a refusal are fixed by law and the tribunal cannot stretch them.
Can you do it yourself?
Yes, and people do, successfully, every year. There is no legal requirement to use anyone, and paying a lawyer is not a condition of grant.
Doing it yourself is realistic when the case is straightforward: you hold a substantive visa with no condition preventing a further application, there is no history of visa refusal or cancellation on either side, the relationship has been going long enough to have generated ordinary evidence, you have lived together, and neither of you has a health or character issue. Add reading time, care with the document checklist, and a willingness to write a proper relationship statement, and a plain case is a plain case.
The odds shift when any of that is missing. That comparison, situation by situation, is on applying yourself or using a migration lawyer.
Next: if you want to be put in touch with an Australian migration lawyer, or you simply want pointing to the right page, use the form below. What this site is and is not is set out on about this guide.
Tell us about your situation
Your message goes to the people who run this guide. This guide is not a law firm or a migration practice and cannot give you legal advice, but it can point you to the pages that cover your situation and put you in touch with an Australian migration lawyer.
Common questions
What can an immigration lawyer do on a partner visa?
An Australian legal practitioner holds a practising certificate issued by a state or territory legal body and may prepare and lodge a visa application, deal with the Department on your behalf, act in court proceedings, give legal advice on matters beyond migration, and prepare requests for ministerial intervention. Preparing the application and dealing with the Department for you is immigration assistance under s 276 of the Migration Act 1958, and an unregistered agent who gives it breaks s 280. The Department of Home Affairs publishes guidance on using a legal practitioner.
Does an immigration lawyer need a separate migration registration?
No. Until 2021 an Australian legal practitioner who wanted to give immigration assistance generally had to hold a separate migration registration as well. That requirement was removed, and a lawyer who holds an unrestricted practising certificate now gives immigration assistance under that certificate. It means you check a lawyer with their state or territory legal body.
How do I check a lawyer before I pay them?
Check the person, not the business. An Australian legal practitioner appears on the register of practitioners kept by the legal admission body in their state or territory, which also shows any conditions on the practising certificate. Do this before you sign anything or pay a deposit, and confirm the individual who will actually do the work.
What is Form 956?
Form 956 is the Department's form appointing your lawyer (or another authorised adviser) to act for you. Once it is lodged, the Department recognises that person as authorised to deal with your application and will usually correspond with them. It is not a contract and it does not set fees. The agreement about what the work covers and what it costs is separate, and should be in writing before the work starts.
Can I apply for the 820 visa without any professional help?
Yes. There is no requirement to use anyone, and people apply successfully on their own every year. It is most realistic where the case is straightforward — you hold a substantive visa, there is no no-further-stay condition, you have no history of refusal or cancellation, the relationship is well documented over a long period, and neither of you has a health or character issue. The more of those that are not true, the more an application prepared by an Australian migration lawyer is likely to be worth the fee.
Sources
Keep reading
Subclass 820 Partner Visa: Complete Guide
What the subclass 820 partner visa is, who can apply, what it costs, what evidence Home Affairs wants, and how the permanent 801 follows it.
Read the guide →
Ask About Your Partner Visa Situation
Jev search page. Describe a situation, get the pages that answer it.
Read the guide →
Contact
Send a question about the onshore partner visa guide, ask to be put in touch with an immigration lawyer, or report an error.
Read the guide →