The partner visa rules ask the same questions of every couple. Whether you married in a registry office in Melbourne, a temple in Chennai or a consulate in a third country, whether your families introduced you or you met in a game chat, whether you are twenty years apart in age or the same age, the Department of Home Affairs has to reach the same state of satisfaction: that two people have a mutual commitment to a shared life to the exclusion of all others, that the relationship is genuine and continuing, and that they live together or do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis.
What changes from couple to couple is the evidence, not the test. Some couples have ten years of joint bank statements and a mortgage; others have a relationship that had to be hidden from their families, a marriage arranged by relatives, or three years of daily contact across an ocean. This cluster covers the situations where the ordinary evidence does not exist in the ordinary form, and what goes in its place.
Partner Visas for Same-Sex Couples
Same-sex couples apply for the 820 and 801 on exactly the same criteria — what the Migration Act says, and how to evidence a relationship that had to be hidden.
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Getting Married in Australia Before Applying (NOIM)
The Notice of Intended Marriage, the one-month notice period, who can marry you, and what marrying in Australia does and does not do for a partner visa.
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Is Your Overseas Marriage Recognised in Australia?
The test for recognising an overseas marriage for a partner visa — section 5F(2)(a), section 12 of the Migration Act, Part VA of the Marriage Act, and the exceptions.
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Arranged Marriages and Partner Visas
How the Department assesses a partner visa where the marriage was arranged, the evidence that carries a short courtship, and the line between arranged and forced.
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Cultural, Religious and Customary Marriages
When a religious or customary marriage counts as a marriage for a partner visa, what happens when it does not, and how to evidence the relationship either way.
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Proxy and Online Marriages: Are They Valid?
How a proxy or online marriage is assessed for an Australian partner visa, why the place of the ceremony matters so much, and the de facto alternative.
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Long-Distance and Online-Met Relationships
How a long-distance or online-met relationship is assessed for a partner visa, what the 12-month de facto rule requires, and the evidence that carries time apart.
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Age-Gap Relationships and Partner Visa Scrutiny
There is no age-difference rule in Australian partner visa law. This page explains what a large age gap does change, and how couples evidence a shared life.
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Applying Before Your Divorce Is Final
Why a person still married to someone else cannot be a spouse for partner visa purposes, when the de facto path is open, and how Australian divorce timing works.
Read the guide →What the law asks every couple
Two provisions of the Migration Act 1958 carry the whole thing.
Section 5F applies to married couples. It says a person is the spouse of another person, whether of the same sex or a different sex, if the two are in a married relationship — which means they are married under a marriage valid for the purposes of the Act, they have a mutual commitment to a shared life as a married couple to the exclusion of all others, the relationship is genuine and continuing, and they live together or do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis.
Section 5CB applies to de facto couples and uses almost identical words, again expressly covering couples "whether of the same sex or a different sex". It drops the marriage limb and adds that the two must not be related by family.
The Migration Regulations 1994 then tell the decision maker how to determine whether those conditions exist. Regulation 1.15A does that for married applicants and regulation 1.09A for de facto applicants, and for a partner visa each requires the Minister to consider all of the circumstances of the relationship, including four matters: the financial aspects of the relationship, the nature of the household, the social aspects of the relationship, and the nature of the two people's commitment to each other. The genuine and continuing relationship page works through each of them.
Key facts
Nothing in section 5F, section 5CB, regulation 1.15A or regulation 1.09A refers to a couple's culture, religion, nationality, age difference, how they met, or whether their families approve. The Department assesses the relationship, not the couple.
What actually changes from couple to couple
Three things, and it is worth being precise about them, because couples often assume a fourth that does not exist.
The documents that happen to exist. The four matters were drafted around a particular shape of life: joint assets, a shared address, shared social activity, a relationship with a measurable duration. A couple who have never been able to open a joint account, or who married last month, or who live in different countries, are not failing the test — they simply have less material that answers it directly.
The questions a case officer is likely to ask. Where a circumstance is unusual, the file tends to attract a request for more information rather than a refusal. That is a timing problem more than a legal one, and it is largely avoidable: explain the circumstance in the application instead of waiting to be asked.
Which path is open. De facto applicants normally have to show 12 months of the relationship immediately before lodgement, under regulation 2.03A, unless the relationship is registered or there are compelling and compassionate circumstances. Married applicants have no equivalent waiting period, but need a marriage valid for the purposes of the Migration Act.
What does not change is the standard. There is no higher bar for any group of applicants and no separate criterion that applies to some couples and not others.
Same-sex couples
The Migration Act has covered same-sex de facto partners and same-sex spouses in its own text for years, and same-sex marriage has been available under Australian law since December 2017. The practical issues are different from the legal ones: couples who came from a country where the relationship had to be concealed often have very little under the social heading, and some have safety reasons for limiting who is told even now. Same-sex couples covers how that is explained to the Department and what can safely take the place of the usual social evidence.
Couples married overseas
A foreign marriage certificate is not the end of the question. Section 5F(2)(a) requires a marriage that is valid for the purposes of the Migration Act, and section 12 of that Act applies Part VA of the Marriage Act 1961 in a modified form to decide that. Most overseas marriages pass. A few do not, and the exceptions are specific. Overseas marriages sets out the test, the exceptions, and what to do if the marriage is not recognised.
If you have not married yet and are weighing up where, getting married in Australia explains the notice period and the documents an Australian celebrant needs.
Family-arranged, ceremonial and religious marriages
Two separate questions get tangled here. The first is whether the marriage is legally valid — a religious or customary ceremony that was never registered may not be, depending on where it took place and what that place's law requires. The second is whether the relationship satisfies the other three conditions, which has nothing to do with the form of the ceremony.
A marriage that both families arranged, and that the couple entered into willingly, is a marriage. What the Department looks for is the same commitment to a shared life it looks for in every case, and in a newly arranged marriage the couple's own account of how the decision was made usually carries more weight than the photographs. Arranged marriages and cultural and religious marriages deal with each in turn, and proxy and online marriages covers ceremonies where one or both parties were not physically present.
Couples with a large age gap
An age difference is not a criterion, a red flag in the regulations, or a reason for refusal. It is a circumstance that sometimes produces more questions about how the relationship formed and how the couple's finances are arranged, particularly where the older partner is supporting the younger one. The answer is specificity rather than volume. See age-gap relationships.
Couples who met online, and couples living apart
Meeting online is now ordinary and the Act says nothing about it. The two practical issues are that the early relationship exists mostly as message history, which is easy to over-file and hard to read, and that the household heading stays empty until the couple actually share a home. Long-distance relationships covers both, and it also covers couples who are together but separated by work, study, caring duties or a visa.
Couples whose earlier marriage has not been formally dissolved have a different problem — the exclusion of all others condition and, on the married path, the validity of the new marriage. See applying before a divorce is final.
Where the Department's discretion actually sits
A case officer does not weigh whether a relationship looks conventional. They decide whether they are satisfied of the statutory conditions, having considered all of the circumstances including the four prescribed matters. An unusual circumstance is relevant only through those matters — a family-arranged marriage may explain a short courtship, which goes to the duration limb of the commitment heading, not to some separate cultural test.
That is why the most useful thing an unusual application can contain is an explanation. An unexplained gap invites the case officer to fill it. An explained one is simply a fact on the file.
An application prepared with an Australian migration lawyer is more likely to succeed where the relationship does not fit the standard shape, because the work is diagnostic: identifying which of the four matters is thin, deciding whether the married or de facto route is stronger, resolving any doubt about the validity of a marriage before lodgement rather than after a refusal, and writing the explanation that stops a case officer having to guess. No one can promise an outcome.
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.
What to do next
Start with the page that matches your situation above, then come back to the underlying criteria: 820 visa requirements lists every condition the application has to meet, and relationship evidence breaks the four matters down document by document. If your situation touches the validity of a marriage, resolve that first — everything else on the married path depends on it.
Common questions
Does Home Affairs treat some kinds of relationships more suspiciously than others?
The legal test is the same for every applicant. Sections 5F and 5CB of the Migration Act 1958 set the same conditions for married and de facto couples, and the Migration Regulations require the Minister to consider all of the circumstances of the relationship, including the same four matters, in every case. What differs is the evidence a couple can produce. A couple who married three weeks after meeting, or who have never lived in the same country, has less of the ordinary record that the four matters ask about, so the rest of the material has to do more work.
Are same-sex couples eligible for the 820 and 801 visas?
Yes. Section 5F of the Migration Act defines a spouse as a person married to another person whether of the same sex or a different sex, and section 5CB uses the same words for de facto partners. Same-sex marriage has been available under Australian law since December 2017. There is no separate visa, no separate criterion and no separate evidence standard.
Will an arranged marriage or a large age gap cause a partner visa refusal?
Neither is a ground of refusal. The Migration Act does not ask how a couple met or how far apart in age they are. It asks whether there is a mutual commitment to a shared life to the exclusion of all others, whether the relationship is genuine and continuing, and whether the couple live together or do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis. Circumstances that are unusual in the Australian context often mean a case officer asks more questions, so they are worth explaining in the application rather than leaving to be discovered.
Do we have to be living together to apply for a partner visa?
Not necessarily. The Migration Act requires that the couple live together or do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis, so a temporary separation for work, study, caring responsibilities, health or visa reasons does not end the relationship. The Department will expect the separation to be explained and evidenced, including how contact continued and when the shared household resumed or is intended to resume.
Is a relationship that started online treated differently?
No. How a couple met is not part of the statutory test. Couples who met online often have an unusually complete record of the early relationship in messages, calls and transfers, and an unusually thin record under the household heading until they live together. The work is in mapping what exists against all four matters in the regulations rather than filing the material that happens to be easiest to produce.