General Parent Visa Requirements

To qualify for a Parent visa, you must:

• have at least half of your children living permanently in Australia, or more of your children living permanently in Australia than in any one other country (the ‘balance of family’ test).

The ‘Aged’ categories require applicants to be old enough to qualify for the Australian age pension (meaning 66-67 years old, depending upon your birthdate).

Parent visas allow for work and study in Australia. The permanent visas also provide access to the public health system under the government Medicare program. Temporary Subclass 173 and 884 visa holders may also access Medicare.

There are several categories of parent visa to choose from and they need careful consideration as they differ in cost, processing times and benefits.

Contributory Parent visa (143, 173, 864 & 884)

With both temporary (subclasses 173 and 884) and permanent (subclass 143 and 864) visas types, these visas allows parents to ‘contribute’ to their future social welfare costs in Australia and also enjoy much faster processing times than other permanent parent visa categories as the government provides more places under this category than under non-contributory parent visas. The monetary contribution is significant, however!

The temporary contributory parent visas allow you to split the contribution paying two instalments with the temporary visa then another two instalments after two years when you have applied for and are about to be granted a permanent contributory parent visa. The temporary visa stage also does not require an ‘Assurance of Support’ bond (see below). If you apply for a contributory parent visa directly, you will need to pay two visa application charge instalments: one at the time the visa application is lodged and the more substantial contribution charge just before the permanent visa is granted.

Assurance of Support

For all permanent Parent visa categories, you will also need to have a relevant person, or organisation, provide an ‘Assurance of Support’ for each adult included in the visa application. This monetary bond is held for a specified period of time (10 years for Contributory visas, 2-4 years for other visas) as a guarantee to meet the assurees’ welfare costs during the bond period.