PARENT VISA
Complete help and guidance including consulting, application filling and communication with the Immigration Department.
What are different Parent Visas?
There are various types of visas that can be relevant to you if you are in Australia and wish to bring your parent’s here from overseas.
There are many visa options to bring your parent’s to Australia, but it all depends on the purpose of their travel to Australia and your Australian visa status.
Generally, there are SIX different types of parent’s visa.
- VISITOR VISA (SUBCLASS 600)
- SPONSORED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 870)
- PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 103)
- CONTRIBUTORY PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 173)
- AGED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 804)
- CONTRIBUTORY AGED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 864)
VISITOR VISA (SUBCLASS 600)
This is a temporary visa generally valid for 3 months but can be extended to up to 12 months (depending on your circumstances). This visa has multiple streams, but for the parent’s visa, we will refer to two relevant streams:
Visitor visa (subclass 600) Tourist stream
If you do not hold a Permanent Residency (PR) or an Australian Citizenship, then your parents can only come to Australia on a Visitor visa (subclass 600) Tourist stream. On this visa stream, they cannot be sponsored by you as you are not an Australian Citizen or a Permanent Resident.
If the Immigration Department refuses a visitor visa to your parents, then their only option is to apply again and fulfil all the requirements for a visitor visa. Tourist stream does not give the applicant any review rights to appeal the visa decision.
Visitor visa (subclass 600) Sponsored family stream
If you are an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident (PR) then this will be the preferred stream for your parents to apply for a visitor visa. You have the right to sponsor your parent’s on this visitor visa stream. If the Immigration Department refuse your parent’s visitor visa then this stream gives you, the sponsor, review rights to appeal the refusal decision at Australian Administrative Tribunal (AAT).
Visitor visa application fee is $145.00 per applicant.
The estimated time frame of the outcome is usually 4 to 6 weeks. This may vary on a case by case basis.
Visitor visa (subclass 600) generally has two main criteria:
- The applicant genuinely intends to stay temporarily in Australia; and
- The applicant has adequate means to support themselves or access to it during the period of their stay.
- live together
Both criteria are difficult to satisfy, and many applicants may receive a refusal letter if the above conditions are not met.
If your parents received a refused tourist visa then please contact us. We understand the above requirement and know how to prepare a well-written submission to increase the chances of a positive outcome. Call us on (02) 9854 5552 or email at info@shaheen.com.au
SPONSORED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 870)
This is a temporary visa which can allow your parents to stay in Australia for up to 3 years ($5,000 visa cost) or up to 5 years ($10,000 visa cost). They are not required to go back to their home country during the duration of this visa. Each applicant can apply for this visa twice in their life span.
For example: Karan sponsor’s his parents from India in 2019 for 5 years. When their visa is going to expire in 2024, Karan sponsor’s them again for another 5 years. Therefore, they can live in Australia until 2029.
However, just like any other visa category, the sponsor (you) and the applicant (your parents) need to meet certain criteria to be eligible for this visa.
To sponsor your parents for this visa category, you will first need to get an “approved sponsorship” before making this visa application. You will need to satisfy a list of requirements however the three main requirements are that:
- you must have a taxable income of at least $83,500 per year; and
- you are an Australian Citizen or PR; and
- you have been a resident in Australia for four years.
This visa does not lead to Permanent Residency. You will need to consider other options if you wish to bring your parents here in Australia on a permanent basis.
SPONSORED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 870) fee is divided into two payments
- First, the sponsor will need to pay $420 fee for a sponsorship application. If approved, then;
- The applicant will have to pay $5,000 (if applying for 3 years period) or $10,000 (if applying for 5 years period).
Processing times for this visa are yet to be confirmed because these visas will be issued after 1 July 2019
This visa was announced on March 2019 and the government has set up a cap of 15,000 visas to be granted per year. Currently, many people are facing great challenges when applying for this visa as they do not understand the complete criteria and requirements.
We do not want you to make the same mistake, waste time and money. Contact us today to discuss the possibility of this visa and confirm your eligibility. Our contact number is (02) 9854 5552 or email us at info@shaheen.com.au
PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 103) AND CONTRIBUTORY PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 173)
Both Parent Visa and Contributory Parent visa lead to Permanent Residency (PR). For either of these visas, you do not need to get a sponsorship approval (as per sponsored parent visa (subclass 870)), however, you will need to meet the balance of family test. This means that to be eligible, it requires the parent to be sponsored to have at least half of their eligible children residing in Australia.
Examples of calculating when a parent would pass the balance-of-family test.
| Total number of children | Children living permanently in Australia | Children in country A | Children in country B | Children in country C | Children in country D | Passes test? |
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | No |
| 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
| 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | No |
| 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | No |
| 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Yes |
The main difference between the Parent visa and Contributory Parent visa is that:
- Parent visa fee is $6,415 per applicant and the processing time may take between 6 to 30 years.
- Contributory Parent visa fee is $41,930 per applicant and the processing time may take up to 3-4 years
AGED PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 804) AND CONTRIBUTORY PARENT VISA (SUBCLASS 864)
Both Aged Parent visa and Contributory Parent visa will lead to Permanent Residency (PR). Both visa category has to meet the same criteria as per the Parent visa (subclass 103) and Contributory Parent visa (Subclass 173) – (see above to check you meet the balance of family test). However, both these visas require an additional criterion which is at least one parent must be old enough to be granted the Australian age pension. Currently, the Australian pension age is 65 years and 6 months. Therefore, if one of your parents is older than 65 years and 6 months then they are eligible for this visa.
The main difference between the Aged Parent visa and Aged Contributory Parent visa is that:
- Aged Parent visa fee is $6,415 per applicant and the processing time may take between 7 to 30 years.
- Contributory Aged Parent visa fee is $47,755 per applicant and the processing time may take up to 1-2 years.
Question for you – Do you think the fee’s for Contributory Aged Parent visa is quite high or the processing time for Aged Parent visa is quite long?
If so, then don’t worry, we may have a good solution for you. There is A POSSIBLE WAY for your parents to apply for Aged Parent visa (subclass 804) and be able to STAY WITH YOU IN AUSTRALIA until the Immigration Department finalises their visa.
Sounds too good to be true? Well, we can make this all possible. To find out more, please contact us on (02) 9854 5552 or email us at info@shaheen.com.au
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