Latest for 2021! Has the paid stream turned into a queue? Subclass 143’s ultra-long COVID wait times! Parent migration financial-year wrap-up and new financial-year forecast.
It’s that time of year again — the end of the financial year and it’s time for the wrap-up and update on parent migration processing progress. Over the past year, COVID has kept many families separated from their parents, and this situation could well continue for at least another year. To make matters worse, parent migration quotas have also been slashed heavily over the past year and in the coming financial year — the paid parent migration allocation was cut from 6,096 places to 3,600 (a reduction of more than 40%), while the queue-based parent migration allocation was cut from 1,275 to just 900 (a 30% reduction). The direct result is that parent migration processing progress over the past year can only be described as snail’s pace.
This financial year
parent-related changes
Before we get into the main topic, let’s briefly recap some of the latest changes this financial year relating to parent migration and parent visas:
1. Parent migration subclasses including 143 can now be granted onshore in Australia
Previously, 143 applicants had to be offshore for the visa to be granted, but this year, taking into account the difficulties caused by COVID, the Department has allowed onshore grants — starting from the end of March this year, clients about to be granted the visa can be spared the hassle of leaving the country (especially during COVID).
As a result, some parents who have already lodged a 143 application and are now in Australia may also meet the requirements for a 143 Bridging Visa A — for details, you can refer to the article we wrote:
2. Various parties are actively petitioning for a travel exemption for parents
The petition calling for a travel exemption allowing PR/citizen parents to enter Australia has, in the end, gathered more than 70,000 signatures and has now been lodged requiring a response from the Minister — under the rules, a response is required within 90 days.Shortly afterwards, members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate also lodged petitions with the House and the Senate.
3. Due to COVID, the long-term parent visa Subclass 870 has also, this year, been allowed to be lodged and granted onshore
Let’s first look at the progress on paid parent migration. The chart below is thelatest parent migration processing progress table currently published by the Department:
The aged paid Subclass 864 hasn’t moved at all in the past year…
First, let’s look at paid parent migration. For the aged paid Subclass 864, there has been absolutely no progress or grants over the past year — it has remained stuck at the end of 2016,the reason being that previously, the aged paid Subclass 864 was more than a year faster than the ordinary paid Subclass 143. Starting last year, the Department changed its policy, saying that for the sake of fairness it would align the processing progress of the aged and ordinary paid parent migration streams,and since 143 has only been processed up to June 2016, this has directly caused 864 to sit still for the past year.
Ordinary paid 143 — less than 2 months of progress in a year…
Over the past full year, it has only progressed by less than 2 months, moving from April 2016 to June 2016 (and even then, only to early June — many applications lodged in mid-to-late June still haven’t reached the stage of being asked for further documents),and in fact, grants have only been issued up to applications lodged by the end of April. Many applicants who completed their full documentation and paid the contribution charge in May and June will have to wait until 1 July of the new financial year, when new quota places open up, before they can be granted.And these applicants granted in the new financial year will, at that point, also be using the new financial year’s quota!
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Exclusive data
the current parent migration backlog
Based on the latest parent migration backlog data we’ve obtained, current as at 30 April 2021.
Paid stream:
Ordinary paid parent migration Subclass 143 has a backlog of 56,386, and aged 864 has 4,105, for a total of 60,491.If the current quota of 3,600 places is maintained, it means a new application lodged now would need to wait nearly 17 years!
Yes, you read that correctly — paying the extra contribution charge to speed up visa processing has completely lost its point; this pace is much slower than the queue-based parent migration stream of previous years.
Now let’s take a brief look at the queue-based stream:
103 has also only progressed about a month over the past year, moving from August 2010 to October 2010. The current queue-based parent migration backlog is 38,773 for 103 plus 11,957 for 804, for a total of 50,730. If the annual quota of 900 places is maintained, a new application lodged now will need to wait 56 years! (Yeah, I am not kidding you…)
Let’s hope this steep cut to the quota over the past two years is purely due to COVID, and that once the pandemic is over in the next year or two, the quota can be restored to the previous level of 6,000-7,000, which would also effectively ease the problem of these extremely long wait times.
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There’s a discrepancy between this forecast and the previous one:
In previous years, when I updated my forecast table, I would give a complete table through to the likely wait time for the most recently lodged applications, and the chart below is my forecast table from May 2020, last year:
There’s a difference of more than 3 months between the two forecasts, for two reasons:
One reason is that in the first half of 2020, because of COVID, the Department completely stopped processing 143 applications for a period, granting almost none — meaning last financial year’s quota of more than 6,000 places wasn’t fully used up.
Of course, the other, bigger factor is the steep cut to this financial year’s quota — when I did the forecast last May, I was still assuming this financial year’s quota based on last financial year’s figure of more than 6,000.
In addition, previously I had a dedicated table that took the total number of applications added each year and spread it evenly across the months to get an average monthly increase, but this year, to make the forecast more accurate, I specifically obtained from the Department the exact monthly application-lodgement numbers for the past 5 years.The data looks roughly like this:
1 July 2015 to 30 June 2017
1 July 2017 to 30 June 2019
1 July 2017 to 30 April 2021
143 Paid Parent Migration
Queue Wait-Time Forecast
Before getting into the formal forecast, I first need to make the following assumptions:
1.We assume that as soon as the new 2021 financial year opens, 941 quota places will be used in one go for applications lodged in May 2016, for the reason mentioned above — this financial year, because the quota has been exhausted, quite a few applications that have already paid the final contribution charge haven’t been granted yet. This means the new financial year effectively has only3600-941= 2,659 quota places left
2. We assume the remaining quota places will be distributed roughly evenly across the months, at around 220 per month.
3. The monthly lodgement numbers for 2016-2017 are as follows:
June 2016 alone had 1,880 applications, which would take almost 9 months to work through — meaning applications lodged in June 2016 might not finish processing until around March 2022, with 779 places left over. July 2016 had 610 applications lodged, and August 2016 had 719 applications lodged,which means, at most, next financial year’s quota would only be enough to process applications lodged up to August 2016…
The rough forecast table is as follows (click to view larger):
(Given the steep cuts to the quota over the past two years mentioned above, this financial year I only intend to forecast progress up to applications lodged by the end of 2016. I hope the quota improves in the financial year after next, so that I’ll be in a position to do a longer-term forecast then.)
Of course, these forecasts don’t yet account for the queue-jumping effect that could occur when 103 queue-based parent migration applicants convert to 143,especially since 103 applicants, now facing ever-longer wait times, may convert to 143 at any point, with their previous time in the queue all counted towards it….
If you have any other questions about parent migration queue wait times, feel free to add my WeChat directly
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Here I’ll update you on some questions commonly asked during consultations —
some of which have also changed during COVID.
Q&A
Q1. What are the basic requirements to lodge a parent migration application? Do you need to have held PR for 2 years before you can sponsor?
There are mainly two basic requirements for parent migration. First, you need to be “settled” in Australia as a permanent resident or citizen — under the definition in the migration regulations, “settled” basically means you’ve resided in Australia for a total of 2 years (including time spent on a temporary visa, such as while studying). So even if you’ve only just been granted PR, you may still be able to lodge an application for your parents as long as you’ve resided in Australia for 2 years in total. Second, you need to satisfy the balance-of-family test — in short, at least half or more of the children need to have already migrated to Australia. Most only-child families will certainly meet this requirement; but if, for example, a family has 3 children and only one of them holds PR, a parent migration application can’t be lodged.
Q2. I don’t currently have a job — can I still sponsor my parents for migration?
Yes, you can.
As I mentioned above, as long as you satisfy the settlement and balance-of-family tests, you can lodge the application first.
As for the income requirement — if you’re going to act as the Assurance of Support (AoS) financial sponsor for your parents yourself, this is only required once processing reaches that stage. You’d generally need to provide the ATO Tax Notice for the previous financial year at the time of processing, plus proof of income for the current year (a company letter plus payslips). If your personal income doesn’t meet the requirement, you can also have another Australian PR or citizen provide the AoS.
Q3. I’m not sure whether to lodge for both my parents together — can I lodge for just one of them first?
Yes, you can.
And before the visa is granted, if you later want to add the other parent to the application, that’s also possible — even if the fee has gone up by then, both of their fees will still be charged at the old rate! In addition, the queue time for the applicant added later is the same as that of the main applicant — in other words, there’s no need to re-join the queue.
There’s also another option: wait for one parent to be granted the visa first, then lodge a partner migration application for the other. But you need to wait five years after the grant before you can apply for partner migration (for this kind of long-term partner relationship, the processing time is currently around 1 to 1.5 years, usually covering both the temporary and permanent partner visa stages). The visa application charge for partner migration is currently AUD 7,160.
Q4. If I’ve already lodged my application, will a later fee increase affect it?
No, it won’t.
The Department’s rules on visa application charges follow the Migration Act, and the Act is very clear on this — the visa charge is locked in at the time of visa lodgement (Schedule 1). So the visa charges you’re required to pay, including the first-stage visa application charge and the second-stage contribution charge, are all fixed at the time you lodge your application and won’t change. Even if the price goes up later, it will only affect applications lodged after that point. A screenshot of the relevant provision in the Migration Act is below:
Q5. How is the visa lodgement date calculated? Do you need to receive a confirmation letter?
The lodgement date is the date the letter is signed for by the Department.
Parent migration visa applications are all lodged on paper — you need to mail the application form and supporting documents to the Department’s Western Australia office. The date your letter is signed for by the Department is the visa lodgement date; the confirmation letter usually takes around 2-4 weeks to arrive.
Q6. What is the full cost breakdown for the entire 143 process?
For the direct paid Subclass 143 parent migration pathway, the main costs consist of the following three parts:
First is the first-stage visa application charge, which is AUD 4,155 for the main applicant and AUD 1,400 per person for a secondary applicant (if aged 18 or over); a secondary applicant under 18 is AUD 705. (There’s usually a small increase each July.)
Second is the second-stage contribution charge (only payable once processing reaches the point just before the grant), currently priced at AUD 43,600 per person aged 18 or over, and AUD 2,095 for someone under 18 (as at the time of lodgement)
Third is the bank security bond (only needs to be arranged once processing reaches that stage) — as the sponsor, you’re required to provide a bond for each applicant aged 18 or over: AUD 10,000 if sponsoring one person, or AUD 14,000 for two. This bond can’t be withdrawn for 10 years; if the parent claims any Australian welfare benefits within those 10 years, the amount will be deducted from the bond. If no benefits are claimed within the 10 years, the full amount will be refunded.
Q7: What is a financial sponsor (Assurance of Support provider)? How exactly is the income requirement calculated?
As mentioned earlier, once your case reaches the processing stage, the visa officer will require an AoS (Assurance of Support) to be provided, and this needs to come from a financial sponsor.
The financial sponsor must be an adult, and must also be an Australian resident (residents include Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents); a single financial sponsor can sponsor a maximum of 2 adults at the same time, and there’s no limit on the number of children they can sponsor.
The income requirement for financial sponsors is another question many people ask about — there’s a specific formula for it:
Financial sponsor income requirement = annual Newstart Allowance x (number of financial sponsors + number of adult sponsored persons) + (annual Family Benefit Part A + Family Benefit Part A Supplement) x number of the financial sponsor’s minor children.
Note:
1. Newstart Allowance is calculated on the “single, with children” basis
2. “Income” means pre-tax income (the Taxable Income shown on the ATO’s Tax Notice)
3. There can be a maximum of 3 financial sponsors, and a maximum of 2 people can be sponsored at the same time
4. Applicants under the age of 18 are not counted.
5. Income in both the previous financial year and the current financial year must meet the requirement
The current Newstart Allowance is 595.1*26=$15472.6 per year
Family benefit Part A=58.66*26=$1525.16,
Family Benefit Part A Supplement=$737.3, and the total is $2262.46.
Assuming one person sponsors your parents plus a younger brother under 18, the income evidence the financial sponsor needs to provide is 15472.6*3 (1 sponsor + 2 adult sponsored persons) + 2262.46*1=$48,680.26.
Newstart Allowance and FBPA generally see a small annual increase, typically in the range of 3-5%.
The official government formula for calculating the financial sponsor’s income requirement is as follows:https://www.centrelink.gov.au/custsite_aoscalc/aoscalc/financialCalPage.jsf?prg_id=77a65e35c14b4f00a08a3b3f4b7e4eac&wec-appid=aoscalc&page=1C0EADC1A5804952B374580CFFB9BDFD&wec-locale=en_US#stay
Q8: What benefits can parents access once the parent migration visa is granted? When can they access the pension? Is there a residency requirement?
Once the parent migration visa is granted, what they can access straight away is mainly Australia’s universal healthcare, Medicare — most other benefits generally can’t be accessed until ten years after the grant. Their PR visa works the same as any other PR visa: generally you need to have resided in Australia for 2 years within a 5-year period to renew the next 5-year return visa; if you haven’t resided for 2 years, you’d generally only be able to renew a 1-year or shorter return visa.
Q9: Can I include my younger brother or sister when I lodge parent migration for my parents?
Yes, you can, but there are certain restrictions, and there are also corresponding costs.
Generally, if the sibling is under 18, they can be included directly as a dependent child — the visa application charge is AUD 650, and the second-stage charge is only AUD 2,095. And as I mentioned earlier, this AUD 2,095 is calculated based on their age at the time of lodgement, not their age at the time of processing!
If the sibling is over 18, it’s still possible to include them in the application, but they need to prove that they remain dependent on your parents (generally by still being in full-time study, with evidence that the parents are paying the tuition fees).But they also must not be over 23 at the time of grant, unless the application was lodged before 5 November 2018,because that’s when the Department changed the legislation governing family members. Given the ongoing lengthening of wait times, this means that for applications lodged after late 2018 that include a sibling, the sibling may no longer meet the family-member requirement by the time processing is reached, forcing their application to be withdrawn.
Q10: Is there anything to be aware of after a parent migration application has been lodged?
Parent migration now has a fairly long processing time, and there are generally a few things to keep in mind after lodgement, one being that you can’t be away from Australia for extended periods (given COVID at the moment, most people won’t be leaving unless there’s a special reason anyway). The migration law clearly requires that the sponsoring child be settled in Australia not just at the time of lodgement, but must also remain settled in Australia throughout the processing period. “Settled” generally means, within any given year, not being away for more than 3 months at a time,though of course, if you’ve already become a citizen, or if your trip back to China is for something closely tied to Australia (such as being posted by an Australian company to its China branch, for example), this may be an exception. During COVID we’ve also encountered cases where a sponsor was away from Australia for a relatively long time for such reasons, and after explaining this to the Department, they were still found to meet the requirement!
The other thing is to keep a close eye on your inbox and processing progress — generally, if you want to check your processing progress, you can send an email with any subject line to the Department at: “WA Parents”<parents@homeaffairs.gov.au> (please don’t send too frequently — some mailboxes may stop giving automated replies if contacted too often); the Department will usually reply automatically fairly quickly with the latest processing update.
3-6 months before your visa reaches processing, the Department will contact you to prepare any further documents needed, such as police clearances, medical examinations, AoS, and so on.
Q11. If you’re already queued on 103, can you convert to 143? Can 143 convert to the aged 864 queue?
Queue-based parent migration can be converted to the paid stream at any time, and the time already spent in the queue can be counted towards it.You just need to withdraw the queue-based application first and lodge a new paid application at the same time — an additional new visa application charge will need to be paid.
Given how long the 143 wait time now is, some people also often ask whether they can wait until they reach the aged-parent age and then switch to the aged 864 parent migration stream?This is also possible, except that the time already spent queuing on 143 won’t be counted towards it — you’ll need to start the queue again from scratch 🙁
If you have any other questions about parent migration applications or processing, feel free to add my WeChat directly
That’s it for this parent migration update.
We hope everyone is reunited with their parents in Australia soon!
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