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After three months of a ‘trial run’, have visitor visas finally been ‘put back on track’?
For some time, the Department of Home Affairs had generally been granting Australian Subclass 600 visitor visas with only six months’ validity, multiple entries and a three-month stay per visit. Even parents of permanent residents who had completed medical examinations were only receiving six-month multiple-entry visas allowing six months per visit.
But finally, from this week, grants have returned to their previous validity periods and permitted lengths of stay.
We have already received a grant for a regular visitor with one year’s validity, multiple entries and a three-month stay per visit (pictured at the top).
Parents of permanent residents who had previously visited Australia have also successfully received three-year multiple-entry visitor visas allowing one year per visit (pictured at the top).
However, we have not yet seen a return to the previous situation where parents of permanent residents could receive five-year multiple-entry visas after lodging a parent migration application and receiving an acknowledgement letter. We will update you as soon as we receive any such cases.
Key risk: the effect of condition 8503, No Further Stay
It is also important to emphasise that the visitor visas we are seeing still commonly carry condition 8503, No Further Stay. So, for those who had planned for their parents to enter on a visitor visa and then switch to a Subclass 864 Contributory Aged Parent visa or another visa, that pathway still appears unavailable at present. Conditions such as 8558 and 8501, which applied to the previous three-year visas, are also still included.
How to plan if you already hold a short six-month Subclass 600 visa
If you applied for a visitor visa in the past few months and received only six months’ validity, you can choose to use your existing visa, leave as originally planned, and apply again for a three-year visa after it expires.
Alternatively, if you genuinely need a longer validity period and a longer stay, you can submit a new application at any time. Once granted, the new visa will automatically replace the old one. You can arrange this flexibly to suit your circumstances.
Also updated: processing of Australian parent migration and family visas
Let’s also look at the current state of parent migration processing.
So far, offshore parent migration processing remains largely paused, with no significant progress seen for either Subclass 103 or 143.
The offshore components of partner and child migration in the family stream have also seen virtually no movement.
By contrast, processing of offshore skilled migration and employer-sponsored migration applications has gradually begun to move forward.
Meanwhile, onshore Subclass 864 Contributory Aged Parent visa applications are still being processed with requests for further documents, but recently many cases have stalled at the final grant stage, even after all Assurance of Support (AoS) documents have been supplied. We have no idea what the Department is up to, or whether it is planning further adjustments.
This return to the previous visitor visa settings is a rare piece of good news lately! Although condition 8503 remains, it at least makes it easier for parents to visit Australia whenever they wish and stay for longer. Hopefully this is just a good start, with more good news to come!
