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The Parent Visa Landscape

Before you can choose a pathway, you need the map. There are six permanent parent visa subclasses, plus a separate temporary sponsored option. They look bewildering at first, but they are the same idea sorted along three lines: how you pay, where the parent is, and whether the visa is permanent. Once you can see those three lines, the whole system falls into place.

This chapter is general information, not advice about your family's situation. It does not create any agent and client relationship. Use it to understand your options, then research the specific pathway that fits.

The three questions that sort everything

Every parent visa pathway in this kit answers three questions. Hold these in your head and the rest is detail.

1. Contributory or non-contributory? Contributory visas require a large financial contribution per parent, and in exchange the wait is measured in years rather than decades. Non-contributory visas cost little to lodge, but the wait is measured in decades. There is no cheap, fast option. See the Current Fees and Figures page for the charges and the current indicative waits.
2. Onshore or offshore? Some parent visas must be lodged while the parent is inside Australia (onshore), others while the parent is outside Australia (offshore). This is not a preference, it is a hard requirement of each subclass, and getting it wrong invalidates the application.
3. Permanent or temporary? Most parent visas are permanent. Two of them are temporary first steps that let a parent pay a smaller contribution now and pay the balance later when they move to the permanent visa. The temporary visa is never the destination, only the doorway.

The six permanent subclasses

Subclass	Contributory?	Onshore or offshore	Permanent?	Aged only?
103 Parent	No	Offshore	Yes	No
804 Aged Parent	No	Onshore	Yes	Yes
143 Contributory Parent	Yes	Offshore	Yes	No
173 Contributory Parent (Temporary)	Yes (first stage)	Offshore	Temporary	No
864 Contributory Aged Parent	Yes	Onshore	Yes	Yes
884 Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary)	Yes (first stage)	Onshore	Temporary	Yes

"Aged only" means the parent must have reached age pension age to qualify. See the Current Fees and Figures page for the current pension age. The aged subclasses (804, 864, 884) are the onshore family; the others are lodged offshore.

Contributory versus non-contributory: the central trade-off

This is the decision that dominates everything, so be clear about it.

The non-contributory visas (103 and 804) are cheap to lodge. There is no large contribution. But the queue is extraordinarily long, measured in decades. For many families this is not a pathway a parent can realistically expect to live to see granted. See the Current Fees and Figures page for the current indicative wait.

The contributory visas (143, 173, 864, 884) require a substantial contribution per parent, paid as a second instalment. A couple pays it twice, once for each parent. In exchange, the wait shrinks from decades to years. The onshore aged contributory pathway (884 then 864) is currently the fastest of all, and it lets a pension-age parent already in Australia remain here on a bridging visa for the whole wait. See the Current Fees and Figures page for the charges and current waits.

For how the wait itself works, how a queue date compares to the current queue release date, and why the two contributory and non-contributory queues move at such different speeds, see 16 The Parent Visa Queue.

The temporary two-step: 173 and 884

The two temporary subclasses exist for one reason: to spread the large contributory cost over time. Instead of paying the full contribution at once, the parent pays a smaller first-stage contribution, holds a temporary visa, and then applies for the permanent visa and pays the balance.

• 04 Subclass 173 Contributory Parent (Temporary) is the offshore first step toward the permanent 03 Subclass 143 Contributory Parent.
• 06 Subclass 884 Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary) is the onshore first step toward the permanent 05 Subclass 864 Contributory Aged Parent.

What every permanent parent visa has in common

Whichever pathway you choose, the same core requirements apply to the four permanent subclasses (143, 864, 103 and 804):

• The balance of family test. At least half the parent's children must live in Australia as eligible residents, or more must live in Australia than in any other single country. This is the gate. If it is not met, none of the six visas in this kit is available. Read 02 The Balance of Family Test before anything else, and use the Balance of Family Test Calculator to count your own children against the rule.
• A sponsor. An eligible child (or in limited cases the child's partner, or an approved community organisation) sponsors the parent and accepts formal undertakings.
• An assurance of support. An assurer, approved by Services Australia, lodges a financial assurance and pays a bond. This obligation runs for a long period. See the Current Fees and Figures page.
• Health and character. These are assessed at two points: an initial assessment at the queuing stage and a final assessment when the application is allocated for decision, and they must be current at grant. On a long queue those points can be many years apart, which is why a parent can pass the initial check and still fail at the end.

The temporary contributory subclasses (173 and 884) share the balance of family test, the sponsorship requirement and the health and character checks, but no assurance of support is lodged at the temporary stage. The assurance arrives when the parent moves to the permanent subclass 143 or 864.

The separate option: subclass 870 Sponsored Parent (Temporary)

There is one more parent visa that sits outside the six above. The subclass 870 Sponsored Parent (Temporary) lets an approved sponsor bring a parent to Australia temporarily for an extended visit. It is not a pathway to permanent residence and does not lead to any of the visas above. It requires the sponsoring child to be approved as a parent sponsor before the visa application is made, carries a two-stage charge, and requires the parent to hold adequate health insurance for the life of the visa. See the Current Fees and Figures page for the charges. The 870 has its own chapter: see 17 Subclass 870 Sponsored Parent (Temporary) for the full treatment.

Reading the rest of the kit

Read 02 The Balance of Family Test next, because it decides whether any of this is open to your family at all. Then read the chapter for the specific subclass that fits your parent's age, location and budget. The Current Fees and Figures page holds every current number.

You choose one subclass and lodge one application. You cannot run two parent visa applications at the same time, so the choice of subclass matters from the start.