Form 80: How to Complete Your Personal Particulars Without Errors

What is Form 80?

Form 80 asks for an applicant's full personal history. Its full title is Personal particulars for assessment including character assessment. It is a 19 page form issued by the Department of Home Affairs, it runs from Part A to Part T, and it contains 54 numbered questions. The current version carries the design date 03/21.

Form 80 is not only a criminal history form. Part D requires a complete address history. Part E requires a complete record of international travel. Part F requires every period of employment and every period of unemployment. Part G requires tertiary education and qualifications. Part Q requires details of a partner, children, parents, siblings and personal contacts in Australia. Part K is the character section, and it is one part of a much larger document.

That distinction matters, because it explains how the form is used. A case officer treats Form 80 as a master timeline for the applicant's life. Every date on the form can be compared against passport stamps, the movement records the Department already holds, the employment and study evidence on the file, and the statements filed in support of the application. Where the form and the evidence disagree, the case officer must resolve the difference, and the applicant will be asked to explain it.

The declaration at Part S sets the standard the form is judged by. The applicant declares that the information supplied "is complete, correct and up-to-date in every detail". The warning printed directly above that declaration reads: "Giving false or misleading information is a serious offence." Those two lines are the whole reason Form 80 needs to be treated as a legal document rather than an administrative chore. Applicants who are preparing a partner visa application can read how the wider application fits together on the partner visa lawyers page.

Who has to complete Form 80?

Any visa applicant aged 16 or over must complete Form 80 when the office processing the application requests it. Page 1 of the form states that it "is to be completed in English by applicants who are 16 years of age or over, as requested by the office processing the application".

Form 80 is therefore a requested document rather than a universal lodgement requirement. A request is common in partner visa matters, in protection visa matters, and in any application where the applicant has lived in more than one country, has a long travel history, or has disclosed a criminal, military or security matter. Applicants for the Subclass 820 onshore partner visa and the Subclass 309 offshore partner visa are frequently asked for one. So are applicants for the Subclass 866 protection visa.

Two points about scope are missed regularly. First, the age threshold is 16, not 18. A dependent child aged 16 or 17 who is included in a family application can be required to complete a separate Form 80 in their own name. Second, the character question at Part K is not limited to the person signing the form. Question 36 asks whether the applicant "or any other person included in this application" has ever been charged, convicted or otherwise caught by the matters listed. A conviction belonging to a secondary applicant must be disclosed on the primary applicant's form.

The form must be completed in English. Where the original document is in another language, the answer still goes on the form in English, and the supporting document is provided with a translation. Names are answered as they appear in official documents. Question 1 directs the applicant to give details "as they appear in your official documents", and where a person has one name only, that name goes in the family name field.

What Form 80 is actually used for

Form 80 is used to assess character, to confirm identity, and to test the consistency of everything else on the file. The character requirement is the most visible of the three. The character requirements are set out under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958, and public interest criterion 4001 in Schedule 4 to the Migration Regulations 1994 requires that the applicant satisfies the Minister that the applicant passes the character test, or that the Minister is satisfied after appropriate inquiries that there is nothing to indicate that the applicant would fail to satisfy the Minister on that question.

Identity is the second use. Part A captures every other name the applicant has ever used, including a name at birth, a name before or after marriage, an adoptive or foster name, an alias or pseudonym, a cultural, tribal or clan name, a preferred name, and other spellings. Part B captures every passport and travel document, including expired, lost and stolen documents. Part C captures national identity documents and numbers, including birth registration numbers and social security cards. Those answers are what allow the Department to link a person to records held under a different spelling or a different document.

The third use is the one that causes most of the trouble. Form 80 produces a continuous timeline, and the Department compares that timeline against everything else. A partner visa applicant who tells the Department that the relationship began in one year, and then files a Form 80 showing that the applicant was living and working in another country for that entire year, has created a problem that did not need to exist. The same is true of a protection visa applicant whose Form 80 travel history shows a return visit to the country of claimed harm. The return visit may be entirely explicable. It is far better explained in the application than after a case officer finds it.

What each part of Form 80 asks for

Form 80 is divided into 20 parts, lettered A to T, and each part has its own rules about what counts as a complete answer. The parts below are the ones that generate the most requests for further information.

### Parts A to C: names, citizenship and identity documents

Part A covers names, sex, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship. Question 4 requires every other name the applicant has been known by, including a name at birth, a name before or after marriage, an adoptive or foster name, an alias or pseudonym, a cultural or tribal name, a clan or subclan name, a preferred name, and other spellings of a name. A woman who has used a maiden name, and a person whose name is transliterated differently on different documents, must both answer yes here.

Question 2 asks whether the applicant uses a Chinese Commercial Code Number, and question 3 asks for a patronymic name where the applicant is of Russian descent. Question 5 asks whether the applicant has ever had a different date of birth from the one given at question 1. Questions 6 to 8 cover current citizenship, every previous and dual citizenship, and permanent residency rights in any other country. There is an express option for a person who is stateless.

Part B covers passports and travel documents. It is not limited to the current document. Question 11 asks about "any previous passports or travel documents (including expired, lost or stolen documents)", and question 12 requires the applicant to say what happened to each one. Part C covers national identity documents and numbers, including birth registration numbers and social security cards, whether currently held or held at any time in the past.

### Part D: contact details and address history

Part D requires every email address and every current telephone number, followed by the address history. Question 15 contains an instruction that is easy to miss: the applicant must include all personal, student and work email addresses, and must not include migration agent or legal practitioner email addresses.

Question 17 is the address history. The standard requirement is the last 10 years. An applicant for a refugee or humanitarian visa must provide all addresses for the last 30 years. The answer must include addresses inside and outside Australia, places the applicant resided for study or work, refugee camps, and any other place the applicant has resided, including share houses, university residences and temporary accommodation. The form requires the history in chronological order with no gaps in the timeline. Where there is a gap, the applicant must explain it at Part T.

That last rule is the single most common source of a further information request. A month spent staying with a relative between two leases is an address. A period in short term accommodation on arrival in Australia is an address. Leaving it out creates a gap, and a gap has to be explained.

### Parts E and F: travel, employment and unemployment

Part E requires all international travel other than to Australia in the last 10 years, again extended to 30 years for a refugee or humanitarian visa applicant. The form specifically includes work or study outside the usual country of residence, holiday and leisure trips, business travel, military deployment, and visits back to the applicant's own country. Short trips count. A weekend across a land border counts.

Part F is the part applicants most often get wrong, because it requires both employment and unemployment. Employment includes all paid employment, self-employment and family business, work experience and internships, and unpaid or volunteer work. Unemployment includes the period from the applicant's date of birth up until first employment, all gaps and breaks between jobs, and all gaps between periods of education. Where the applicant is retired, the form requires "CURRENTLY RETIRED" in the name of business field. Where the applicant has never worked, the form requires the date of birth in the date from field and "NEVER WORKED" in the name of business field.

For each period of unemployment the applicant must provide details of how the time was occupied and how the applicant financially supported themselves. Business names must be given in full with no abbreviations, and the address of each business must be a street address, not a post office box. As with Part D, the timeline must be continuous, and any gap must be explained at Part T.

### Parts G to J: education, plans and Australian visa history

Part G covers tertiary education and qualifications, including college and vocational schools, university, research and thesis work, specialist training, and skill or trade qualifications. Each entry needs the full name of the institution with no abbreviations, the full course name, and a course status of completed, withdrew or currently enrolled. An applicant for a refugee and humanitarian visa must provide details of all education and qualifications since birth.

Part H deals with proposed travel for an applicant outside Australia, or the reason for remaining in Australia for an applicant who is onshore. Part I covers addresses in Australia that have not already been declared at question 17, and it states that a post office box is not acceptable. Part J is the Australian visa history: the current visa for an onshore applicant, and every previous visa, entry and departure for anyone who has been to Australia before.

### Parts L to R: military service, refusals, family and sponsors

Part L asks whether the applicant has undertaken any military service, defined to include compulsory service, conscription, military training, voluntary service and professional service. The answer of no is not the end of it. The form requires the applicant who answers no to give reasons. An applicant from a country with compulsory national service must explain why it did not apply to them, for example an exemption, a deferral or an age bracket.

Part M asks about employment as an intelligence officer or an agent of an intelligence or security agency. Part N asks whether the applicant has ever been refused a visa to any country. Part O asks whether the applicant has ever been excluded, asked to leave, deported or removed from any country. Part P asks whether citizenship of any country has ever been refused, renounced or rescinded.

Part Q covers associated people, and the definitions are wider than applicants expect. A partner includes a wife, husband, fiance, boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other and de facto partner, and a widowed applicant must give details for the deceased partner. Children include biological and adopted children, children from a current or previous marriage, all step-children, and deceased children. Parents include biological, adopted and step parents, legal guardians and deceased parents. Siblings include full, half and adopted brothers and sisters. Part Q also requires personal contacts in Australia, defined to include visa sponsors, relatives, friends, family members and acquaintances.

Part R applies where the applicant is sponsored by, or associated with, a business or organisation in Australia. Part T is where every answer that does not fit in the space provided goes, keyed to the question number. The form also permits a separate statement to be attached where Part T is not enough.

How to answer Part K, the character questions

Part K must be answered honestly, in full, and with supporting court documents where the answer is yes. Question 36 is a single question with a long list of matters, and it is drafted deliberately to capture things that a criminal record check in the applicant's own country would not show.

The list includes any offence currently awaiting legal action, any conviction in any country, family or domestic violence offences, arrest warrants and Interpol notices, findings of guilt for a sexually based offence involving a child even where no conviction was recorded, inclusion on a sex offender register, acquittal on the grounds of unsoundness of mind or insanity, and a finding that the applicant was not fit to plead. It also covers involvement in or association with activities representing a risk to national security in Australia or any other country, charges or indictments for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, slavery or other crimes of serious international concern, association with a person, group or organisation involved in criminal conduct, and association with an organisation engaged in violence or acts of violence, which the form defines to include war, insurgency, freedom fighting, terrorism and protest.

The list then covers service in a military force, police force, state sponsored or private militia or intelligence agency, including secret police, and any military or paramilitary training or training in weapons, explosives or the manufacture of chemical or biological products. It covers involvement in people smuggling or people trafficking offences, removal, deportation or exclusion from any country including Australia, overstaying a visa in any country including Australia, and outstanding debts to the Australian Government or any public authority in Australia.

Three points on Part K are worth stating plainly, because they are handled incorrectly so often.

The first concerns spent convictions. The form requires disclosure of a conviction in any country "including any conviction which is now removed from official records". A spent conviction scheme in the applicant's home state or home country may mean the conviction no longer appears on a police certificate. It does not remove the obligation to declare it on Form 80. Non-disclosure on the basis that a conviction is spent is a common and serious error.

The second concerns protection orders. Question 36 asks whether the applicant has been the subject of a domestic or family violence order, or any other order of a tribunal, court or similar authority, for the personal protection of another person. The form then explains the limit of that question: an order is only declared where the applicant is the respondent or subject of the order, and it is not declared where the applicant is the person requiring personal protection. An applicant who was protected by an order does not declare it. An applicant who was named as the respondent does, even where the order was made by consent and without admissions.

The third concerns evidence. Where the answer to any part of question 36 is yes, the form requires the date of the charge, the outcome and any penalty imposed, together with court documents such as sentencing remarks or court transcripts, and a copy of any declared order. A bare yes with a one line explanation will produce a request for further information and will delay the decision.

The errors that most often cause problems on Form 80

The errors that cause the most damage are gaps in the timelines, a spent conviction left undeclared, and answers that contradict the rest of the application. None of them are difficult to avoid, and all of them are easier to fix before the form is lodged.

Gaps in the address, travel and employment timelines are the most frequent. The form is explicit that each of these must run in chronological order with no gaps, and that any gap must be explained at Part T. Applicants often reconstruct the last 10 years from memory, produce a timeline with three months missing in the middle, and assume the omission will not be noticed. The Department holds its own movement records, so a gap in the travel history is usually the easiest thing on the whole form to detect.

Under-reporting the required period is the second. Ten years is the standard for addresses and travel. Thirty years applies where the application is for a refugee or humanitarian visa, and thirty years of all education and qualifications applies as well. An applicant for a Subclass 866 protection visa who completes Form 80 on the 10 year basis has given an incomplete answer to a question that is central to the assessment of their claims.

Treating the character list as a criminal record check is the third. Question 36 asks about military service, police service, intelligence work, weapons training, association with organisations engaged in violence, visa overstays in any country, and debts to the Australian Government. None of those matters would appear on a criminal record. Each of them must still be declared.

Inconsistency with the rest of the application is the fourth, and it is the one most likely to affect the outcome. The employment history on Form 80 must agree with the employment evidence. The address history must agree with the relationship evidence in a partner application and with the account of events in a protection application. The travel history must agree with the passport. Where any of these conflict, the applicant is inviting the decision maker to consider whether an answer was false or misleading.

Two smaller errors are worth naming. Applicants regularly enter their lawyer's email address at question 15, which the form expressly excludes. Applicants also regularly answer no at Part L without giving reasons, when the form requires reasons from an applicant who answers no.

What happens if an answer on Form 80 is incorrect

An incorrect answer on Form 80 can lead to refusal of the application, cancellation of a visa already granted, and a bar on further applications. It is not treated as a clerical problem.

The starting point is section 101 of the Migration Act 1958, which provides that a non-citizen must fill in or complete his or her application form in such a way that all questions on it are answered and no incorrect answers are given or provided. Form 80 is part of the material supporting the application, and the same standard of accuracy applies to it. Section 100 deals with incorrect answers, section 104 requires changes in circumstances to be notified, and section 107 allows the Department to give a notice where it considers there may have been non-compliance. Section 109 allows a visa to be cancelled where information was incorrect.

The provision with the sharpest consequences is public interest criterion 4020 in Schedule 4 to the Migration Regulations 1994, known as the integrity criterion. Clause 4020(1) requires that there is no evidence before the Minister that the applicant has given, or caused to be given, a bogus document or information that is false or misleading in a material particular in relation to the application, or in relation to a visa the applicant held in the 12 months before the application was made. Clause 4020(5) defines information that is false or misleading in a material particular as information that is false or misleading at the time it is given, and relevant to any of the criteria the Minister may consider, whether or not the decision is made because of that information.

That definition is wider than most applicants assume. The information does not have to change the outcome. It only has to be relevant to a criterion and untrue when it was given.

A refusal under clause 4020(1) does not end with the refusal. Clause 4020(2) then requires the Minister to be satisfied that, in the period starting three years before the application was made and ending when the decision is made, neither the applicant nor any member of the applicant's family unit has been refused a visa for failing clause 4020(1). That is the three year non-grant period, and it attaches to the family unit, not only to the person who made the error. A separate identity requirement in clause 4020(2A), and a ten year non-grant period in clause 4020(2B), apply where an applicant fails to satisfy the Minister as to identity.

There is a waiver, and it is narrow. Clause 4020(4) allows the Minister to waive clause 4020(1)(a) or (b) and clause 4020(2) where satisfied that compelling circumstances affecting the interests of Australia, or compassionate or compelling circumstances affecting the interests of an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen, justify granting the visa. There is no waiver at all for the identity requirements in clause 4020(2A) or the ten year period in clause 4020(2B). Applicants whose application has already been refused on this ground can read about the review pathway on the visa refusals page.

How to correct a mistake after Form 80 has been lodged

A mistake on a lodged Form 80 is corrected by notifying the Department in writing, in the approved form, as soon as practicable. Section 105 of the Migration Act 1958 provides that where a non-citizen becomes aware that an answer given or provided in his or her application form was incorrect when it was given, he or she must, as soon as practicable, notify an officer in writing of the incorrectness and of the correct answer. Section 105(2) provides that this applies despite the grant of any visa. The obligation does not stop when the visa is granted.

The approved form for this is Form 1023 Notification of incorrect answer(s). It is used to tell the Department about information that was incorrect when it was given, whether in a visa application, on a passenger card, or in response to a notice inviting comment on possible non-compliance. Form 1023 itself warns that a failure to comply with the requirement to advise the Department of incorrect information leaves the visa liable to cancellation under the Migration Act 1958.

Form 1023 is the wrong form where nothing was wrong at the time. Where an answer was correct when given and circumstances have since changed, the correct form is Form 1022 Notification of changes in circumstances. A new address, a change in relationship status, a new passport or the birth of a child is a change in circumstances. A missing employer or an undeclared conviction is an incorrect answer.

The practical point is timing. Correcting an answer voluntarily, promptly, and with the supporting documents attached is a materially different position from having the same error identified by a case officer months later. Voluntary correction does not guarantee any particular outcome, and it does not remove the Department's power to consider clause 4020. It does, however, put the applicant in the position of having complied with section 105 rather than having breached it.

How My Migration Lawyers prepares Form 80

My Migration Lawyers prepares Form 80 by reconstructing the applicant's history from the documents on the file, testing it against the rest of the application, and giving the applicant the completed draft to check and correct before it is signed.

The work is document led. Passports and travel documents are read page by page to build the travel history. Leases, employment records, study records and identity documents are used to build the address, employment and education timelines. Where the documents leave a gap, the gap is identified and put to the applicant, and the explanation is written into Part T rather than left blank. Where there is a criminal matter, the court documents that Part K requires are obtained before the form is lodged, not after a case officer asks for them.

The form is the applicant's own evidence. My Migration Lawyers does not supply an account of the applicant's history. The firm sets out the applicant's own account and the applicant's own documents in the form the Department requires, the applicant reads the completed form, corrects anything that is wrong, and the applicant signs the declaration at Part S. Where an answer is genuinely uncertain, that is dealt with openly on the form rather than guessed at.

Form 80 is also read alongside everything else that has been filed. In a partner matter the timeline is checked against the relationship evidence and the Form 888 statements. In a protection visa matter it is checked against the statement of claims and the country information, because a travel or address entry that contradicts the claims is a problem best resolved before lodgement.

Weiwei Zhang, Principal Lawyer at My Migration Lawyers, reviews Form 80 in each matter the firm conducts. Applicants who want a lawyer to prepare or review their Form 80 can request a consultation online.