Subclass 820 Partner Visa: Complete Guide to Requirements, Cost and Processing Times

What the subclass 820 partner visa is

The subclass 820 is the temporary stage of Australia's onshore partner visa. It lets the spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen live, work and study in Australia while the Department decides whether to grant permanent residence.

The word "onshore" is doing real work in that sentence. You must be physically in Australia on the day you lodge, and in most cases you need to be in Australia when the 820 is decided. If you are outside Australia, the subclass 309 offshore partner visa is the equivalent pathway.

The 820 does not stand alone. When you lodge, you are lodging two applications at once: the temporary 820 and the permanent subclass 801. You pay one application charge, submit one set of evidence, and the Department assesses the 820 first. Roughly two years after your original lodgement date it returns to the same file and decides the 801. There is no second application and no second government fee.

That two-stage structure catches people out. A grant of the 820 is not the end of the matter. It gives you lawful status, full work rights and Medicare access, but the Department will ask you to confirm the relationship is continuing before the permanent stage is decided.

Who can apply for a subclass 820 visa

There are four things the Department is assessing, and they are assessed separately.

The sponsor. Your partner must be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen, and must be approved as your sponsor. Sponsors who have sponsored partners before may be caught by the sponsorship limitations in reg 1.20J, which restrict how many partner visas one person can sponsor and how far apart.

The relationship. You must be either married under a marriage recognised in Australian law, or in a de facto relationship. For de facto applicants the general rule is that the relationship must have existed for at least 12 months before lodgement. That period is not required where the relationship is registered under a state or territory relationship register, where there is a dependent child, or in limited compelling circumstances.

Same-sex and LGBTIQ+ couples apply on exactly the same terms as any other couple. There is no separate subclass and no additional requirement, although the practical evidence questions can be different, which we cover on our page for same-sex partner visa applicants.

Your visa status at lodgement. This is where onshore applications most often go wrong. If you do not hold a substantive visa when you lodge, Schedule 3 of the Migration Regulations applies, and you must ask the Department to waive those criteria. A Schedule 3 waiver is not automatic and it is not a formality. If your current visa carries a no further stay condition, you cannot lodge at all until that condition is waived.

Health and character. Every applicant needs a health examination and police certificates from every country where they have lived for 12 months or more in the past ten years. Undisclosed history is treated far more seriously than the history itself.

What evidence a subclass 820 application needs

The Department assesses a relationship across four areas set out in Migration Regulation 1.15A, and a strong application addresses all four rather than overloading one.

Financial aspects. Joint accounts, shared liabilities, evidence of pooled income, shared major purchases, and who pays for what. Two people who keep entirely separate finances can still succeed, but that needs explaining rather than ignoring.

Nature of the household. A shared lease or mortgage, both names on utilities, mail addressed to both of you at the same address, and a clear account of how the household runs day to day.

Social aspects. Evidence that the relationship is known to other people. Joint invitations, photographs across a span of time rather than one event, travel together, and statutory declarations from friends and family who know you both.

Nature of the commitment. How long you have been together, how much time you spend apart and why, whether you have made wills or nominated each other as beneficiaries, and your plans.

Two failures recur. The first is volume without range: five hundred photographs and nothing showing joint finances. The second is a gap that goes unexplained. Periods living apart, separate finances or a short relationship history are not fatal, but silence about them is what invites a refusal. Our subclass 820 guide sets out what to gather in each of the four areas.

How much a subclass 820 visa costs

From 1 July 2026 the Department application charge is AUD 11,710 for most primary applicants, up from 9,365. That charge is paid once at lodgement and covers both the 820 and the 801.

Additional applicants cost more. A dependent applicant aged 18 or over attracts roughly half the base charge, and a dependent under 18 roughly a quarter. A credit card surcharge applies to online payments.

Applicants who already hold a subclass 300 prospective marriage visa pay a substantially reduced charge when they lodge the 820, with a slightly higher figure applying where the 300 has already ceased.

Beyond the government charge, budget for health examinations, police certificates from each relevant country, certified translations of any document not in English, and professional fees if you are represented.

The application charge is not refundable if the application is refused or withdrawn. That single fact is the strongest argument for getting the application right before lodgement rather than after.

How long a subclass 820 visa takes

On the Department's own published figures, 50% of subclass 820 applications are decided within 23 months and 90% within 29 months. In practice that means you should plan for roughly two years, and a minority of applications will run past two and a half.

Three things drive the timeframe more than anything else. Incomplete evidence at lodgement, because a request for further information restarts the clock rather than pausing it. Character or health issues requiring further assessment. And Schedule 3 or waiver questions, which are decided before the substantive relationship assessment.

While you wait, if your existing visa expires, you will usually be granted a Bridging Visa A. That keeps you lawful and generally carries full work rights, which is why most onshore applicants can keep working throughout.

What happens after the 820 is granted, and if things go wrong

The 820 grant gives you lawful status, unrestricted work rights, study rights and access to Medicare. It does not give you permanent residence and it does not give you citizenship eligibility yet.

Roughly two years from your original lodgement date, the Department will contact you about the 801. You will need to confirm the relationship is continuing and provide updated evidence covering the intervening period. Keep gathering documents after the 820 is granted rather than starting again when the request arrives.

Between the 820 grant and the 801 decision, keep your details current in ImmiAccount and tell the Department if your circumstances change materially, including a change of address, the birth of a child, or a period living apart. Silence followed by a surprise is worse than a timely update.

It is also worth diarising the date two years from your lodgement. The 801 request does not always arrive promptly, and applicants who have moved on with their lives are often caught unprepared when it does.

If the relationship ends before the 801 is decided, you are not automatically out of options. The family violence provisions may allow the permanent visa to be granted where the relationship ended because of family violence, and there are separate provisions where there is a child of the relationship or the sponsor has died.

If the 820 is refused, there is usually a right of review to the Administrative Review Tribunal, but the deadline is short and strict. Our page on partner visa refusals explains how that deadline runs and what the review involves.

If you want the application assessed before you lodge, our partner visa lawyers can review your circumstances and tell you what your evidence is missing. You can book a consultation online.