Australia Partner Visa (Subclass 820/801) Explained

A quick but important note before anything else: the basic structure of Australia's Partner visa — a combined subclass 820 (temporary) and subclass 801 (permanent) application, assessed against a genuine and continuing relationship — has been stable for a long time, but the visa application charge, current processing times, and the exact sponsorship limitation and its exceptions are all set or reviewed by the Department of Home Affairs and change from time to time. This article explains how the pathway fits together structurally. It does not state a current application fee, a current processing time in months or years, or a current sponsorship-limit number as fixed fact, because none of those can be responsibly quoted without checking the current position on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au. Always confirm current fees, processing times, and sponsorship rules directly on the Department of Home Affairs website before any of this informs a case plan.

For a consultancy handling Australia-bound clients who are married to, or in a de facto relationship with, an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen, the Partner visa is often the most document-heavy and relationship-scrutinised case type in the file — not because the underlying idea is complicated, but because the assessment turns on evidence a couple accumulates over months or years, not on a single form filled in correctly. Understanding the structure clearly — what subclass 820 and subclass 801 each do, what a genuine and continuing relationship needs to show, and where sponsorship limits and other requirements sit — is what lets a consultancy set an honest expectation with a couple, instead of a hopeful guess.

What subclass 820 and subclass 801 actually are

Subclass 820 and subclass 801 are not two separate visas a couple applies for one after another. They are two stages assessed from a single combined application — generally lodged with one application and one fee — while the applicant is in Australia. Subclass 820 is the temporary Partner visa stage, and subclass 801 is the permanent Partner visa stage that normally follows it once the relationship continues to be assessed as genuine at a later point in time.

Because both stages come from one combined application, a couple does not need to gather an entirely fresh set of evidence for the permanent stage — but they do generally need to show the relationship has continued to be genuine in the intervening period, which is why keeping evidence current across the life of the case matters as much as what was submitted at lodgement.

Who qualifies: a genuine and continuing relationship

Eligibility centers on being in a genuine and continuing relationship — married or de facto — with a partner who is an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident, or an eligible New Zealand citizen. A de facto relationship generally needs to show the couple has been living together as a couple for a period commonly discussed as around twelve months, though a relationship registered under state or territory law, or a case involving compelling circumstances such as a shared child, can be treated differently. Exactly how these exceptions apply to a given couple is the kind of detail that should be checked against current Department of Home Affairs guidance rather than assumed from a previous case.

"Genuine and continuing" is the phrase that does most of the work in an assessment, and it is tested through evidence rather than through a couple's own account of their relationship alone. The Department of Home Affairs generally organises that evidence across four broad categories, and a well-prepared case gathers something in each of them rather than leaning heavily on just one:

This four-category structure is a stable and well-documented feature of how Australian partner visa evidence is organised, and it is worth explaining to a couple early, since it changes how they collect documents. Rather than saving everything until the application is due, couples who understand the four categories from the outset tend to build a habit of keeping joint statements, receipts, photographs, and correspondence as the relationship progresses, which produces a stronger and more chronologically coherent file than one assembled retroactively.

Onshore application, and the offshore alternative

The subclass 820/801 pathway is specifically the onshore route: the applicant generally needs to already be in Australia, and generally needs to hold a substantive visa or otherwise meet the onshore application requirements, at the time the combined application is lodged. A couple where the applicant is living outside Australia at the relevant time generally applies instead through the offshore Partner visa pathway — subclass 309 (temporary) and subclass 100 (permanent) — which follows a broadly similar genuine-relationship assessment but is lodged, and largely processed, while the applicant remains outside the country. This article keeps its focus on the onshore 820/801 pathway rather than covering the offshore route in depth, but a consultancy should confirm early which pathway actually applies to a given couple's circumstances, since applying under the wrong one is not a simple correction later.

Sponsorship: eligibility, and the limit on how many times someone can sponsor

The Australian partner also has a role in the application as the sponsor, and needs to meet sponsorship eligibility requirements of their own — generally including being an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident, or an eligible New Zealand citizen, generally being of a minimum age, and undergoing character checks as part of being approved to sponsor. Separately, Australian law places a limit on the number of times a person can sponsor a partner for this visa over their lifetime, with limited exceptions considered in some circumstances. We deliberately do not state that limit, or the detail of its exceptions, as a fixed number here — sponsorship limitation rules are the kind of policy detail that is reviewed by the Department of Home Affairs, and a figure repeated from an earlier case or a colleague's recollection is not a safe basis for advising a new client. The current sponsorship limitation and its exceptions should always be confirmed on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au for the specific sponsor in question.

Health, character, and other requirements

Beyond the relationship itself, both the applicant and, in some respects, the sponsor are subject to health and character requirements that apply broadly across Australian visa categories — generally including a health examination for the applicant and police certificates covering relevant periods of residence, alongside broader character requirements assessed against the applicant's and sponsor's history. Australian partner visa policy also includes family violence provisions, which are generally intended to allow an applicant to continue to be assessed for the permanent stage in certain circumstances even where the relationship itself has ended due to family violence, so that a victim of family violence is not forced to remain in an unsafe relationship purely to protect their visa status. The specific evidentiary requirements for invoking these provisions are detailed and should be discussed with reference to current Department of Home Affairs guidance rather than summarised in a single line here.

What a consultancy can actually control

Since the visa application charge, processing times, and the sponsorship limitation all sit outside a consultancy's control and are reviewed on the Department of Home Affairs' own schedule, the practical value a consultancy adds is in keeping a couple's four-category evidence file organised and current from lodgement through to the permanent-stage assessment, tracking sponsor eligibility and character-check requirements up front rather than discovering an issue late, and flagging clearly to the couple which pathway — onshore 820/801 or offshore 309/100 — actually applies to their circumstances. Partner visas sit alongside skilled migration as one of the more common Australian permanent residency routes a consultancy handles, and for clients weighing that alternative pathway, our explainer on Australia's Skilled Occupation List covers how occupation-based skilled migration is assessed differently from a relationship-based case like this one. Our Australia visa consultant software page covers how VisaBOS helps a consultancy keep a couple's evidence categories, sponsor details, and case timeline on one record across both the 820 and 801 stages — though it is a case-management tool, not a source of current fees or processing times, so it does not replace checking immi.homeaffairs.gov.au directly.

To be direct about the one thing this article will not do: it will not state the current visa application charge, a specific current processing time in months or years, or the specific current sponsorship-limit number, because all three are set or reviewed by the Department of Home Affairs on a schedule outside this article's control and have changed before. Confirm all of them against immi.homeaffairs.gov.au before quoting a client anything specific.

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