Duration and Conditions
The visa grants permanent residence status.
Do I Apply in Australia or Overseas?
In general, parent visas must be applied for outside Australia. However, it is possible to apply for an aged parent visa from within Australia. In order to do so, at least one of the applicants must meet the following age criteria:
- Males: 65 or over
- Females: 62.5 or over
Criteria
The main criteria are as follows:
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The parent must be sponsored by a child who is an Australian citizen or permanent resident. The sponsor must have been lawfully resident in Australia for at least 2 years.
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If applying in Australia, the parent must be of retirement age, ie 65 years for men and 61 years for women. If applying from overseas there is no minimum age requirement for the parent.
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The applicant must pass the "balance of family test". That is, the number of children who are lawfully and permanently resident in Australia must be
- Greater than, or equal to, the total number of children who are resident overseas; or
- Greater than the greatest number of children who are resident in any single overseas country.
- An assurance of support is required in all cases.
Contributory Parent and Retirement Visa Categories
Note that due to the very limited number of parent visas available each year, the waiting time for parent visas is currently very long (5 years or more).The Australian government has recently introduced "contributory" parent visa categories, which require the payment of a much higher application fee to cover medical expenses, but which are processed much faster than the old parent visa applications.
If you have considerable assets behind you, you could also consider applying for a 4-year retirement visa, which would also be processed faster.
If you would like to discuss the options available to you, please send us an email inquiry. One of our registered migration agents will respond within 2 working days with detailed suggestions on how to obtain a suitable visa.
