Subclass 804 Aged Parent visa

Three onshore subclasses

For an ordinary primary applicant, each application must be lodged in Australia, but not in immigration clearance [item 1124A(3)(b)] [item 1130A(3)(b)] [item 1221A(3)(b)], and the applicant must also be in Australia at grant [cl 804.411] [cl 864.411] [cl 884.411]. Separately, Schedule 1 requires the primary applicant at lodgement either to be an aged parent or to hold a substituted Subclass 600 visa [item 1124A(3)(bc)] [item 1130A(3)(cb)] [item 1221A(3)(cb)]. An aged parent is old enough to be granted an age pension under the Social Security Act framework [reg 1.03 def aged parent]; a primary applicant using the substituted-600 route must instead meet the applicable parent criterion at decision [cl 804.221(b)] [cl 864.212(ab)] [cl 884.212(1)(a)(ii)]. They are: Subclass 804 (Aged Parent), non-contributory and permanent; Subclass 864 (Contributory Aged Parent), contributory and permanent; and Subclass 884 (Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary)), the contributory temporary first stage that leads to the 864.

The onshore advantage

Because these visas are lodged and granted onshore, an applicant may be eligible for a bridging visa that permits lawful stay while the parent application is processed. Valid lodgement does not by itself establish that a particular bridging visa is granted or in effect: the result depends on the applicant's current status, the applicable bridging-visa criteria and any conditions. The financial trade-off remains substantial: the 804 costs less but has the longer operational queue, while the contributory 864 (direct or through the 884) carries a large second visa application charge and has a materially shorter, though still lengthy, queue.

Who must be an aged parent

Outside the substituted-600 route, only the primary applicant has to be an aged parent. A spouse or de facto partner can come along as a secondary applicant (a member of the family unit) without meeting the age requirement themselves [cl 804.311] [cl 864.311] [cl 884.311], so in a couple it is enough that one of them is of pension age.

For the ordinary aged-parent route, aged-parent status is judged on the facts at the time of application and cannot be acquired later: someone below pension age at lodgement does not become eligible by reaching pension age in the queue. This matters most if the primary applicant dies during the wait: a surviving spouse can only carry the application on if they too were an aged parent at lodgement, because the status had to exist then and cannot be back-filled.

Location and status

The applicant must be in Australia, but not in immigration clearance, at two points: when the application is made [Sch 1 item 1124A] [Sch 1 item 1130A] [Sch 1 item 1221A], and when the visa is granted [cl 804.411] [cl 864.411] [cl 884.411]. The test bites at those two moments, not continuously in between, but the grant-location requirement means the applicant has to be onshore when the decision comes.

The Schedule 2 status rules differ by subclass. For the 804, a person to whom section 48 applies must also meet the additional refusal/cancellation and later-aged-parent requirements in clause 804.211(1); the applicant must otherwise hold a substantive visa other than a Subclass 771, or have last held a substantive visa other than a Subclass 771, and a non-substantive-visa holder must satisfy Schedule 3 criterion 3002 [cl 804.211] [cl 804.213]. For the 864 and 884, the usual rule likewise requires a substantive visa other than a Subclass 771 or the specified former substantive-visa status plus criterion 3002 [cl 864.211(1)] [cl 884.211(1)]. That usual rule does not apply where the applicant withdraws a Subclass 804 application at the same time as making the 864 or 884 application [cl 864.211(2)] [cl 884.211(2)]. These are Schedule 2 grant criteria, not Schedule 1 validity requirements, so valid lodgement and ultimate eligibility must be analysed separately.

The bridging visa

A valid onshore application lodged while the applicant holds a substantive visa ordinarily also stands as an application for a Bridging Visa A: the substantive application engages the Class WA route unless regulation 2.07A excludes it [Sch 1 item 1301] [reg 2.07A], and a Bridging Visa A may then be granted under the Subclass 010 criteria [cl 010.211(2)]. Grant is not the same as immediate effect: a Bridging Visa A granted while the substantive visa is still in force comes into effect only when that visa ceases, and from then it permits the applicant to remain while the parent application is decided [cl 010.511]. That bridge is the mechanism behind the onshore advantage: it is what lets the parent wait in Australia for years rather than offshore. But grant, conditions and commencement are confirmed for the particular case rather than assumed, and practical matters such as work rights and Medicare access follow from that confirmation [cl 010.611].

The test

Every child of the parent is sorted into eligible or ineligible. An eligible child is an Australian citizen (wherever they live), or an Australian permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen who is usually resident in Australia; every other child is ineligible and treated as living overseas [reg 1.05(2)] [reg 1.05(2A)]. The parent passes on either of two routes:

• Route 1: at least half the children are eligible: the number of eligible children is greater than or equal to the number of ineligible children [reg 1.05(2C)].
• Route 2: the eligible children outnumber the ineligible in every single overseas country: the largest group of ineligible children usually resident in any one overseas country is fewer than the number of eligible children [reg 1.05(2D)].

Worked example: a parent has two children in Australia (eligible) and three children overseas (ineligible), living one each in three different countries. Route 1 fails, because two is not at least three. Route 2 passes: the biggest group of ineligible children in any single country is one, which is fewer than the two eligible children, so the test is satisfied.

Which children count

A "child" here includes a child or step-child of the parent, and a child or step-child of the parent's current spouse or de facto partner [reg 1.05(1)(a)], so step-children are counted and the choice of primary applicant in a blended family can change the arithmetic. The test runs only once each claimed child-parent relationship is established. Some children are removed from the count entirely under the exclusion clauses [reg 1.05(3)]: broadly, a child removed from the parent's custody by court order, adoption or operation of law, a child suffering persecution or human-rights abuse with no possible reunion elsewhere, and a child registered in a refugee camp. A child of unknown whereabouts is taken to be resident in the child's last known country of usual residence [reg 1.05(1)(b)].

When it is excused

Balance of family is not required in every onshore case. A direct 804 applicant is excused only if holding a substituted Subclass 600 visa [cl 804.214]. An 864 applicant is excused if, at the time of application, they held a Subclass 884 visa or a substituted Subclass 600 visa [cl 864.214], so a parent moving up from an 884 does not re-run the test. An 884 applicant is likewise excused only on the substituted-600 basis.

The cost

The 804 is non-contributory: only the ordinary application charges apply. The contributory 864 and 884 carry a large second visa application charge [Sch 1 item 1130A(2)(b)] [Sch 1 item 1221A(2)(b)], payable before the visa is granted [cl 864.411]. On the staged 884→864 pathway that charge is spread across the temporary and permanent stages rather than paid in a single hit. The amounts are large and move over time, and for applications made on or after 1 July 2026 the first instalment of all three visas is additionally tiered by whether the applicant holds a valid passport issued by a Pacific-regional country, a category defined in regulation 1.03 [reg 1.03 def Pacific-regional country] [F2026L00874 Sch 3 items 13, 18, 36-38], so the applicable tier and the current Schedule 1 amount have to be checked at lodgement.

The queue

Section 85 permits the Minister to set a financial-year maximum by legislative instrument, and section 86 prevents further grants when an applicable determination reaches that maximum; Parent applications that have not been granted remain queued rather than lapsing [MA s 85] [MA s 86]. LIN 26/042 set the Parent and Contributory Parent maxima for 2025–26 and repealed on 1 July 2026; as at 12 July 2026, no 2026–27 section 85 determination had been located [LIN 26/042 ss 4–6, 8]. Home Affairs nevertheless continues to administer Parent applications through cap-and-queue arrangements, so a complete, grantable application may still wait its turn in the operational queue. An applicable cap cannot block a visa for the spouse, de facto partner or dependent child of an Australian citizen, the holder of a permanent visa that is in effect, or a person who is usually resident in Australia and whose continued presence is not subject to a limitation as to time imposed by law [MA s 87(1)].

On the contributory side, the order in which applications are reached is set by a parent-processing direction: a policy instrument that orders the queue, not a visa criterion, and is replaced from time to time.

Cost versus time

The 804 costs less but has the longer queue; the contributory 864 (direct or through the 884) costs far more but has a materially shorter queue. Home Affairs estimated about 15 years for a new Contributory Parent application and about 33 years for a new Parent or Aged Parent application on 9 July 2026. These are current operational estimates, not legal time limits. Check the latest Home Affairs estimate before relying on them.

Lodgement facts and decision facts

An onshore aged-parent file takes years, so it needs active management, not lodge-and-forget. Two timing rules pull in opposite directions. Aged-parent status and balance of family are fixed by the facts at lodgement, so an age change or a death in the queue can expose a weakness that was already there when the application was made. Sponsorship and the assurance of support, by contrast, must still hold at decision, so they can fail late even if they were sound at lodgement. When the primary applicant or the sponsor dies during the wait, the consequences are worked out against the specific criteria, not treated as general bad luck.

Children ageing out

An included child stays a member of the family unit only while their age tier is satisfied [reg 1.12(2)]:

• under 18: qualifies on the relationship alone;
• 18 to 22: must be dependent on the parent, whether through financial dependence or incapacity [reg 1.05A];
• 23 or over: qualifies only through incapacity [reg 1.05A(1)(b)], so ordinary financial dependence is no longer enough.

A child who is engaged, married or in a de facto relationship is out regardless of age. Because these tiers are tested at the time of the relevant decision, a child can age out during a long wait. The staged 884→864 pathway softens this: a child who was included in, and holds, the 884 is preserved as a member of the family unit for the 864 by an additional rule [reg 1.12(5)], even if they have since crossed an age tier, so, like the health position, the child's family-unit status is locked in at the temporary stage. It is still worth projecting each child's age against the likely timeline at the start, and getting their health examinations done before a boundary is crossed (this does not affect age-out).

Travel

The onshore advantage rests on the bridging visa that keeps the applicant lawful during processing. A Bridging Visa A permits stay but does not permit re-entry after travel [MA s 79]; departure without a Bridging Visa B can make an in-effect BVA cease [MA s 82(8)]. Whether another BVA can be obtained is then tested under the BVA criteria [cl 010.211]. Departure does not by itself withdraw or finally determine the Parent application, and it does not erase the application's assigned queue date. Separately, a no further stay condition of the kind described in s 41(2)(a) on a visa held since the applicant's last entry can block valid lodgement of another substantive-visa application unless waived [s 46(1A)] [condition 8503]. Bridging status, travel authority and the substantive Parent queue position must therefore be analysed separately.