Partner visa (permanent).

Processing starts from the 2-year eligibility date, which is 2 years after your original lodgement.

Add current processing times (shown at the top of this page) to that 2-year wait to get your total timeline from lodgement.

Applications with complete and current documents process faster. Outdated police certificates and thin relationship evidence are the most common causes of delay.

No. You can be anywhere in the world when the department makes its decision on the 100.

If you're outside Australia when it's granted, check your grant letter for a first entry arrival date. You have to enter Australia on or before that date.

If you're inside Australia when it's granted, permanent residency starts from the grant date immediately.

If you're outside Australia when the 100 is granted, IMMI? specifies a date by which you have to first enter Australia. This date is in your grant letter.

Missing it doesn't automatically cancel the visa, but you become subject to cancellation before arrival or at the border.

Check the letter as soon as it arrives and book your first entry accordingly.

Yes, in most cases.

Police certificates are required for any country where you spent 12 or more cumulative months since the grant of your 309 visa. This window is different from the original 309 requirement.

For Australia, you need a complete-disclosure National Police Certificate from the AFP?. Certificates are only valid for 12 months from issue, so timing matters.

Not automatically. Health checks done for the 309 may still be valid.

The department will contact you if further examinations are required before finalising the 100. You don't need to proactively rebook a panel doctor appointment unless asked.

Log into ImmiAccount? and check the date you originally submitted the combined 309 and 100 application. That's your lodgement date. Add exactly 2 years to get your eligibility date.

Do not submit documents for the permanent stage before that date. The department will not assess the 100 early regardless of how long the 309 has been held.

The department needs to see the relationship is still genuine and continuing at the time they assess the permanent stage.

Provide updated evidence across all four categories: financial (joint accounts, shared bills), household (current lease or utilities in both names), social (recent dated photos, evidence of shared social life), and commitment (travel together, shared plans).

Original 309 evidence alone isn't sufficient.

Yes, in two scenarios.

The first applies to long-term relationships. If you were already in a long-term relationship with your sponsor at the time of original lodgement, the department may grant the 100 before the 2-year mark.

The second applies to humanitarian-visa sponsors. If your sponsor holds or held a permanent humanitarian visa, your relationship existed before that visa was granted, and your sponsor informed the department of the relationship at that time, the 100 can be granted earlier.

Both exceptions are at the department's discretion.

If the relationship ends before the 100 is granted, you're generally no longer eligible for permanent residency through this pathway.

Two exceptions exist. If the relationship ended due to domestic or family violence, eligibility for the 100 may be preserved. If your sponsor died before the 100 was decided, provisions also exist to protect eligibility.

Speak with a registered migration agent? immediately if your circumstances change.

After the 100 is granted and you become a permanent resident, you may be able to sponsor eligible family members through other visa pathways.

You can't add family members to the 100 application itself after it's granted.

Children born after the 309 was granted who weren't included in the original application need a Dependent Child visa (subclass 445). That visa has to be approved before they can be included in the 100 stage.

The 100 includes a 5-year travel facility from the grant date. During that window you can leave and re-enter Australia freely.

Once the travel facility expires, you need a Resident Return Visa (RRV) to re-enter as a permanent resident.

Check your travel facility expiry in VEVO?. Apply for the RRV before it lapses if you plan to travel after the 5-year window closes.

Yes. The partner visa fee is paid once at the 309 (offshore temporary) stage and covers both the 309 and this permanent 100 stage, so there's no separate 100 charge. From 1 July 2026, eligible citizens of Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste pay a reduced rate on that partner application, based on the primary applicant's passport, and the lower cost carries across to family members in the same application.

The qualifying passports are from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Timor-Leste, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

There's no separate concession to apply for. IMMI? applies the lower amount in ImmiAccount? at the 309 stage, based on the passport used. The exact reduced figure shows in IMMI?'s Visa Pricing Estimator.