Parent Visas – Processing Times and Coronavirus UPDATE

Processing Times for Parent Visas

The Department of Home Affairs do not provide processing times for Contributory Parent, Contributory Aged Parent and Aged Parent visa applications. This is because applications for these visas are subject to capping and queuing.

Capping means that a limited number of visas are granted each Migration Program year. Once this number is reached, no more visas will be granted until the new year commences on 1^st July. In 2019-20, Migration program planning levels saw 7,371 parent visas available.

The queue order is fixed, with no application given priority ahead of another application.

The Department of Home Affairs provide a queue date which shows the current assessment dates for each visa. The Parent Visa Centre are currently assessing offshore applicants (subclass 143 and 173) lodged up to and including February 2016, and onshore applicants (subclass 864 and 884) lodged up to January 2017.

The Department of Home Affairs have advised that Onshore Contributory Parent visas lodged from January 2017 onwards are likely to take longer to process while the Parent Visa Centre action offshore Contributory Parent (CA143 and TU173) applications to bring the dates back to parity.

You can check the latest queue date on the Department of Home Affairs website.

Parent visa processing amid Coronavirus

The Parent Visa Centre have advised that “the processing of visa applications is continuing, however finalisation of many Parent Visa applications will be put on temporary hold. The situation will be reviewed in late May 2020, and further extension/s will be provided if necessary.

As soon as we have advice that restrictions at our Border have been returned to more normal arrangements, the Department will update information on the web site.”