Wait Times for Parent and other Family Visas

Parent Visa application are divided into two categories. Contributory and Non-Contributory.

The Government introduced the contributory parent provisions with respect to parents to compensate for the higher health and support costs required for parents who do not contribute to the workforce. As an offset, they allow for faster processing (currently around 24 months) but with significantly higher costs.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has recently released the figures for the number of places available for Non-Contributory Parent Visas in the 2016/17 Program.

The maximum number of visas that can be granted under this stream is 1550.

Current estimated processing times for these visas is over 30 years. Therefore this is not seen as a viable option for families wishing to reunite in Australia.

There is also a limited number of places available under the other family visa streams, which includes the following visa types:

- Aged Dependent Relative visas - Remaining Relative visas - Carer visas

The maximum number of visas that can be granted under the other family visa streams in the 2016/17 program year is 520.

The majority of places under the other family visa stream are allocated to carer visas. It is currently estimated that Carer visa applications that were lodged in 2016 and meet the criteria to be queued, are likely to take approximately four and a half years to be released for final processing.

It is currently estimated that applications for Remaining Relative visas and Aged dependent relative visas lodged in 2014 and meet the criteria to be queued are likely to take approximately 50 years to be released for final processing.