Partner visa 820/801: how can it go wrong, and what to do about it

Partner visa applications fail more often than people expect. Refusal rates have sat between 20% and 30% in recent years, and with average processing times now stretching past 18 months, a lot can shift inside a single application. Most refusals are not random. They cluster around a small set of situations that case officers see again and again, and that applicants either underestimate or miss entirely.

This is a companion to our document checklist for the partner visa (subclass 820/801). That article tells you what to gather. This one walks through what actually goes wrong, drawn from the patterns the Department of Home Affairs flags in refusal letters and the scenarios applicants describe after the fact.

The relationship is real but doesn't look real on paper

You and your partner have been together for three years. You see each other every day. Your friends and families know each other. You take holidays together. But your application gets a Request For Further Information, or it gets refused outright, and you cannot understand why.

The most common cause of partner visa refusals is insufficient evidence across the four categories the Department uses to assess your relationship: financial aspects, household nature, social aspects, and commitment to the relationship. A strong application has substantial evidence in all four. A weak one has a stack of photos, a joint dinner reservation, and not much else.

Case officers are not asking themselves whether your relationship is real. They are asking whether the documentation in front of them, viewed by someone who has never met you, demonstrates that it is real. Those are different questions, and the difference is where applications fail.

The fix is to build evidence deliberately. Open a joint bank account and use it for shared bills. Add each other as beneficiaries on superannuation or life insurance. Put both names on the electricity bill, the internet plan, the rental agreement where possible. Take photos at events that you can date and explain. Keep tickets, invitations, and correspondence addressed to you as a couple. The goal is not to manufacture a relationship on paper. It is to make sure the paper trail keeps up with the life you are already living.

You don't live together, and you haven't yet

A common version of this: one partner is studying or working overseas, the other is in Australia, and the relationship has been maintained across video calls, visits, and shared plans. Another version: cultural or family expectations mean you do not move in together before marriage. A third: you are in different states for work and visit each other on weekends.

Australian migration law does not strictly require cohabitation. The 2015 Federal Court decision in SZOXP confirmed that a couple can be in a de facto relationship without ever having lived together. What the law actually requires is that the couple is "not living separately and apart on a permanent basis." The distinction matters. Permanent separation is fatal to a partner visa. Temporary or explained separation is survivable, but only if you build the case for it.

When you are not living together, the Department wants two things. First, a clear written explanation of why. Cultural expectations, family caregiving, work in different cities, study commitments, an existing lease that cannot be broken, all of these are legitimate reasons. Vague answers are not. Second, evidence that the relationship is continuing despite the distance: communication logs across messaging apps, flight bookings showing regular visits, shared financial commitments such as joint travel, joint savings towards a future move, plans you have set in writing.

The trap most applicants fall into is assuming that the explanation alone is enough. It is not. The explanation tells the Department why you do not live together. The supporting evidence is what shows that the relationship is intact.

You live together, but the lease is only in your partner's name

This is one of the most common situations in Australia, and one of the easiest to underestimate. You moved into your partner's place six months ago. The lease has been in their name since before you met, the agent will not amend it mid-term, and your name is nowhere on the tenancy paperwork. You are paying half the rent in direct bank transfers, your mail comes to the address, you sleep there every night, but on paper the property is your partner's alone.

A single-named lease is not a problem by itself. An unexplained single-named lease is. Case officers know that Australian rental arrangements are competitive, that agents resist mid-lease changes, and that newer arrivals often do not have the rental history or credit record to be added. What they want to see is parallel evidence that you actually live at the address, and a short written explanation of why the lease reads the way it does.

The evidence that works best for this situation:

• Mail addressed to you at the shared address from third parties who would not casually have your address wrong: your bank, Medicare, the ATO, your superannuation fund, Centrelink if applicable, your employer's HR
• Your driver licence or photo card updated to the shared address through Service NSW, Service Victoria, or your state equivalent
• Australian Electoral Commission enrolment at the address if you are eligible
• Bank statements showing recurring rent transfers from your account to your partner's, ideally with a clear reference such as "Rent" or the month
• Utility accounts where the provider permits a second name (electricity retailers and internet providers are usually flexible even where real estate agents are not)
• A statutory declaration from your partner as the lease-holder, dated and witnessed, explaining when you moved in and confirming the financial arrangement
• Statutory declarations from flatmates, building managers, or neighbours confirming that you live there
• Strata correspondence, parcel delivery records, building swipe access logs, anything that documents your physical presence at the address over time

The most common version of this going wrong is the applicant who submits the lease, shrugs at the absent second name, and hopes the case officer will assume the rest. They will not. Build the parallel stack, write the short explanation, and the single-named lease becomes a non-issue.

De facto without the 12-month rule or a registered relationship

You have been with your partner for eight months. You want to lodge a partner visa. You are de facto, not married. You believe you qualify because the relationship is real and continuing.

Under the Migration Act, a de facto relationship for partner visa purposes generally requires that you have been together for at least 12 months immediately before lodging the application. The 12 months runs as a single continuous period, not as a cumulative total of weekends and holidays across several years.

There is an alternative. If you formally register your de facto relationship under the relevant state or territory legislation, the 12-month requirement does not apply. Registration is available in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory, and South Australia. It is not available in Western Australia or the Northern Territory. The process is administrative, the cost is modest, and the certificate issued by the state registry is treated by the Department as evidence of the de facto relationship.

Applicants who lodge a de facto application without meeting the 12-month threshold and without a registered relationship are almost always refused on that ground alone, regardless of how strong their evidence is otherwise. If you are close to the threshold and live in a state that allows registration, register before lodging. The certificate removes the question entirely.

The relationship ends while the visa is still in process

You lodged your subclass 820 application 14 months ago. You are on a bridging visa. You and your sponsor have separated. You are not sure what you are supposed to do.

You are required to notify the Department of Home Affairs in writing as soon as the relationship ends. The correct vehicle is Form 1022, Change of Circumstances, lodged through your ImmiAccount. Not notifying is not an option, and is itself a ground for visa cancellation if the Department finds out separately.

Once you notify, you typically have 28 days to respond with submissions explaining your circumstances. Outside of three specific situations, the partner visa application will fail at that point.

The three exceptions:

• You have experienced family violence at the hands of your sponsor during the relationship. The Department will assess judicial evidence (court orders, police records, intervention orders) or non-judicial evidence (medical reports, statements from social workers, counsellors, or a competent person as defined in the regulations).
• You and your sponsor have a child together, and there are existing parenting arrangements or shared care.
• Your sponsor has died, and you can demonstrate close business, cultural, or personal ties to Australia.

The family violence provision is the most commonly used, and the most commonly misunderstood. Family violence is not limited to physical assault. Controlling behaviour, financial control, emotional abuse, and threats fall within the legal definition. Applicants who experienced these things often do not initially recognise their situation as family violence, and lose months of options by not engaging with the provision early.

Your sponsor cannot cancel your partner visa, regardless of what they tell you. Only the Department can. But if the relationship has ended and none of the three exceptions applies, your visa pathway is effectively closed, and your options become finding an alternative visa or departing Australia.

The sponsor is disqualified and neither of you knew it

This one catches more people than you would expect. The relationship is genuine, the evidence is solid, the application is otherwise strong. The sponsor is disqualified.

Two limitations apply to all partner visa sponsors:

• A sponsor can sponsor a maximum of two partners across their lifetime, across all partner visa subclasses combined.
• A minimum of five years must pass between sponsorships. The five-year period is calculated from the date the previous sponsorship application was lodged, not from when the previous relationship ended.

The five-year rule applies symmetrically. If your sponsor was themselves sponsored as a partner four years ago, they cannot sponsor you yet, even if their own previous relationship has long since ended.

There is a discretionary waiver for "compelling and compassionate circumstances," which the Department interprets narrowly. A dependent child of the new relationship, family violence in the previous relationship, or the death of the previous sponsor are the strongest grounds. Most other applications for a waiver are refused.

Beyond the numerical limits, the sponsor is also subject to a character assessment. Convictions or outstanding charges for "registrable offences" under the Migration Act, which include sexual or violent offences against children, will generally result in the sponsorship being refused. Sponsors must provide an Australian Federal Police National Police Check (Code 33), and an overseas police clearance from any country in which they have lived for 12 months or more in the last decade.

If your sponsor has a complicated history, find out before you lodge, not after.

Documents that contradict each other

Your birth certificate spells your name one way. Your passport spells it another, with a different transliteration. Your marriage certificate uses your married name without explanation. Your previous Australian visa application used yet another version. A case officer pulling these documents into one file sees four different people.

Inconsistencies in names, dates, places of birth, and addresses are a frequent reason for Requests For Further Information and, when unexplained, for refusal. The Department's processing systems flag mismatches automatically, and the resolution falls back on the applicant.

The categories where this most often happens:

• Transliteration variations for names originally in non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Cyrillic, Mandarin, Thai, Korean)
• Maiden names versus married names without a clear documentary link
• Slight date variations between the civil registration in your home country and your passport
• Address inconsistencies on rental records, bills, and government correspondence during the period the relationship was forming
• Different spellings of your sponsor's name across earlier sponsorships or previous Australian visa records

The fix is mechanical. Pull every document into one place, run them against each other for consistency, write a short cover statement explaining any legitimate variations, and attach the underlying documents that link the variations together. A name change deed poll, an extract from the civil register, a notarised affidavit confirming "the person known as X is the same person as Y" all carry weight when used to close gaps.

The visitor visa trap

A version of this scenario plays out constantly. You came to Australia on a subclass 600 visitor visa to visit your Australian partner. The visitor visa application asked about the purpose of your visit. You said "visiting a friend," or "tourism," because someone told you that mentioning a relationship might get the tourist visa refused. The visit went well, you stayed, and now you are lodging a partner visa claiming a relationship that has been continuing for several years.

The Department holds your visa history. The contradiction between "visiting a friend" and "we have been in a de facto relationship since 2022" is something case officers will see, raise, and use against you. It is one of the most damaging inconsistencies a partner visa application can carry, because it speaks directly to credibility.

The same problem appears in reverse for applicants who declared themselves "single" on a previous tourist or student visa form, then claim a long-running relationship on the partner visa. Migration law treats false or misleading statements on prior applications seriously, and Public Interest Criterion 4020 can be triggered even where the misstatement was historical.

If you are in this situation, the honest path forward is to disclose, explain, and provide context in your partner visa submissions. The Department is more forgiving of acknowledged inconsistencies with a credible explanation than of inconsistencies it has to discover.

Statutory declarations that say nothing

Form 888 statutory declarations from people who know you as a couple are weighted heavily in partner visa assessments. They are also routinely wasted on generic statements that tell the case officer nothing.

A weak statutory declaration reads like this: "I have known A and B for two years. They are a lovely couple and they seem very happy together. I support their visa application."

A strong one describes specific things the declarant has seen. They had us over for dinner in March and we discussed their plans to buy a house in 2026. I was at their commitment ceremony in November. I have stayed at their flat in Marrickville several times since they moved in together in 2024. They came to my wedding as a couple and they were seated at the family table. The declarant should be naming dates, places, and events that demonstrate the relationship is observable in real life.

Two or three strong declarations from people who can describe concrete shared experiences outweigh ten weak ones. Each declarant must be an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen, and the declaration must be sworn before an authorised witness (a Justice of the Peace, a pharmacist, a lawyer, a medical practitioner, a police officer, and others listed under Commonwealth statutory declaration rules).

PIC 4020: the bogus document trap

Public Interest Criterion 4020 is the provision of the Migration Regulations that allows the Department to refuse a visa application where the applicant has provided a bogus document or information that is false or misleading in a material particular. A refusal under PIC 4020 carries a three-year bar on further visa applications, extended to ten years where there is a finding of identity fraud.

The trap is that PIC 4020 does not require intent. Applicants who submit a translation done by a friend rather than a NAATI certified translator, who present a "polished" version of an academic transcript, or who provide a marriage certificate that turns out to have been issued by a non-recognised authority, can all be caught.

The defensive position is simple. Use NAATI certified translations only. Provide original or properly certified copies of documents. Do not amend, retype, or "tidy up" any official document. If you are uncertain about the legitimacy of a document issued in your home country, raise the question in your submissions rather than letting the Department raise it.

Police clearances that expire mid-processing

A common timing failure: you ordered your police clearance early in the preparation process, lodged a few weeks later, and now the application has been sitting for 16 months. When the case officer reaches your file, the clearance is more than 12 months old, and they request a new one.

Police clearances are treated as current for 12 months from the date of issue. Where your application is taking longer than that, the Department will ask for a fresh clearance from every country where you have lived for 12 months or more in the last decade. The slower the country, the more painful this is. Some jurisdictions take six to ten weeks to issue a new certificate, and applicants who do not move quickly can find their bridging visa status complicated.

The pragmatic approach is to expect the request, monitor processing times for your file, and start the renewal early if your application is approaching the 12-month mark.

The "we met in person" requirement

The Department requires explicit evidence that the applicant and sponsor have physically met in person as adults. This is straightforward for couples who have lived together, holidayed together, or attended events together. It is less straightforward for couples who met online and where the in-person meetings have been short or infrequent.

Acceptable evidence includes:

• Passport stamps showing entry to the same country at overlapping dates
• Boarding passes and flight itineraries for trips taken to visit each other
• Hotel or accommodation bookings in joint names
• Dated photos at identifiable locations
• Statutory declarations from third parties who were physically present when you spent time together

Applicants who built their relationship primarily through video calls and messaging during a period of travel restriction (a common pattern for couples who started dating across borders during the pandemic, for example) should expect to provide more in-person evidence, not less, to compensate.

What happens if you are refused

A partner visa refusal is not the end of the road, but the next step is time-bound. You have 21 days from the date of the refusal notification to lodge a review application with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), which replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) in October 2024. The 21-day window is strict. Missing it generally forecloses the review pathway.

The ART conducts a fresh review of the application. New evidence is admissible. Approximately 40% of partner visa refusals are overturned at review when the applicant submits substantial additional evidence. The hearing itself typically takes 12 to 18 months to be scheduled.

The strategic question after a refusal is whether to seek review or to reapply. Reapplication makes sense when the refusal was due to a fixable gap, such as missing documents or an inadequate evidence base, and the relationship is otherwise strong. Review makes sense when the refusal turned on the Department's interpretation of facts that you can re-evidence and re-argue. A registered migration agent can advise on the path that fits the specific refusal letter.

If you are onshore on a bridging visa at the time of refusal, lodging a review application generally keeps your bridging visa alive while the ART considers the matter. If you are offshore, the consequences of refusal are different, and require advice based on your country of citizenship and any other visas you hold.

A note on the emotional cost

Partner visa applications take a long time, and the wait itself can put strain on a relationship that is otherwise solid. Applicants on bridging visas often cannot leave Australia easily, cannot travel home for family events, and cannot make medium-term plans because the visa grant date is unknowable. Sponsors carry the financial and logistical weight on the Australian side. Both partners often feel the application is judging the relationship itself, which it is, in a way most people are not used to.

None of this is a reason to delay the application, and none of it is a reason to rush it. It is a reason to take the documentation seriously, to build the evidence base over time rather than scrambling in the final weeks, and to address the situations described in this article before lodging rather than after a Request For Further Information (RFI) lands in your ImmiAccount.

Getting your translations ready

Among the documents that most commonly trigger problems for non-English-speaking applicants are translated foreign police clearances, marriage certificates, birth certificates, and divorce certificates. All of these must be translated by a NAATI accredited translator to be accepted.

EzyTranslate provides NAATI certified translations accepted by the Department of Home Affairs for partner visa applications. Translations are delivered as a PDF to your inbox within 24 to 48 hours.

The partner visa bundle covers birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce certificate, and police check at a reduced rate. Individual documents start from AU$69.