Partner Visa 820/801 Lawyer

What Schedule 3 is, in plain terms. When you lodge an onshore 820, the Migration Regulations expect you to hold a substantive visa at the time you apply. If you don’t — your last visa has expired, you’re on a bridging visa that doesn’t count, or you’re unlawful — the Schedule 3 criteria (3001, 3003 and 3004) are triggered. In practice this means the Department cannot grant your 820 unless you satisfy those criteria, or you persuade the Department there are compelling reasons to waive them.

Why applications quietly fail here. Many couples in this position don’t realise Schedule 3 applies to them until a refusal arrives. They lodge a genuine, well-evidenced relationship application, and it is refused not because the relationship wasn’t real, but because the Schedule 3 argument was never made — or was made without the evidence the Department actually weighs. The relationship was never the problem. The failure to address the bar was.

What “compelling reasons” actually means. This is where judgement replaces box-ticking. The Department is not looking for a hardship essay. It weighs specific factors: Australian-citizen children and the effect of separation on them, the length and genuineness of the relationship, whether the sponsor could reasonably relocate, the applicant’s compliance history, and whether the circumstances that led to the unlawful status were within the applicant’s control. A strong waiver submission ties each factor to evidence and to the case law on what “compelling” has been held to mean — it does not simply assert hardship.

A point that works in your favour. When the Department weighs “compelling reasons,” it must take account of your circumstances up to the time the decision is made — not just the circumstances that existed when you lodged. That principle, established by the Full Federal Court in Waensila, means events that develop while your application is pending (a pregnancy, a health diagnosis, a change in your sponsor’s circumstances) can be brought to bear on the waiver argument. Presenting them properly is part of the work.

How we approach it. We identify Schedule 3 exposure before lodgement, not after a refusal, and we build the waiver argument into the application from the start rather than raising it in response to a Departmental concern. Where a matter has already been refused on Schedule 3 grounds, the argument moves to the Administrative Review Tribunal, and the framing changes. See our Schedule 3 waiver guide → and our ART & Federal Court Appeals page →.

Where an 820 or 801 has been refused, there are generally 21 days to lodge a review application at the Administrative Review Tribunal. Augustine & Co. Immigration Lawyers represents partner visa clients at the ART. See our ART & Federal Court Appeals page →.

Where this comes up. If the relationship ends before the permanent 801 is decided, the instinctive assumption is that the visa is lost. That is not always so. Permanent residence may still be available where there has been family violence in the relationship, where the relationship produced a child, or where the sponsoring partner has died.

Why each pathway is exacting. Each of these has its own strict evidentiary requirements and, in the family violence pathway, a specific statutory framework for how the violence is established — whether through judicially determined evidence or the non-judicial route. The evidence that satisfies one pathway does not carry over to another, and the time pressure is real.

How we approach it. These are matters to raise with us urgently rather than to sit on. We assess which pathway is available on the specific facts and prepare the submission the relevant provision actually requires. See our dedicated Relationship Breakdown page →.

A sponsor can sponsor a maximum of two partners in their lifetime, with at least 5 years between sponsorships — the 5 years runs from when the earlier application was lodged, not from when it was decided or the relationship ended. A sponsorship that was refused generally doesn’t count toward the two-sponsorship limit. Both the lifetime cap and the 5-year gap can be waived by the Minister for compelling circumstances (source: legislation.gov.au, checked 26 Aug 2026). Where a sponsor also has a criminal history or other character concerns, targeted submissions can still succeed. We assess sponsor risk — including the sponsorship history calculation — before lodgement to avoid preventable refusals.

Where this comes up. Partner visas require the applicant to meet the health requirement, assessed against Public Interest Criterion 4007. If an applicant has a health condition the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth (MOC) assesses as likely to result in significant health-care or community-service costs, or to prejudice the access of Australians to services in short supply, the application can be refused on health grounds — even where the relationship is beyond question.

The part most people miss. PIC 4007 is waivable. Unlike the equivalent criterion in many other visa classes, a partner visa applicant who fails the health requirement can ask the Department to waive it. Whether the waiver is granted turns on weighing the costs the MOC has identified — measured against a significant-cost threshold, currently $86,000 over the relevant period — against the compassionate and compelling circumstances of the case: the strength of the relationship, Australian ties, the applicant’s ability to mitigate costs, and the consequences of refusal for the family.

Why the MOC assessment itself can be challenged. The cost estimate the MOC produces is not beyond question. It rests on assumptions about likely treatment, duration and cost, and those assumptions can be contested with specialist medical evidence, treatment plans and cost analyses that present a more accurate picture. A significant part of the work is engaging with the MOC’s reasoning before the waiver stage is even reached.

How we approach it. We flag health exposure at the outset, obtain specialist evidence early, and prepare both the response to the MOC assessment and, where needed, the waiver submission — so the health argument and the relationship argument are built in parallel rather than one being an afterthought.

Relationships that commenced before Australian marriage equality often lack conventional documentary evidence for their early years. We know how to reconstruct evidence for pre-2017 relationships to satisfy the Four Pillars framework.

The fear applicants arrive with. Someone who has had a visa refused or cancelled while onshore often believes they are barred from lodging anything further while in Australia — the “section 48 bar.” For many visa types, that is correct.

Why it doesn’t stop a partner visa. Subclass 820 is one of a small number of visa classes prescribed under the Regulations as exempt from the section 48 bar. An applicant who has had a previous onshore refusal or cancellation can still, in most cases, lodge a valid onshore partner application. The bar that blocks other pathways does not block this one.

The limit that matters. There is one important exception to the exception. If the visa that was previously refused or cancelled was itself a partner visa, the onshore pathway is generally closed, and the options are different — usually involving an offshore application or a review of the earlier decision. This is exactly the distinction that decides whether someone can stay in Australia to apply, so it is worth confirming against your specific history before you lodge rather than assuming the door is open.

Why we set it out plainly. For a client who has walked in convinced their options are closed, being told — correctly — that the partner pathway may remain open to them is often the single most valuable thing they hear. Equally, for someone whose partner visa was already refused, knowing the limit upfront prevents a lodgement that would simply be found invalid. Getting this right at the outset is the whole point.