Category Archives: 884 visas

Parent Visa Numbers are Capped for the Year to 30 June 2024

A Legislative Instrument has been published by Australia’s Immigration Minister that caps the number of visas that can be granted to parents in the program year to 30 June 2024 as follows:
  • Contributory Parent visas – 6,800
  • Non Contributory Parent visas – 1,700
Of these totals some 112 Contributory Parent visas can be granted to Retiree pathway applicants; 13 can be granted to non-Contributory Parent visa applicants by Retirees.
 
Retiree pathway applicants are those who are applying under the pathway that is available to subclass 410 and 405 visa applicants.

Queuing Confusion! – Subclass 143 Contributory Parent Visa Applications

As noted in an earlier blog post the Department of Home Affairs now queues applications for Contributory Parent visas.

The process of queuing Contributory Parent visa applications has had a slow start, but we are now starting to see subclass 143 Contributory Parent visa applications being reviewed by delegates at the Parent Visa Centre with a view to them being given a queue date.

Specifically, from Ministerial Direction 103:

queue date means the date  on which the applicant is assessed by a delegate as meeting all of the prescribed criteria for the visa, other than the following:

(c)  for Onshore Parent visas (Subclass 804) and Contributory Parent visas (Subclass 864 and 884), the applicant’s payment of the second instalment of the visa application charge and, where applicable, assurance of support requirements;

(d)  for Parent visas (Subclass 103) and Contributory Parent visas (Subclass 143 and 173), the applicant’s health and character requirements, payment of the second instalment of the visa application charge and, where applicable, assurance of support requirements.

Customarily with the non Contributory Parent visa caseload (subclasses 103 and 804) the queue date given is the date the application is assessed by the delegate as meeting certain requirements.

Some of the queue dates issued recently – notably in October 2023 – were the dates on which the delegate assessed the prescribed criteria as being met, as per the Ministerial Direction.

However, a short time later these applicants (or their agents) received letters from the Department of Home Affairs advising of updated queue dates, which was the date the visa application was submitted to the Department.

We have made enquiry of the Department and have been advised:

The Department is currently assessing a large number of Contributory Parent visa applications for a place in the queue. In order to ensure that clients are not disadvantaged by the delay in assessing their application for the queue, the Parent Visa team are currently utilising provisions within Ministerial Direction 103 to assign a retrospective queue date.

Given the large number of Contributory Parent visas under current assessment this will ensure that cases lodged months or potentially years apart do not ‘skip’ each other for a place in the queue due to our processes. It will also align with the queue method applied to Contributory Parent visas that were lodged up to 1 June 2018. To ensure equity, the Parent Visa team are currently revising the queue date assigned to a small number of Contributory Parent visa applications that were incorrectly assigned a 2023 queue date.

While we do not wholly subscribe to the procedure being adopted – it doesn’t align with the queuing of non Contributory Parent visa applications under subclasses 103 and 804 – this response does provide context to what we and some other visa applicants have experienced recently.

 

Parent visas granted to date in Program Year 2022/23, ending on 30 June 2023

Go Matilda Visas has details of the number of parent visas granted from 1 July 2022 to the end of April 2023.

Parent, subclass 103 1,276
Aged Parent, subclass 804 43
Contributory Parent, subclass 143 5,627
Contributory Parent (Temporary), subclass 173 322
Contributory Aged Parent, subclass 864 80
Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary), subclass 884 less than 5
   
TOTAL 7,348

The migration program planning level for parents for the program year to 30 June 2023 is 8,500 – so we anticipate a further 1,000+ parent visa grants before the end of next month.

Subject of course to any reduced cap that the Immigration Minister might place on parent visa numbers for the 2022/23 program year.

Go Matilda Visas is a pro-active firm of migration advisors that takes a particular interest in parent visas being sought by those with a child or children residing in Australia.

If you require assistance with a parent visa application and would like an initial free chat please complete the enquiry form on this page.

 

Just In! The Latest Statistics Regarding Contributory Parent Visa applications

Here is our latest update on the number of Contributory Parent visa applications, following a recent Freedom of Information request of the Department of Home Affairs.

More specifically we have obtained details of the number of Contributory Parent visa applications that are on hand now (January 2023), analysed into the month in which applications were submitted, up to November 2022.

Details of the number of CPV applications broken down between the number submitted each month are shown in this pdf document.

These details have been uploaded into a data set in our Parent Visa Calculator – together with a data set of CP visa applications as at August 2022.

You can access the Parent Visa Calculator here.

Of particular note is the increase in the number of on hand CP visa applications from 77,451 in mid-August 2022 to 80,099 now.

This indicates that in spite of an uptick in CP visa processing following the recently announced increased parent visa quota for the current program year the waiting time for the granting of visas to newly submitted Contributory Parent visa applications will continue to trend upwards.

In the absence of a sustained increase in the number of CP visa grants annually we see processing times for CP visa applications lodged now pushing out beyond 10 years.

Parent visa numbers – Ukrainian visa processing

The Immigration Minister in the previous Australian Federal Government announced earlier this year that visas for Ukrainian nationals would be processed as a priority.

This has been given effect by Ministerial Direction number 98.

We have received confirmation from the Department of Home Affairs that there has been no increase in the total number of parent visas available for Program Year 2022-23 at this time, which presently remains at 6,000 in total across the Contributory and non-Contributory visa categories.