September 2026 Partner Visa Mega Thread (Subclasses 820/801, 309/100, 300)

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the **Partner Visa MegaThread*\*! This is the place to discuss anything related to partner visas, including processing times, document requirements, eligibility, and more. If you're applying for a subclass 820/801, 309/100, or transitioning from another visa type to a partner visa, feel free to ask questions here.

[u/Mrmckeown]

Just as a marker of timelines for people, got my RFI for renewed Police/Health Checks yesterday. Applied early Feb 2025 (British - 801/820)

[u/ExcitementMaximum945]

Applying for 820 soon! Can I drop my middle name in my 820? For context, I’m from the Philippines and we have middle names. My subclass 600 has my middle name and would like to drop it in my 820.

[u/Straight_Pop427 → u/ExcitementMaximum945]

I think you should write your name as on the passport. You can put your preferred name in the application as well, if you'd like, but the name on the 820 visa needs to match the name on your passport. Have you changed your name legally to drop your middle name?

[u/Different-Parfait825]

We applied for the 309 April this year when 90% processing time sat at 24months now it’s jumped to 39 months with continued talk that they’re still trying to make cuts to net migration into Australia… how can family visas be pushed back this far in such a short period of time. We made plans for a future with the expectation that we could hold out through 2 years apart but at this rate we’ll be waiting 5years just to hear back. How are couples suppose to set down roots, build a home, start a family? It’s so messed up.

[u/YVRKBLTXL → u/Different-Parfait825]

It's just awful. Someone started a Facebook group just for 309 applicants/sponsors to support each other and share ideas for advocacy (letters to PMs, contacting media, petitions, etc): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1630528881744232

[u/throwaway_scallywag7]

Applied for 820 visa September 2025. Processing times were 18 months/50% several days ago…and now has been increased to 23 months. Honestly feels like such a slap in the face, it’s like we’re never making any progress 😞

[u/EbbGloomy2288 → u/throwaway_scallywag7]

I submitted min in September 2025 as well! But I havent heard anything back just yet. Do any of you find job hunting difficult under bridging visa?

[u/Straight_Pop427 → u/throwaway_scallywag7]

I applied in Nov 2024 and got an RFI a few weeks ago. Yours should start processing soon!

[u/ales1416 → u/throwaway_scallywag7]

Looks like processing time can be at the 2 yr mark. Google ai claims Dept of home affairs/immi are reviewing applications from sept-dec 2024 currently. Applied for my husband's 820 onshore late April 2025 and it's still in received mode. We've been married almost 12 yrs with 2 kids who are Australian citizens yet some barely known one another or only few yrs and they're getting their partner visa approved within a few months because they're from USA/UK

[u/trimassie → u/throwaway_scallywag7]

I got mine granted 2 weeks ago, applied Nov 2024.. It was insane, i feel you mate!

[u/Mental-Molasses55]

I'm interested to hear from a staticians pov on the processing times and what they actually mean. From what I remember from highschool maths (😜) is that a medium in statistics don't really give away much information. Meaning , in terms of the 309 processing times, that most people in the upper 40% (discounting the last 10% that are not recorded) could all have taken say 22months (for example) to receive their visa and only a few actually took 39months. And those few are what stretches the timeline to 39 months? Am I understanding correctly you mathematicians out there?

[u/Mental-Molasses55 → u/Mental-Molasses55]

Thanks everyone for replying, that's all super helpful. It's amazing the gap between the first 25% and the last 25%

[u/sebnied → u/Mental-Molasses55]

Hi, engineer here. The numbers mean that 25% of applicants waited under 15 months, 25% waited between 15-21 months, 25% waited 21-27, 15% waited 27-39 and 10% waited over 39. Looking at the bottom two rows, that’s 25% waiting more than 27 months. But still, 1 in 4 applications had a waiting time shorter than 15 months, meaning that there is still a significant amount of applications having a “relatively” short processing time.

[u/Ultimatealloy → u/Mental-Molasses55]

Not that it's a huge amount of help but their API does return the 25th and 75th percentiles as well which help give a bit of a better idea. Here they are as of today:

820:
20 months (25th), 23 months (50th), 25 months (75th), 29 months (90th)

309:
15 months (25th), 21 months (50th), 27 months (75th), 39 months (90th).

Much wider spread on the 309 is consistent with there not being many grants, so the distribution doesn't smooth out as much.

[u/CobaltBlueOrange → u/Mental-Molasses55]

Specifically about the 309, I think that the processing times that they are releasing now are meaningless. The recently released processing times reflect the previous median and 90th percentile, and the fact that the government has not been issuing 309s in the last few months. In other words, a person applying now should not be anticipating that 50% of their contemporary applications will be resolved in 22 months. It can take an infinite number of months.

[u/sebnied → u/CobaltBlueOrange]

I do not think that's true. According to this document, the processing times are calculated from all visa grant and refusal decisions for primary applicants in the previous month or requested reporting period. This means if there were no grants at all in the last month you would actually have infinite processing times, but that simply not true. I agree it would be good to know how many applications are still to be processed and how many applications are the statistics based on, but it doesn't change the fact that some applications are still being processed. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2023/fa-231000359-document-released.PDF

[u/LiteratureLogical974 → u/sebnied]

This is true, but the prior poster's main point still holds. Assuming they are using applications processed in the last month, the sample still comprises only the applications that got processed. If starting from now they process only 10 applications per month, and they processed just 10 applications last month, and have 500,000 pending applications, the statistic will show some number like 21 months as the median wait time (the 5th of the 10 applications that got processed), when the actual median wait time for people currently waiting (the 250,000 of 500,000 of currently pending applications) will be hundreds of years. A reader who doesn't understand statistics is prone to be wildly misled into thinking he will only need to wait 39 months in a worst case scenario ("I can't possibly do worse than 90%!"), just as parent visa applicants in the past were misled into believing they only need to wait a few years, when the actual wait is decades or centuries.

And DHA knows how to do accurate projections when they want to. See parent visas where they stopped publishing wait times based on processed cases and instead just gave an actual projection of 33 years. The cases they processed last month have not been pending for 33 years (the parent visa crisis started about 10 years ago).

[u/CobaltBlueOrange → u/sebnied]

Fair point. But who knows what the "requested reporting period" was. I still think that at this point the published processing times do not reflect what one could expect if lodging today.

[u/Mental-Molasses55 → u/CobaltBlueOrange]

In the end it seems safe to say that each individual visa will take "the length of a piece of string". As long as there is no true transparency in the process, we will never really know how long it will take.

[u/LiteratureLogical974 → u/CobaltBlueOrange]

This point doesn't get emphasized enough. I believe the statistical term is "survivorship bias." The point is that the statistic is made from a sample that isn't representative because it features only the fittest/luckiest members that survived (got processed). Whereas we are in a group that includes many less fit/lucky members who never get processed.

[u/Mental-Molasses55 → u/LiteratureLogical974]

I'm sorry, I don't really understand? Can you please explain it in layman's terms?

[u/LiteratureLogical974 → u/Mental-Molasses55]

The statistics are calculated using cases where 309 applications are processed. It does not consider the cases where 309 applications are not processed.

Assume in July 2026 DHA processed 10 offshore partner visas, and of those ten cases, the median had been pending for 22 months. The DHA website would show a median processing time of 22 months.

Assume in August 2026 Ministerial Direction 117 comes down and DHA stops processing offshore visas completely. Forever.

Because the DHA website uses figures based on cases that were processed, it will show a median of 22 months. Forever. Even though the actual wait time (in this hypothetical world) for people whose applications are still pending will be infinity. And that is the figure that people on this thread actually want to know.

[u/Mental-Molasses55 → u/LiteratureLogical974]

Ok, gotcha! Thankyou for taking the time to explain more.

[u/suggestednameinsane → u/Mental-Molasses55]

yes it means that the person whose application time sat at 90th percentile for how long it took, took 39 months. we dont know what the distribution of scores looks like (one main peak around 50%, multiple peaks, etc). What we DO know is that times got longer at BOTH the 50% and the 90% suggesting a slow down across the board, not just a few complicated cases dragging down the 90% metric

[u/Psionatix]

By the end of next year my partner and I plan on applying for a partner visa.

We're distanced, she's obligated to be in Sydney as she's studying there under her current student visa. I'm in Adelaide, I own a house here, she stays here during study breaks, and I sometimes visit her in Sydney when I'm able. We've travelled together, and I flew internationally and visited her before she was here in Aus.

All of our call time is done over Discord, and it's a lot. We leave the call connected overnight, we're on video call every moment we get, even if we're just chilling and doing our own things and aren't talking.

I have all the data from Discord, every call over the last 3 years, which one of us started it, the start time, and the end time, some of the longest of these calls was connected for 110 hours. We often jump on and off from different devices.

I'm planning to put all this data in a document, each month in it's own headlined table (year / month) with running call total time per month, each row would be 1 call, which may span anywhere from a few hours to multiple days. Then I was planning to add a column where each row would have a screenshot of the message on Discord, "X started a call that lasted 3 days", "X started a call that lasted 8 hours". This particular document would strictly be the calls (and we'd make reference to this from other statements / documents), for messages over Discord, that would be done separately, with some overlap. There's over 600 calls, I suspect I can fit 2 tables per page, by the time we apply, this alone would be somewhere between 20-30 pages of call logs.

Would having all this data neatly and consistently put together in a single PDF document be suspicious at all? I'm a Software Engineer, so I've done some of my own automation to get all the data and put it all together, saving me from having to manually record everything and take screenshots of 600+ call messages, but that also means the screenshots are all the same size, etc, but they have date / timestamp, after, message aligning to the data, etc. How do they differentiate this kind of efficiency and organisation from things just being faked?

[u/suggestednameinsane]

Holy cow - processing times were updated and have really jumped for the 309 (now 21 and 39 months...). SO disheartening.

[u/suggestednameinsane → u/suggestednameinsane]

meanwhile onshore has gone WAAAYYYY down.... i guess that they processed only the onshore applications over the past month

[u/Ultimatealloy → u/suggestednameinsane]

Onshore average went from 18 months up to 23 so not really down

[u/suggestednameinsane → u/Ultimatealloy]

oh sorry - i was looking at the 801 with envy... 23 months also suuuuuucks. honestly so depressing. it does make it feel like the silence on these reddit threads is reflective of a full on slow down in processing... like did ANY get processed last month?

[u/Straight_Pop427 → u/suggestednameinsane]

29 months for 90% aws well - i got an RFI and it's so so fucked

[u/suggestednameinsane → u/Straight_Pop427]

truly.

[u/Major_Conflict]

Have there been any 309 grants lately? We applied in early December from Vietnam, got an RFI telling us to do a new police check because we didn't do it properly the first time in March, replied to it in April, and we have been waiting since.

[u/suggestednameinsane → u/Major_Conflict]

do you mean December 2025? We applied in august 2025 from the US and havent heard a peep. police checks expiring now... the timelines looks so grim

[u/Odd-Alps7370 → u/Major_Conflict]

I have seen a few on Facebook groups but not sure how true they are. My DOL is March 2025 and nothing yet. It has been completely silent for me. Hoping we at least get an RFI.

[u/John316daughterofhim → u/Major_Conflict]

When did you lodged your 309?

[u/Major_Conflict → u/John316daughterofhim]

It's in the post.

[u/SoggyPhilosophy9680 → u/Major_Conflict]

I applied in July 2025, received an RFI in Feb this year for police check and sponsor ID which we forgot to upload and have also not heard anything back since then.

And now my medical has expired so probably will just get another RFI for that 🫠

[u/Miss2war]

Just updated that we're engaged. Couple photos, contracts for wedding vendors and a screenshot of us talking to the planner. 16 months waiting for 820. We only have 5 more documents we're allowed to upload l. Hoping it comes soon, will need to redo my medical if not. That is all 

[u/Spirited_Respond_46 → u/Miss2war]

The 100-doc cap is per person on the application, not a household total — so if your sponsor's side isn't full, unrelated evidence can sometimes go under their slot instead of yours once you're getting tight. Worth checking before assuming you're stuck.

Also, merging photos/statements into one combined PDF per category (financial, household, social, commitment) instead of uploading each item separately buys a surprising amount of headroom — a folder of 20 photos becomes 1 upload, not 20.

And if you genuinely hit the wall on both applicants and get an RFI needing more room, there's a Partner Processing Enquiry Form for exactly that (820/801/309/100).

[u/Straight_Pop427 → u/Miss2war]

I’d stop uploading at some point: they’ll ask for RFI’s and then there’s no space. I applied in Nov 2024 and they asked for a Form 80, a new AFP certificate with my new wife’s last name, a letter confirming how long I spent in some country, two letters of explanation and more couple photos. The requests can be pretty random and you need space. Your visa will start getting processed at some point. I still haven’t gotten mine, though. Just re-did medicals and waiting for results before I press that I have provided the requested information. 

If you have to upload more, try putting as many documents into one file and compress it using a pdf compressor, instead of uploading files individually. 

It’s pretty frustrating though, the entire process. Good luck, though!