At VJ Consulting and Education, we know that partner visa processing times are one of the most anxious unknowns applicants face, and setting realistic expectations from day one makes a significant difference to the experience.
How long does partner visa 820 take?
The honest answer: the 820 temporary stage is taking between 17 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au at the 50th percentile and 40 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au at the 90th percentile — meaning one in ten applicants waits over three years for the temporary grant alone.
The 820 is not a standalone visa in practice. It is lodged simultaneously with the 801 permanent application, and the Department of Home Affairs assesses both applications under a single lodgement fee. What the 820 grant actually confers is lawful status in Australia on a substantive visa, replacing the bridging visa the applicant holds at time of lodgement. This matters enormously: once the 820 is granted, the applicant can travel in and out of Australia freely, work without restriction, and access Medicare — none of which are available on a Bridging Visa A.
Processing speed for the 820 is driven primarily by caseload volume and document completeness. Applications that arrive with certified translations, a coherent relationship timeline, and consistent statutory declarations from both partners tend to move through initial assessment faster. Where applications stall is almost always at the Request for Further Information stage — the Department issues an RFI when evidence of the genuine relationship is thin, inconsistent, or missing for a particular category (financial, social, household, or commitment). Responding to an RFI well adds weeks; responding poorly can add months or trigger a refusal.
For applicants lodging now, a working assumption of 22 to 28 monthsAs of 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au for the 820 grant is more realistic than the Department's published median, because published figures lag real-time queue conditions by several months.
How long does partner visa 309 take?
The In applications handled by VJCE, offshore applicants are often surprised by how early and thoroughly evidence of the genuine relationship needs to be compiled, as incomplete submissions tend to push processing toward the longer end of the range.309 offshore temporary visa is taking 17 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au at the median and 38 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au at the 90th percentile — broadly comparable to the onshore 820, which reflects the shared processing queue for partner visa applications globally.
The critical structural difference between the 309 and the 820 is what the applicant can do while waiting. A 309 applicant waiting offshore cannot lawfully work or live in Australia until the visa is granted. This makes the processing wait far more disruptive in practice: couples are separated across countries, often for two or more years, with no interim bridging status available. This is one of the strongest arguments for applicants who are currently in Australia on any valid visa to explore the onshore 820 pathway instead — lodging onshore locks in a Bridging Visa B (for travel) and keeps the couple together in Australia during the wait.
For the 309, document quality is even more consequential than for the 820, because the case officer cannot easily request an in-person interview or supplementary documents quickly when the applicant is abroad. A well-constructed initial application — with strong photographic evidence, joint financial records, statutory declarations from independent witnesses, and a clear written relationship history — reduces the probability of an RFI, which is the single biggest controllable driver of processing delay.
Applicants lodging the 309 should also note that if the relationship was less than two years old at lodgement, the permanent 100 visa cannot be granted until the two-year anniversary of the relationship, regardless of how quickly the 309 itself is decided.
How long does it take to get an 801 visa after 820?
The 801 permanent visa is almost never granted at the same time as the 820. In most cases, applicants wait a further [VISA_801_WAIT_AFTER_820] after the 820 is granted before the 801 is assessed — but the structural trigger matters more than the calendar.
The framework for understanding 801 timing has two independent conditions, both of which must be satisfied before the permanent stage can be granted. First, the relationship must have been in existence for at least two years from the date the sponsoring partner notified the Department (which is generally the lodgement date). Second, the Department must have capacity in its processing queue to assess the permanent stage. These two conditions rarely align neatly, and the second is entirely outside the applicant's control.
In practice, this means that even applicants who were in a long-established relationship at lodgement — say, a couple together for five years — will still wait for the Department to return to their file for the permanent assessment. The 801 queue is processed largely in lodgement order, and with current caseload volumes, that second assessment is typically occurring 3 to 5 yearsAs of 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au after the original partner visa lodgement date.
One underappreciated point: the applicant must still be in a genuine relationship with the same sponsor at the time of the 801 assessment. If the relationship has ended, the permanent visa will not be granted — even if the temporary 820 was already granted years earlier. This makes ongoing relationship documentation throughout the wait period more than a bureaucratic formality.
How long are spouse visas taking right now?
Right now — mid-2025 — spouse and partner visa processing sits at some of the longest wait times in the program's recent history. The Department's published processing times show medians of 17 to 20 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au for the temporary stage ( VJ Consulting advisers regularly remind clients that mid-2025 processing conditions are fluid, and that lodgement quality — particularly the completeness of supporting documents — remains one of the few factors applicants can control to avoid unnecessary delays.820 and 309), but these published figures mask significant tail risk: a meaningful proportion of applications are sitting well beyond 36 monthsAs of June 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au without resolution.
The cause is structural, not cyclical. Partner visa lodgements surged post-2020 as international travel resumed and couples who had deferred applications during the pandemic lodged simultaneously. The Department has not fully cleared that backlog, and ongoing lodgement volumes remain high. Priority processing is not available for partner visas in the way it exists for some employer-sponsored pathways, which means there is no mechanism to pay or qualify your way to the front of the queue.
What this means practically: applicants lodging now should plan their lives around a three-year timeline from lodgement to permanent grant, not a two-year one. That has real-world implications — employment contracts, rental agreements, study enrolments, and family planning decisions should all be stress-tested against a scenario where the 820 does not arrive for two years and the 801 does not arrive for four.
One thing that does influence outcomes within this environment is application completeness. Applications that require no RFI move through the queue faster than those that stall at the evidence-gathering stage — not because they are prioritised, but because they don't re-enter the queue after an interruption.
How long does the partner visa process take?
End-to-end — from lodgement of the temporary application to grant of the permanent visa — the partner visa process currently takes 3 to 5 yearsAs of 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au for most applicants. This is not a worst-case figure; it is a realistic median-to-75th-percentile range based on current processing conditions.
The process has a fixed structure that cannot be compressed below a floor set by policy. Where the relationship was less than two years old at lodgement, no permanent grant can occur before the two-year anniversary of the relationship. That is a hard floor. Above that floor, the actual timeline is determined by three factors operating in sequence: temporary stage processing time, the two-year relationship requirement, and permanent stage processing time. The slowest of these three determines the total duration.
To apply this framework: an applicant who lodges after two years in the relationship, and whose 820 is granted in 20 months, will then wait for the Department to re-assess the file for the 801. If that re-assessment occurs 18 months after the 820 grant, the total end-to-end timeline is approximately 38 months — just over three years. An applicant who lodges early in the relationship, receives the 820 after 24 months, and then waits a further 24 months for the 801 is looking at four years total.
For de facto couples, additional complexity arises around proving the start date of the relationship, which directly affects when the two-year clock began — a point many applicants overlook until they are already deep in the process. Establishing a clear, documented relationship commencement date at lodgement is far easier than reconstructing it later.
How long is a visa 820 valid?
The From cases processed at VJCE, we find that many applicants misunderstand the open-ended nature of the 820 visa, which is why we walk each client through what 'bridging' status means in practical terms for travel, work rights, and planning around the permanent stage.820 visa does not have a fixed expiry date in the conventional sense. It remains valid until the 801 permanent visa is either granted or refused — which means, in the current processing environment, the 820 effectively functions as an open-ended temporary visa for 2 to 4 yearsAs of 2025 · homeaffairs.gov.au or longer.
This is a design feature, not a gap. The legislative intent is that the 820 holder remains lawfully in Australia on a substantive visa for the full duration of the permanent assessment, however long that takes. There is no requirement to renew the 820, extend it, or apply for a bridging visa while it is in effect. The 820 is itself a substantive visa class — one of the relatively few temporary visas that carries full work rights and Medicare access without any additional conditions.
Travel rights under the 820 are worth noting carefully. The 820 grant typically includes a travel facility that allows return travel to Australia for 12 monthsAs of current · homeaffairs.gov.au from the date of grant. After that travel facility expires, the visa holder can still remain in Australia lawfully, but departing and returning requires a separate Resident Return Visa or the 801 permanent grant. Many applicants discover this only when they attempt to travel internationally after the first year of holding the 820 — it is one of the more practically impactful conditions of the visa that deserves early attention.
Once the 801 is granted, the 820 ceases — but at that point, the permanent visa confers all corresponding rights indefinitely.
Next Step
Partner visa timelines are long, and the consequences of errors — a poorly evidenced application, a missed travel facility, or a misunderstood relationship commencement date — compound over years, not weeks. If you are at the planning stage or have already lodged and want an independent assessment of where your application stands, VJ Consulting's MARA-registered agents can review your situation and give you a clear picture of what to expect and where to focus your attention.
This article is intended as general guidance only and does not constitute legal or migration advice. Visa requirements, fees, and processing times change regularly — always verify details on the relevant authority's official website before making decisions. For advice specific to your circumstances, consider consulting a MARA-registered migration agent.
References
- Department of Home Affairs — Partner visa processing times (820, 801, 309, 100): homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/partner-onshore
- Department of Home Affairs — Visa conditions and travel facilities: homeaffairs.gov.au
- Australian Government — Bridging visas overview: homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/bridging-a-010
Related reading
To see how partner visa timelines compare with other visa streams, visit the How Long / How Much? stage for a full overview, then check out Skilled Migration Visa Processing Times: 189, 190, 491 and 186 Explained to understand how skilled migration processing times stack up in the same stage.
