Do I meet the Requirements to apply for a partner visa?

To apply for a partner visa you must meet the de facto or spousal requirement. Spousal is married and de facto is not married. However, even if you are married, you still need to provide evidence of the relationship.

Demonstrating a Genuine Relationship:

This is a crucial aspect of your application. You need to convince the Department of Home Affairs that you have a real and ongoing relationship with your partner. To do this, you are required to provide this evidence on paper.

Immigration does not care about how much you love each other. They care about what documentation you can provide to prove your relationship is true, genuine, and continuing.

Immigration will generally consider 4 factors when assessing the de facto relationship:

• Household

• Social

• Financial

• Commitment

Although there are 4 factors immigration generally assesses, you don’t need to specifically meet every requirement as there is no exact checklist. We have helped many people gain successful partner visas, where perhaps, they lack financial evidence (they don’t have a joint bank account or rarely transfer funds to each other).  You can get the visa approved as long as you can provide sufficient evidence about the other factors in the relationship.

Household –

You will generally need to live together and provide evidence of this. This can come in the form of lease agreements, property ownership, correspondence sent to the same address, utilities, and internet bills, etc. As a general rule of thumb, you may want to live together for at least 12 months unless you are married or register a relationship in a relevant state.

Financial:

• Do you have comingled finances? Have you set up a joint bank account and actually utilize this account? Do you transfer funds to each other?

Social:

• This is generally the easiest. You can provide photos, event tickets, travel and hotel accommodation, wedding invites, and Social Media posts. Stat decs from Australian citizens. Essentially immigration will want to see that you display yourself as a couple to society

Commitment:

• Commitment can be shown in many ways, for example, you can get married or register a relationship. You can provide evidence of superannuation beneficiaries, or beneficiaries of the will. Your partner can be a secondary driver on your car policy. Being in a long and stable relationship is also a great example of commitment.

Essentially, immigration want to ensure you are in a loving and genuine relationship and it is crucial you can provide documentation to back up your relationship.

Please note that information is general in nature, please contact one of our specialist migration agents to know more about your specific situation.