The Aged Parent visa 804 lodged onshore: a life on the bridging visa, what it costs and permits, and the honest account before the family decides

MARN 1576536

What the 804 is, and who can apply

The Aged Parent visa, subclass 804, is the onshore, non-contributory, permanent parent visa: the counterpart of the offshore Parent visa 103 for a parent who is in Australia. The applicant must have reached Australian age pension age at the time of application, must be in Australia when applying and when the visa is decided, must be the parent of a child who is an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen and who has been settled in Australia for a period the Department reads as at least two years in the ordinary case and who sponsors the parent, must pass the balance of family test, under which at least half of the parent's children must be living permanently in Australia or more of them here than in any other single country, and must meet the health and character requirements, with the sponsor or another person providing an assurance of support when the visa reaches the second stage. The visa application charge is paid in two instalments, a few thousand dollars at lodgement and the second at the end, and it is the contributory visa's charge of tens of thousands that the family is avoiding by choosing it. The parent visas guide sets every parent visa side by side.

The queue, in the Department's own terms

The non-contributory parent visas are capped, a few thousand places a year across the 103 and the 804, and the queue of applications lodged exceeds the places by a multiple that the Department has translated, in its published guidance on parent visa processing, into a waiting period measured in decades, around thirty years on the figures it has most recently given; the processing time guide carries the current figure. The arithmetic is not a delay the Department intends to fix, it is the program's design, and a parent of pension age who lodges now does so in the knowledge that the visa is unlikely to be granted in their lifetime. Everything that follows in this guide follows from that fact, and a family that has not absorbed it is not ready to decide.

Why parents lodge it: the bridging visa

A valid 804 application lodged in Australia by a parent who holds a substantive visa produces a Bridging Visa A, granted at lodgement and coming into effect when the parent's current visa ends, which keeps the parent lawfully in Australia until the 804 application is finally decided; since the decision is decades away, the bridging visa is in practice the parent's visa for the rest of their life, and the 804 is lodged for it. The family is together, the parent lives in Australia with the children and grandchildren, and the application sits in the queue doing its only real work, which is to keep the bridging visa alive. The Department knows this is how the 804 is used, the arrangement is lawful, and tens of thousands of parents are living on it; the point of this guide is not that it is wrong but that the bridging visa is a particular kind of visa with limits, under the headings that follow, which a family prices before it chooses. The Bridging Visa A guide covers the visa itself.

The visitor visa with condition 8503

Most parents who lodge the 804 are in Australia on a visitor visa, and the Department has for years imposed condition 8503, no further stay, on many visitor visas granted to parents of Australians, particularly those who have visited before, those on the longer-validity visitor visas, and those whose applications suggested an intention to stay; a visitor visa carrying 8503 prevents the holder from being granted most substantive visas onshore and makes an 804 application lodged while it applies invalid, with no bridging visa. The condition can be waived on a request showing compelling and compassionate circumstances beyond the parent's control that arose after the visitor visa was granted, a serious illness, a death, a disaster at home, and it is not waived for the wish to stay with family, however strong; the 8503 waiver guide sets out the test and the request. The parent's visitor visa is therefore read on VEVO before any 804 plan is made: a visitor visa without 8503 allows the application, and one with it does not, and a family in the second position plans a departure and a visitor visa without the condition, or the 870, or the contributory route, rather than an application that will be invalid.

The Bridging Visa A: when it starts and what it carries

The Bridging Visa A is granted when the valid 804 application is lodged and comes into effect the day after the parent's current substantive visa ceases, so a parent on a visitor visa with months to run stays on the visitor visa, with its conditions, until it expires and then moves onto the bridging visa; the bridging visa continues until the 804 is finally determined and, if it is refused, for a period after. It carries the conditions the Department attaches at grant, which are shown on the grant notice and on VEVO; it permits the parent to remain in Australia and nothing else, and in particular it carries no travel facility. It is the parent's only visa for the decades that follow, it is checked by every institution the parent deals with, and it is lost if the parent leaves Australia without a Bridging Visa B or if the 804 application is withdrawn, after which the parent must leave. A parent who was unlawful when the application was lodged, or who had no substantive visa, is granted a Bridging Visa C or E with their tighter limits rather than an A.

Work rights

Bridging visas granted on parent visa applications have in practice commonly been granted without a work restriction, so that a parent who wishes to work, part-time, in a family business, as a carer, can do so lawfully; the conditions on the parent's own bridging visa govern and are read on VEVO, and a parent whose bridging visa carries a no-work condition applies to have it lifted on a showing of compelling need, which the work rights guide covers. For most 804 applicants the question is academic, and the more important consequence of the parent's age is the one under the next heading.

Medicare, reciprocal cover and private insurance

Medicare eligibility for a visa applicant on a bridging visa depends on the application: an applicant for a permanent visa is eligible in some categories, the partner visas among them, and an applicant for a non-contributory parent visa is, in the ordinary case, not, so a parent on the 804's bridging visa does not enrol in Medicare on that basis and is not covered by it for the decades of the queue. A parent from a country with which Australia has a reciprocal health care agreement, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia at the date of writing, has the limited cover that agreement gives, usually for immediately necessary treatment; a parent from anywhere else relies on private health insurance, which for a person of pension age with existing conditions is expensive, excludes pre-existing conditions for a waiting period, and rises every year. The Medicare guide covers the categories. Over ten or twenty years the insurance is the largest cost of the 804 route, larger than the contributory visa's charge in many cases, and it is the cost families most often do not price before lodging; a serious illness without adequate cover falls on the family's means or on the public hospital as an unfunded patient.

Travel, and the Bridging Visa B each time

The Bridging Visa A has no travel facility, and a parent who leaves Australia on it loses it and has no way back on the 804 application. A parent who wishes to visit home, for a wedding, a funeral, an illness, a property, applies before each trip for a Bridging Visa B, with the reason and the dates, and the Department grants it with a travel period, commonly three months and sometimes longer, within which the parent must return; the parent who returns inside the period resumes the Bridging Visa A, and the parent who does not is outside Australia with an 804 application that may require their presence at decision and no visa to re-enter on. Over a decade that is many applications, each with its fee and its decision, and a parent with a dying relative abroad applies for the B first and travels second, which is a hard discipline to keep. The Bridging Visa B guide covers the application and the travel period.

The contributory 864, and moving to it later

The Contributory Aged Parent visa, subclass 864, is the 804's expensive counterpart: the same age, sponsor and balance of family requirements, a second visa application charge of tens of thousands of dollars per parent, and a queue measured in years rather than decades, with the visa granted in the parent's lifetime and with it Medicare, a travel facility and permanent residence. A family that cannot find the contributory charge now and can later has a route the rules allow: an 804 applicant in the queue can lodge a new application for the 864 and, under the Department's queue practice, is placed in the contributory queue with regard to the original 804 lodgement date, so the years on the 804 are not wasted and the family pays the contributory charge when it can; the 804 application is then withdrawn or lapses on the 864's grant. A family planning this from the start lodges the 804 as the placeholder and saves for the 864, which is the commonest sensible use of the 804, and the contributory parent visa guide sets out the charges and the timing; the Department's queue rules change and the current ones are read before the plan is made.

The 870 as the temporary alternative

The Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa, subclass 870, is the alternative for a family that wants the parent here lawfully for years without the bridging visa life: a temporary visa of three or five years, renewable to a maximum of ten years in total, applied for from outside Australia in the ordinary case after the child is approved as a sponsor, with a charge of some thousands of dollars per grant, a requirement for health insurance, no work rights, and no pathway to permanent residence. It is not cheaper over ten years than the 804's bridging visa, it has a ceiling, and it requires the parent to leave at the end; what it offers is a visa with a travel facility, a defined status, and no queue to lodge into, and for a family whose parent wants to spend long periods in Australia but keep a home abroad it is often the better fit. The 870 guide covers it, and a parent in Australia on a visitor visa with 8503 who cannot lodge the 804 often moves to the 870 from offshore.

Illness, care and death in the queue

A parent who falls seriously ill on the 804's bridging visa is treated in Australia on the family's insurance and means, without Medicare in the ordinary case and without the aged care subsidies that depend on permanent residence; a parent who needs residential aged care is a private-fee resident with no government contribution, which families discover at the point of need and which is, with the insurance, the second cost the 804 route hides. A parent who dies in the queue dies on a bridging visa, the application ends, and nothing is refunded. A parent whose health declines to the point that the health requirement would be failed when the 804 is finally assessed has, decades on, a visa that may then be refused; the 864 route, granted within years, is assessed while the parent is younger and the health requirement is more likely to be met. The consultation puts these costs on the table with the others because a family that has seen them chooses with open eyes, and a family that has not chooses the cheapest charge and pays later.

The honest account before the family decides

The 804 is a lawful, common and often sensible way for a parent to live in Australia with their family, and it is sold by some as a cheap permanent visa, which it is not. It is a placeholder application that produces a bridging visa for the rest of the parent's life, on which the parent lives without Medicare, with private insurance that grows with age and excludes what the parent already has, without travel except by permission trip by trip, without the aged care support that residence brings, and with a decision that is reversed only by leaving. For a family with the means to insure and to care, with a parent who does not need to travel often, and with a plan to move to the contributory visa when it can, it works well. For a family that lodged because the charge was low, with a parent who has conditions, who travels, and who will need care, it is the beginning of a long and expensive problem that the contributory visa or the 870 would have avoided. The decision is the family's; the consultation exists so that it is made on the whole account.

The 804 checklist

1. Confirm the parent's age against pension age, the balance of family test on every child's residence, and the sponsor child's settled period.
2. Read the parent's current visa on VEVO for condition 8503; if it is there, the 804 cannot be lodged without a waiver that is rarely granted.
3. Price the private health insurance for the parent's age and conditions over ten years, and the aged care position, before comparing charges.
4. Decide the travel plan: each trip needs a Bridging Visa B, applied for first.
5. Plan the move to the 864 when the family can fund it, and read the current queue rules.
6. Compare the 870 for a parent who wants years here with a home abroad and a travel facility.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case, and not health insurance or aged care advice. The subclass 804 and 864 criteria in Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994, the balance of family test in regulation 1.05, the bridging visa provisions, condition 8503 and the waiver in regulation 2.05(4), the Department’s published parent visa queue and processing guidance, the Health Insurance Act 1973 and Services Australia’s Medicare eligibility rules, and the reciprocal health care agreements, all as in force at the date above; the queue figures, the charges and the Medicare categories change and the current published figures govern. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.