Made a mistake in your visa application: Form 1023, the section 107 notice, and section 109

MARN 1576536

The duty to correct

Section 101 of the Migration Act requires every answer in a visa application to be correct, and section 105 requires a person who becomes aware that an answer was incorrect, in the application or on a passenger card, to notify the Department in writing as soon as practicable, whether or not the visa has been decided. It is a continuing duty, it applies to answers given by an agent on your behalf, and it is the mechanism by which an honest mistake stays an honest mistake. An applicant who learns of an error and says nothing has converted it into a known incorrect answer that was not corrected, which is the worst position under the cancellation test.

Form 1023

Form 1023, Notification of incorrect answers, is the Department's form for the duty. It asks which application or passenger card, which question, what the answer was, what the correct answer is, and why the wrong answer was given. It is uploaded in ImmiAccount against the application, with any document that proves the correct answer, or sent to the processing office where that is the channel. The explanation is the part that matters: a plain account of how the error came about, in a sentence or two, with the evidence attached, is what the Department reads when it comes to weigh the correction. Keep a copy and the acknowledgement.

Mistake or change

Form 1023 corrects an answer that was wrong when it was given. Form 1022, and the update functions in ImmiAccount, notify a change that happened afterwards. The distinction is the difference between incorrect information and overtaken information, and it is the first thing a decision-maker checks. A start date mis-typed is a mistake. A job that ended last month is a change. A relationship described as de facto when it was not yet twelve months is a mistake; a relationship that has since ended is a change. Where both apply, both forms are lodged. Updating your details covers the changes.

What counts as incorrect

An answer is incorrect if it was untrue when given, whether or not the applicant knew. The Act does not require knowledge for the duty or for the cancellation power; knowledge goes to the weighing, not to whether the power exists. An answer given by an agent, a relative or an employer on the applicant's behalf is the applicant's answer. A bogus document in the application is dealt with under the same provisions and, more seriously, under PIC 4020. An omission can be incorrect where the question required the information: a conviction not listed, a previous visa refusal not disclosed, a family member not declared.

The section 107 notice

Where the Department considers that a visa holder gave an incorrect answer or a bogus document, it issues a notice under section 107 setting out the particulars: the question, the answer, why it is believed incorrect, and the possible consequences. The notice invites a response within the period it states, and the response may show that the answer was not incorrect, or that it was but the visa should not be cancelled. The response must itself be correct; section 107 provides that an incorrect statement in the response is a further ground. The notice is the point at which advice is taken, because the response is the whole of the case: there is no second notice, and a cancellation decided on a thin response is reviewed on the same material.

How section 109 is decided

Cancellation under section 109 is discretionary. Having found that an answer was incorrect, the Department must consider the matters prescribed in the Regulations before deciding: the correct information; the content of the incorrect answer; whether the decision to grant the visa was based on it; the circumstances in which it was given, including whether the holder knew; whether the holder has since notified the correct information; the time elapsed; and the consequences of cancellation for the holder and for Australia, including the effect on any family. In practice three questions decide most cases. Did the wrong answer matter to the grant? Did the holder know? Did the holder put it right before being asked? A minor, material-to-nothing error, corrected voluntarily, is almost never cancelled. A decisive error, known and concealed, almost always is.

After a cancellation

A section 109 cancellation of a visa held in Australia makes the holder unlawful unless a bridging visa is granted, brings the section 48 bar on most onshore applications, and brings PIC 4013, the three-year exclusion from most temporary visas. Family members whose visas depend on the cancelled one are cancelled with it. The decision is reviewable at the Administrative Review Tribunal for a holder in Australia, within the period on the decision letter, and the Tribunal weighs the same prescribed matters afresh. The consequences and the routes back are in the exclusion periods guide and the section 48 guide.

Mistake or false statement

Section 109 asks whether an answer was incorrect; PIC 4020 asks whether information was false or misleading in a material particular, which the courts read as given with a purpose to mislead, or whether a document was bogus. The same wrong answer can be both, and the Department decides which on the circumstances: how the error arose, whether it favoured the applicant, whether it was corrected, whether it was repeated. A mistake corrected on Form 1023 before anyone asked is the evidence that it was a mistake. The line is set out in the PIC 4020 guide, and the difference between the two outcomes is three years.

What to do today

• Find the exact question and answer in the lodged application, not your memory of it. ImmiAccount holds the lodged form.
• Establish the correct answer and the document that proves it.
• Decide whether it is a correction, a change, or both, and lodge the right form with a short, true explanation.
• If the error touches a criterion the visa turned on, get advice before lodging the correction, so that the notification answers section 109 as well as section 105.
• If a section 107 notice has arrived, note the response date, do not reply by return, and have the response built from evidence.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Sections 101, 104, 105, 107 and 109 of the Migration Act 1958 and regulation 2.41 of the Migration Regulations 1994, as in force at the date above. 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.