Form 80 and Form 1221: which one you need, what each asks, and how to complete them without turning a routine form into a refusal

MARN 1576536

What each form is for

The visa application form collects what the visa's criteria need; the Department's character and identity assessment needs more, and the two forms collect it. Form 80, titled personal particulars for assessment including character assessment, is the full instrument: it asks for every name the applicant has used, every address for the period, every period of employment, self-employment, study and unemployment, every international journey, the applicant's parents, siblings, partner and children, military, police and government service, and the character questions in their full form, and it is used where the Department makes a complete character and security assessment, which for permanent visas and for applicants from some countries it does as a matter of course. Form 1221, titled additional personal particulars information, collects a shorter version of the same, identity, travel, employment and education over a narrower period, and is used where the Department wants more than the application gives but not the full history. Both are the applicant's declarations, signed, and both are read against everything else the Department holds; neither is a formality.

Who is asked for which, and when

The Department requests Form 80 for most permanent visa applications, the skilled visas, the employer-nominated permanent visas, the partner visas in both stages and the parent visas, for the main applicant and for family members over the age it specifies, and for any applicant, on any visa, whose character or security assessment it wants to make in full, which includes applicants with a declared conviction, applicants who have lived in countries the Department treats as higher risk, and applicants whose histories are complex. Form 1221 is requested more often for temporary visas, for student visa applicants from some countries, for some 482 applicants, for visitor visa applicants in some circumstances, and for secondary applicants where the primary applicant has completed Form 80; some applicants are asked for both. The request appears in the document checklist generated by the online application, or in a letter after lodgement with a date, and the applicant provides what is asked. For a permanent application, uploading Form 80 at lodgement without waiting to be asked is the ordinary practice, because the request would otherwise come and the application would wait; the form is completed with the same care either way.

What Form 80 asks

In its current form, Form 80 asks for: the applicant's full name and every other name ever used, with the reason and the dates; identity and passport details, including previous passports; the application the form relates to; the applicant's contact details and every residential address for the past ten years, with dates and no gaps; the applicant's intended address in Australia; every international journey in the past ten years, with the countries, the purpose and the dates, including journeys to and from Australia; every period of employment, self-employment, unemployment, study and other activity for the past ten years, with employers, positions, addresses and dates, again with no gaps; education, with institutions, courses and dates; the applicant's parents, siblings, partner, children and any previous partners, with their details and whereabouts; military service, government and intelligence service, and police service, with dates; the character questions, covering convictions, charges, investigations, deportations, visa refusals and cancellations, association with organisations, and the rest, in each country; and a declaration. The ten-year periods are counted back from the date the form is completed, and the Department compares them with the application, which may have been lodged months earlier, so the two are reconciled.

What Form 1221 asks

Form 1221 asks for the applicant's identity and names, passport details, contact details and current address, the application it relates to, the applicant's travel in the period it specifies, employment and education over the period it specifies, which is shorter than Form 80's, and a narrower set of questions about the applicant's circumstances, with a declaration; it does not ask for the full family listing or the full character questionnaire. It is shorter, it is completed in the same way, from documents and consistently with the application, and an applicant asked for it does not substitute Form 80 or the reverse; the form requested is the form provided, and where both are requested both are completed and reconciled with each other, because the Department reads the overlap.

The questions applicants get wrong

• Travel. Trips reconstructed from memory, with dates that do not match the passport stamps or the Department's movement records; short trips left out as unimportant. Every trip, from the passport and the airline emails, with dates.
• Employment dates. Start and end dates that differ from the reference letters, the skills assessment or the points claimed; the Department reads the form against all three, and in a skilled application a difference changes the points.
• Job titles and duties. A title on the form that differs from the title on the reference letter, or duties that differ from the nominated occupation's.
• Previous names. A maiden name, a name on an old passport, a transliteration, a name used in one country only; every one is declared with the reason.
• Family members. A sibling abroad, a parent who has died, a previous spouse, a child from a previous relationship; all are listed, and the family members guide covers why.
• Military and government service. Compulsory national service, a reserve, a police force, a government department; forgotten or thought irrelevant, and asked about directly.
• The character questions. A charge withdrawn, a caution, a traffic conviction, a fine, treated as not a conviction; the questions are answered as written, and the criminal record guide covers what each term means.
• Previous visa refusals and cancellations. Anywhere in the world, including a refused visitor visa to another country years ago.

Consistency with the application and with each other

The Department holds the application, the documents lodged with it, every previous application the applicant has made, the movement records of every entry and departure from Australia, and often the information the skills assessing authority received, and it reads the form against all of them; a date, a name, an address or an employer that appears differently in two places is a question, and enough questions are a credibility finding that colours the whole application. The form is therefore completed from the documents the Department has or will have, the passport for travel, the reference letters and payslips for employment, the transcripts for study, the previous application for addresses and names, so that every entry matches its source, and where a source is wrong the form carries the correct entry and a note explaining the difference, because an explained difference is a correction and an unexplained one is a discrepancy. Where two family members complete forms, their shared addresses, shared travel and shared family details match. A form completed by an agent from the applicant's recollection, signed without reading, is the form that creates the refusal, and the applicant reads every line before signing.

Gaps, and how to account for them

The address and the employment histories are continuous: every month of the period is covered by an entry, with no blank between the end of one and the start of the next. A period without work is entered as unemployed, with the address and the dates; a period of study, as study; a period caring for a child or a parent, travelling, recovering from illness, or between a job ending and the next beginning, as that, in a line; a period living with family, with that address. A gap left blank is read as something the applicant does not want to say, and the Department asks about it or draws its own conclusion. The employment gaps guide covers how gaps are explained and how, in a skilled application, they interact with the employment the points are claimed for; the short answer is that a gap honestly entered costs nothing and a gap concealed costs the application.

Family members complete their own

Each applicant in the application who is over the age the Department specifies completes their own form, in their own name, with their own history and their own signature: the partner's Form 80 is the partner's addresses, employment, travel and family, not a copy of the primary applicant's with the name changed, and a child over the age completes theirs. The forms are read together, so the family's shared history matches across them, the same addresses for the same periods, the same trips taken together, the same family members listed by each with consistent details; and each is read against that applicant's own documents and previous applications. A form completed by one family member on behalf of another, without that person's own review, is where the inconsistencies between family members come from.

Completing, signing and uploading

The form is completed in English, in the current version downloaded from the Department, typed where the version allows it or in block capitals where it does not, every question answered and no question left blank, with 'not applicable' or 'none' where that is the answer; where a section's space is insufficient, the additional information section or an attached sheet continues it, referenced to the question. The declaration is signed by the applicant, by hand, and dated, and the form is scanned in full, every page, in colour where there is a signature, and uploaded to the application in ImmiAccount against the document type the checklist names, or provided as the request directs. An unsigned form, a form with pages missing, a form in an outdated version or a form for the wrong applicant is returned, and the application waits.

The request, and its date

A request for Form 80 or Form 1221 after lodgement comes in a letter with a date by which it must be provided, commonly 28 days, and the Department can decide the application on the material it has if the date passes without the form; an applicant who needs longer, because documents are being gathered from abroad, asks in writing before the date for an extension with the reason, which is often granted once. The form is completed with the care above within the period, not in the last two days, and if a question on it raises something the applicant has not previously disclosed, a conviction, a refused visa, a family member, the applicant discloses it on the form and, where the application said otherwise, corrects the application with it; the 4020 guide explains why a correction made now is better than a discovery made later.

The forms checklist

1. Provide the form the checklist or the letter asks for; for a permanent application, upload Form 80 at lodgement.
2. Complete it from the documents: passport for travel, letters and payslips for employment, transcripts for study, the previous application for names and addresses.
3. Account for every month of the period with no blank.
4. Declare every name, every trip, every family member, every service, and answer the character questions as written.
5. Reconcile every date with the application, the skills assessment and the other family members' forms, and explain any difference.
6. Sign by hand, scan every page, upload the current version, and answer a request by its date.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Forms 80 and 1221 as published by the Department, public interest criteria 4001 and 4020 in Schedule 4 to the Migration Regulations 1994, sections 97 to 109 of the Migration Act 1958 on incorrect information, and the Department’s practice on requests for information and the periods for response, all as in force at the date above; the forms’ contents and the Department’s requesting practice change and the current version governs. 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.