Military, police and intelligence service on a visa application: Form 1399, conscription, and what the Department is looking for

MARN 1576536

Who completes the declaration

Form 80, which the Department requires for most permanent visas and requests for others, asks whether the applicant has ever served in a military, paramilitary, police, intelligence or security organisation in any country, and an applicant who answers yes completes Form 1399, the declaration of service, which the Department requires for permanent visa applicants with service and requests from temporary applicants where the service or the country warrants it. The declaration covers every form of service: conscription and voluntary enlistment, regular forces and reserves, officers and other ranks, national police and gendarmeries, border and customs forces with a security role, intelligence and security agencies, and in some countries the compulsory cadet or militia training that follows school. An applicant who is unsure whether a period counts declares it; the Department would rather read a declaration of a year's reserve training than find it later. The Form 80 guide covers the form that asks the first question.

What the form asks

• For each period of service: the country and the force; the dates of entry and discharge; the rank on entry and on discharge; the unit or units, with their names and locations; the role and duties; and the reason the service ended.
• Whether the applicant was deployed on operations, and where and when; whether they took part in combat; whether their duties included the guarding, detention or interrogation of prisoners or civilians.
• Whether the applicant received training in weapons, explosives, chemical or biological agents beyond basic training.
• Whether conscription or compulsory service applied to the applicant in any country, and if the applicant did not serve, how: exemption, deferral, alternative service, medical grounds, payment, or otherwise.
• The declaration that the answers are true, and the attachment of the service documents.

The questions are answered as they stand, with the facts; an applicant who served in a unit with an unremarkable role writes that, and an applicant who took part in combat writes that, because the Department reads both and the second is not a refusal.

Compulsory service

Compulsory national service in a conventional force is the commonest service declared and the least consequential. The applicant from Korea who served twenty-one months, from Israel who served three years, from Singapore, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Taiwan, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Brazil, Egypt, Iran or any of the other countries with conscription, declares the service with the unit and the role, attaches the discharge certificate, and has told the Department what it needed to know. The Department does not treat conscription as a character matter, does not require an explanation for it, and does not weigh it in any decision about the visa. The period appears in the employment history on Form 80 as military service, with the same dates, so that the history has no gap.

Conscription avoided, deferred or exempted

An applicant from a country with conscription who did not serve declares how: an exemption for health, for study, for family circumstances or as an only son; a deferral that ran out when the applicant emigrated; alternative civilian service; a payment in lieu where the country permits it; dual nationality or residence abroad that removed the obligation; or evasion. Each is declared with the documents where they exist, the exemption certificate, the deferral letter, the receipt. Lawful avoidance is nothing. Evasion that is an offence in the home country is declared as the fact it is, and the Department weighs it as an offence abroad, which for draft evasion it does lightly; the Department is not the home country's recruiting office. An applicant who fears persecution for evading service is in the territory of a different application and says so to the adviser rather than to the form.

Describing ordinary service

The declaration describes the service plainly: the force, the unit's name and type, infantry, signals, logistics, engineering, medical, administration, the role, the duties, the rank, the location, and whether the unit deployed. An applicant who served as a clerk in a logistics battalion writes that; an applicant who served as a rifleman in an infantry battalion that deployed to a border writes that, with the deployment and whether there was combat. The Department has read tens of thousands of these and knows what a conscript's service looks like. The temptation to minimise, to leave out the deployment or the combat, is resisted, because the unit's history is a matter of public record and a declaration that contradicts it is a false declaration. The temptation to dramatise is resisted too; the form asks what happened.

What the Department is looking for

The character test provides that a person does not pass it if, among other limbs, they have been convicted of or have committed a war crime, a crime against humanity, genocide, torture or slavery, or if the Minister reasonably suspects that they have been involved in such conduct or are a person of serious international concern; and a separate public interest criterion requires the Department to consider whether an applicant has been involved in serious human rights violations. The declaration of service is the Department's means of identifying applicants whose service may bring them within those provisions: members of units or forces the Department associates with such conduct in particular conflicts, holders of senior positions in regimes responsible for it, participants in the detention or interrogation of civilians in circumstances where abuses occurred. Those applicants are referred to specialist assessment, asked for detailed statements, and sometimes refused; for them the declaration is the beginning of a serious process, and legal advice is taken before it is completed. For everyone else, which is nearly everyone, the declaration is read against the units and the periods, found to raise nothing, and filed. The character guide sets out the limbs.

The documents

The declaration is supported by the service record and the discharge certificate, or whatever the country issues: a military service book, a certificate of completion of national service, a discharge order, a reservist card, a police service record. An applicant who no longer has them obtains copies from the force or the defence ministry, which most countries provide to former members, and where that is impossible, a statutory declaration explaining what the service was and why the documents cannot be produced. Documents not in English are translated by a certified translator, with the unit names rendered as the force uses them. The documents are attached to the declaration and the dates on them match the dates declared. The translations guide covers the translation.

Consistency with Form 80 and the employment history

Form 80 asks for the employment history of the last ten years with no gaps, and for the applicant's addresses and travel; the service period appears in the employment history as service, at the dates declared on Form 1399, at the location the unit was based. A service period absent from the employment history, or at different dates, or in a different place, is the inconsistency that prompts the Department to look harder at both forms. The same dates appear on the resume lodged with a skills assessment and in the expression of interest, where a gap in employment is explained as military service. The declaration, Form 80, the employment history and the travel history are prepared together, from the same timeline. The employment history guide covers the timeline.

Omission

An applicant who leaves out their service, from Form 80 or from the declaration, has given a false answer to a direct question, and the Department finds the service through the gap in the employment history, the home country's records, the police certificate that records it, the travel history that shows the applicant was not abroad, or a later application that mentions it. The finding engages PIC 4020, which refuses the application for false or misleading information and bars most further visas for three years, whether or not the service would have mattered, which for ordinary service it would not. Applicants omit service because they fear it will count against them, and in doing so create the only way it can. The declaration of ordinary service is a page of facts and a discharge certificate; the omission is a refusal. The PIC 4020 guide sets out the consequence.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 (including the limbs on war crimes, crimes against humanity and persons of serious international concern), Public Interest Criteria 4001, 4003 and 4020 in Schedule 4 to the Migration Regulations 1994, and the Department’s Forms 80 and 1399, as at the date above. A service history that may engage the character test is a matter for an immigration lawyer; WIDEN refers. 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.