Partner visa sponsor requirements: who can sponsor, the limits, and the criminal record rules

MARN 1576536

Who can sponsor

The sponsor must be the applicant's spouse or de facto partner, or for a Prospective Marriage visa the intended spouse, and must be an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen. The sponsor must be 18 or over, with narrow exceptions where a married applicant's partner is 16 or 17 and a parent sponsors. The sponsor must usually be resident in Australia, or, for an offshore application, intend to return to live in Australia when the visa is granted. The sponsorship is a separate application with its own form, its own checks and its own decision, and the visa cannot be granted while it is refused.

The sponsorship limits

• Two partners in a lifetime. A person who has sponsored two previous partners for a partner or prospective marriage visa, where the visa was granted, cannot sponsor a third.
• Five years between sponsorships. A person who sponsored a partner cannot sponsor another within five years of the date of the earlier application.
• Five years after being sponsored. A person who came to Australia as a sponsored partner cannot sponsor a new partner within five years of the date of their own application, so that the person they were sponsored by is not replaced inside that period.
• Five years after a contributory parent visa. A person granted a contributory parent visa cannot sponsor a partner within five years of that grant, unless the relationship existed before the parent visa was granted and was declared then.

The limits attach to the sponsor, not the relationship, and they are counted from application dates, which the Department holds. A sponsor who is unsure of their own history asks before lodging, because a refused sponsorship means a refused visa and a lost charge.

Waiving the limits

The two-partner and five-year limits can be set aside where there are compelling circumstances affecting the sponsor. The examples the Department works from are a previous partner who has died or abandoned the sponsor, especially where there is a child; a previous relationship that was long and the current one that is also long-standing; and a child of the current relationship, or a dependent child of the applicant, whose interests are affected. A short new relationship with no children, following a sponsorship a few years ago, rarely meets it. The waiver is asked for in the sponsorship application with a statement and evidence, and it is decided before the relationship is examined at all.

Police checks

Every partner visa sponsor provides an Australian Federal Police national police check, and a police certificate from each country in which they have lived for twelve months or more in the ten years since turning 16, and consents to the Department disclosing any convictions to the visa applicant. The consent is not optional: a sponsor who declines is not approved. The certificates are the same as those the applicant obtains, and the police checks guide covers how to get them. The purpose is the applicant's protection, and a sponsor with a record that the applicant did not know about should expect the Department to make sure they do.

The criminal record rule

Sponsorship must be refused where the sponsor has a significant criminal record for a relevant offence, unless there are compelling circumstances affecting the interests of the sponsor or the applicant. A relevant offence is one involving violence against a person, harassment, molestation, intimidation or stalking, breach of a protection or apprehended violence order, firearms or weapons, people smuggling, human trafficking, slavery or servitude, or an attempt, conspiracy or aiding of any of them, in Australia or elsewhere. A significant criminal record means a sentence of death or life, or imprisonment of twelve months or more, or two or more sentences that together total twelve months or more. A relevant offence with a shorter sentence is not a bar in itself; it is disclosed, weighed, and told to the applicant. Where the bar applies, the compelling circumstances argument looks at the age of the offence, rehabilitation, the length and nature of the relationship, children, and the consequences for the applicant of refusal.

Offences against children

Where the application includes a person under 18, the sponsorship must be refused if the sponsor has been convicted of a registrable offence, broadly a sexual or serious offence against a child, under any Australian or foreign law, unless the Department is satisfied there are compelling circumstances affecting the interests of the family, which it is rarely satisfied of. The rule exists for the child's protection, it is applied to spent and expunged convictions as well as current ones, and a sponsor who does not disclose it is found through the police checks and refused on that ground too.

The undertakings

An approved sponsor undertakes to provide the applicant, and any family members included, with adequate accommodation and financial support for the first two years after the temporary visa is granted, and to inform the Department of changes in circumstances, including the end of the relationship. The undertaking is not a debt that Centrelink recovers, but it is a commitment the Department records, and a sponsor who did not meet it is a sponsor whose next sponsorship is read against it. The sponsor also agrees to the character disclosures above and to providing information if asked.

If the sponsor withdraws

A sponsor can withdraw sponsorship in writing at any time before the permanent visa is granted. Withdrawal does not itself withdraw the applicant's visa application, but a partner visa cannot be granted without an approved sponsor and a continuing relationship, so the application is refused unless an exception applies: the relationship ended because of family violence committed by the sponsor, the sponsor has died, or there is a child of the relationship with shared parental responsibility. Those provisions are set out in the family violence guide. A sponsor who threatens withdrawal to control the applicant is, in most cases, describing the circumstances in which the applicant keeps the visa without them.

Evidence from the sponsor

• Evidence of status: citizenship certificate, Australian birth certificate with evidence of a parent's status if born after 20 August 1986, permanent visa grant, or New Zealand passport and eligibility.
• Identity and any change of name.
• The AFP check and overseas police certificates, and the signed consent to disclosure.
• Disclosure of any previous sponsorships and any previous partner visa held, with dates.
• Disclosure of any convictions, with the court documents where the rule above is in play, and the evidence for a waiver.
• Evidence of residence in Australia, or of the intention to return for an offshore application.
• The sponsor's own statutory declaration about the relationship, which is also part of the relationship evidence.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Regulations 1.20J, 1.20KB and 1.20KC of the Migration Regulations 1994 and the sponsorship criteria of subclasses 820, 309 and 300, 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.