Asking the Department to process a visa faster: what counts as compassionate and compelling, how the request is made, and the requests refused every time

MARN 1576536

How the order is set

Section 499 of the Migration Act lets the Minister direct the Department on the order in which it considers applications, and the directions in force set that order for each programme: for the skilled and employer-sponsored visas, Directions 121 and 122 since 19 September 2026, by priority sector, stream and the applicant's location; for the family visas, a direction that gives the highest priority to applications made in Australia and sets the order among the rest; for other programmes, their own. Within each tier the Department processes in the order of lodgement and readiness. The directions bind the Department, and an officer who moved an application forward outside them for an ordinary reason would be acting against a direction, which is why the officers do not. The directions guide sets out the skilled order.

The test for departing from it

The directions and the Department's policy allow an application to be considered ahead of its place where it involves special circumstances of a compassionate nature and there are compelling reasons to depart from the order; both limbs are required, and the Department's guidance to its officers describes what each means. Compassionate circumstances are ones involving serious harm, loss or suffering to the applicant or to a person close to them, of a kind that the visa decision bears on; compelling reasons are ones that make it necessary to decide this application now rather than in its turn, measured against every other applicant in the queue, many of whom have hardships of their own. The Department states, in its own material, that a priority request does not guarantee a faster decision even where the circumstances are accepted, because other applicants may have circumstances as compelling.

What counts

• The serious illness, injury or death of a close family member, in Australia or overseas, where the applicant's presence is needed and the visa decision determines it.
• Medical treatment the applicant or a family member needs that cannot be obtained where they are and cannot wait.
• The safety or welfare of a child or another vulnerable person, which the visa would secure or which separation is harming.
• A humanitarian situation in the applicant's country, conflict, disaster, persecution, that puts them at risk while they wait.
• An applicant whose own serious illness means a delayed decision may be no decision.
• Circumstances of equivalent weight that the Department's guidance recognises, in which the common element is harm that the visa decision would prevent.

What never counts

• Travel bookings, however non-refundable, and the cost of changing them.
• A job start date, a contract, an employer's need, or a business's loss while waiting.
• A wedding, a graduation, a birthday, a festival, a reunion, as a guest or as a participant.
• A course start date, a lease, a property settlement, a school enrolment.
• The length of the wait so far, the stress, the cost of living apart, and the fact that the published processing time has been exceeded.
• A member of parliament's letter, which the Department answers courteously and files.

These are the circumstances of nearly every applicant, and a request based on them is answered with the processing times page. An applicant who sends one has not harmed the application; they have spent the time it took.

How the request is made

The request is lodged once, through the Department's online enquiry form, selecting the option for a priority or compassionate processing request where the form offers one or the general enquiry where it does not, quoting the transaction reference number, with a signed statement by the applicant setting out the circumstances, their connection to the application, and why the decision cannot wait, and with the evidence uploaded to the application in ImmiAccount so that the officer who reads the request finds it on the file. A registered agent lodges it on the applicant's behalf through the same channel. The Department asks applicants not to lodge multiple requests, not to telephone, and not to write to several addresses, because each duplicate is read and answered and none accelerates the file; a second request is made only where the circumstances have changed. The Department acknowledges the request and, where it accepts the circumstances, allocates the application; where it does not, it says so with the processing times.

The evidence

The request is decided on the evidence, and the evidence is independent of the applicant: a letter from the treating hospital or specialist, on letterhead, dated, naming the patient, the condition, the prognosis and the need for the applicant's presence; a death certificate and the funeral arrangements; a police report or a court order where a child's safety is the ground; a treating doctor's letter on the applicant's own condition; official reports or notices where the ground is a situation in the applicant's country; and the documents that show the relationship between the applicant and the person concerned. A statement by the applicant alone, however detailed, is not evidence of the circumstances; it is the applicant's account, and the officer looks past it for the document. The evidence is uploaded before the request is sent, with translations where needed.

Family visas

The family direction gives the highest priority to family visa applications lodged by applicants in Australia, which most partner applicants are, and the Department's published position on partner visas is that priority requests are considered under the compassionate and compelling test with no guarantee of a faster outcome. In practice a partner or child application where a family member is dying, a child is at risk, or the applicant abroad is in danger is the case the Department does move, and the ordinary separation of a couple across a border while the visa is processed is the case it does not, because every offshore partner applicant is in it. Parent visa applicants, in a queue measured in years, are not moved for age or illness alone; the Department's answer to an aged parent's illness is the visitor visa.

Skilled and employer-sponsored visas

There is no priority processing service for the employer-sponsored visas; the fee-based service that existed for the 457 and the 482 ended in September 2018, and the sector and location tiers of Direction 121 are the whole of the ordering now, so that a nomination in a priority sector moves ahead of one that is not by the direction's own operation and an employer's urgency letter adds nothing. The points-tested visas are ordered by Direction 122 in the same way. A skilled applicant with a genuine compassionate emergency makes the request as anyone does, and the Department considers it; a skilled applicant whose employer needs them, whose contract is lapsing, or whose lease is ending has the circumstances of every other applicant in the tier. What moves a skilled application is being in a priority sector, being onshore, lodging complete, and answering a request for information at once, and the section 56 guide covers the last.

Visitor visas: the urgent channel

A visitor visa applicant who needs to travel at once because a relative in Australia is seriously ill or has died uses the Department's urgent processing channel for visitor visas, which is a different process from a priority request on a pending family or skilled application: the application is lodged, the urgent request follows with the hospital's letter and the relationship evidence, and the Department prioritises genuine cases, often within days. It is the one priority process that works regularly, because the visa is short and the circumstance is specific. The urgent visitor guide sets it out.

The alternative

1. Lodge complete: every document the checklist asks for, the health examination booked the day the identifier issues, the police certificates in hand, Form 80 uploaded unasked. An application the officer can decide when they reach it is decided when they reach it; one that needs a request for information goes to the back after the request.
2. Answer any request for information inside days, not inside the period.
3. Keep the file current, so that the officer finds no change of circumstances to chase.
4. Read the published processing times for the subclass and plan on the longer figure.
5. If the wait exceeds the published time with no request, an enquiry asking whether anything is outstanding is reasonable and sometimes finds that something is.

The processing delay guide sets out what can be done when the delay is the Department's, and the processing times report the current figures by subclass.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Section 499 of the Migration Act 1958 and the Ministerial Directions in force setting the order for considering visa applications, including Directions 121 and 122 for the skilled visas, and the Department’s published guidance on requests for priority processing on compassionate and compelling grounds, as at the date above; the directions and the Department’s processes change and the current published position governs. A priority request does not guarantee a faster decision. 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.