Family visas · Other family
The remaining relative and aged dependent relative visas: what each requires, the queue measured in decades, and the bridging visa that is the real reason to lodge
These are the two family visas the Department processes last. Both are permanent, both are capped at a few hundred places a year, and both are queued so far behind demand that the Department’s own release date is for applications lodged before mid-2013 and its own estimate for a new application is measured in decades. Nobody lodges them for the permanent visa; the onshore versions are lodged for the bridging visa that comes with them, which lets a relative who is otherwise out of options stay lawfully, with work rights, for as long as the queue lasts, and the offshore versions are lodged by families who have been told what they are and want the place anyway. This guide sets out the remaining relative test, which a single parent, sibling or child abroad defeats, the aged dependent relative test, the sponsor and the assurance of support, the queue dates and what they mean, the bridging visa and its years, and the honest advice.
By Keshab Chapagain, registered migration agent (MARN 1576536) since 2015 · WIDEN, Sydney · Reviewed October 2026
Keshab Chapagain · MARN 1576536 · Registered since 2015 - Visas
- Remaining relative 115 (offshore) and 835 (onshore); aged dependent relative 114 (offshore) and 838 (onshore)
- Places
- A few hundred a year across the two, capped
- Queue release date
- Applications lodged up to mid-2013, at the time of writing
- Estimated wait
- Decades, on the Department’s own figure
- Onshore
- A bridging visa A, usually with work rights, for the years it takes
- Offshore
- Nothing while waiting
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What the visas are
The other family category of the migration programme holds three visas, the carer visa, the remaining relative visa and the aged dependent relative visa, and the programme allocates the category a few hundred places a year in total, with the carer visa taking most of them under the processing priorities. The remaining relative and aged dependent relative visas are permanent, each in an offshore and an onshore version, 115 and 835 for the remaining relative, 114 and 838 for the aged dependent relative, and each is decided in two stages: the Department first assesses whether the applicant meets the criteria and, if so, places the application in a queue; it then releases queued applications for final processing in order of their queue date as places become available. The queue is the whole story of these visas. The carer guide covers the third visa in the category.
The remaining relative test
A remaining relative is a person who has a near relative who is an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen usually resident in Australia, and who has no near relatives other than ones who are such Australians usually resident here; the applicant's partner's near relatives count against the applicant in the same way. A near relative is a parent, a brother or sister, a child, or a step-equivalent of those, and the test is absolute: one parent alive in the home country, one sibling in a third country, one adult child who stayed behind, and the applicant is not a remaining relative, however little contact there is. The Department verifies the absence of relatives through the family details on the forms, the death certificates of deceased relatives, and the applicant's statutory declaration, and a relative omitted and later found is a PIC 4020 matter. The applicant must also have had no contact with, and no financial or other support from, a near relative overseas, which the definition's structure makes nearly automatic. The sponsor is the Australian near relative, over 18 and usually resident in Australia for a reasonable period. The sibling guide explains why this is the sibling visa in name only.
The aged dependent relative test
An aged dependent relative is a person who has reached the age at which an Australian would qualify for the age pension, who has no spouse or de facto partner, and who has been dependent on a relative in Australia for a substantial period, which the Department's policy reads as not less than three years, for their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, so that the relative's support was the applicant's main means of living. The relative is the applicant's child, grandchild, brother or sister, niece or nephew, or a step-equivalent, who is an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen usually resident in Australia and who sponsors. Dependency is proved by the record of money sent, the applicant's own lack of income, pension or assets sufficient to meet basic needs, and statements from both; an applicant with their own pension, a house and savings is not dependent, and an applicant supported by a child in Australia and a child abroad in equal measure is examined for which support was the main one. The applicant is also often the parent of the sponsor, and a parent who meets the balance of family test has the parent visas, whose queues are also long but whose criteria are different.
The sponsor
The sponsor lodges a sponsorship with the application, undertakes to provide accommodation, financial assistance and settlement support for the first two years after the grant, provides police certificates, and is examined for their own history, including for offences against children where the application includes a child; the sponsor must be over 18 and settled, and the Department's reading of settled is a reasonable period of residence in Australia, in practice two years. The sponsorship lasts the life of the application, and a sponsor who dies or withdraws before the application is decided ends it unless another eligible relative takes it over, which the regulations permit for some of these visas and which the consultation checks for the particular case.
The queue and the release date
The Department publishes a queue release date for the other family visas, the lodgement date up to which queued applications have been released for final processing, and at the time of writing it stands in mid-2013; it also publishes an estimate of the time a newly queued application will wait, derived from the number of places and the queue's length, which for the remaining relative and aged dependent relative visas runs to decades. The release date moves forward slowly as places are allocated each programme year, and it can stand still for a year when the places go to the carer visa. The queue date is the date the application was lodged and found to meet the criteria, not the date of release, and an application that is queued today has every application lodged since 2013 ahead of it. The Department's figures are on its processing pages and the parent processing guide explains how to read a queue of this kind.
The bridging visa
An applicant who lodges the onshore 835 or 838 while holding a substantive visa is granted a bridging visa A, which comes into effect when the substantive visa ends and lasts until the application is finally decided, which is the length of the queue; the bridging visa's conditions follow the substantive visa in the usual way, and an applicant who held a visa with work rights keeps them, while one who held a visitor visa applies for work rights on the bridging visa on financial hardship grounds, which for an applicant who is by definition without relatives abroad and often without means is commonly granted. This is why the onshore versions are lodged: a person in Australia whose other visas have run out, who is elderly or alone, who has family here and nowhere else, gains lawful stay for decades with the permanent visa as a distant possibility. An applicant whose substantive visa has already expired faces the Schedule 3 criteria and may not be able to lodge onshore at all, which is why timing matters. The bridging visa A guide covers what is held.
Travel and work on the bridging visa
A bridging visa A does not permit travel, and an applicant who leaves Australia on it has it cease and cannot return on it; travel during the years of the queue is on a bridging visa B, applied for before each trip with the reason, and granted for a period of months, with the applicant returning before it expires to resume the bridging visa A. Over decades, that is many bridging visa B applications, each with its charge, and an applicant who travels often is examined for whether they live in Australia at all. Work rights, once held, continue; Medicare is not available to a bridging visa holder in this category in most cases, and health cover is the family's cost for the duration, which for an aged applicant is the largest cost of the arrangement. The bridging visa B guide covers travel.
The assurance of support
Before the visa is granted, an assurance of support is required: a legally binding commitment to Services Australia by an assurer, usually the sponsor, to repay certain social security payments made to the applicant in the years after the grant, with a bank guarantee lodged for the period, and an assessment of the assurer's income against the threshold for the number of people assured. The assurance is required at the final processing stage, which for an application queued today is decades away, and the person who gives it then is whoever is able to; a family that cannot meet the income test or lodge the bond when the application is released has the application refused at the end of the wait, which is the cruellest outcome in the category and one the family plans for from the start.
When circumstances change during the wait
- The applicant marries or enters a de facto relationship: an aged dependent relative ceases to meet the criteria; a remaining relative's new partner's near relatives count against them.
- A near relative abroad is discovered or born: the remaining relative criteria are reassessed at final processing, and the application can fail then.
- The sponsor dies: the application may continue with another eligible sponsor where the regulations allow, and otherwise ends.
- The applicant dies: the application ends, and the charge is refundable to the estate.
- The applicant becomes eligible for another visa, a partner visa, a parent visa, a skilled visa through a family member's sponsorship, and the quicker visa is applied for, with the queued application withdrawn or left to run.
- The criteria are tested again at final processing, decades on, and the applicant must meet health and character then.
The honest advice
The remaining relative and aged dependent relative visas are, for a new applicant, a place in a queue that the Department does not expect to reach in the applicant's working life, and for an aged applicant, perhaps not in their life. Lodged onshore, they produce a bridging visa that is itself the outcome: lawful stay, usually with work, for as long as the queue lasts, at the cost of the charge, the bridging visa B charges for every trip, and private health cover throughout. Lodged offshore, they produce nothing while the applicant waits abroad, and a family lodges the offshore version only to hold a place. A family that understands this and wants the bridging visa for a relative with no other way to stay makes a reasonable decision; a family that lodges expecting a permanent visa within years has been misled. The consultation tells which visa, if any, the relative is actually eligible for, including the parent visas and the carer visa, before the charge is spent.
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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Regulations 1.03 and 1.15 of the Migration Regulations 1994 (remaining relative and aged dependent relative), the subclass 114, 115, 835 and 838 criteria in Schedule 2, the assurance of support provisions of the Social Security Act 1991, and the Department’s published queue release dates and processing estimates for the other family visas, as at the date above; the release date and the estimate change with each programme year and the Department’s current figures govern. 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.
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How long does the remaining relative visa take?
The Department publishes a queue release date for these visas, and at the time of writing applications lodged up to mid-2013 are being released for final processing; it also publishes an estimate of the wait for a new application that is measured in decades, because a few hundred places a year are shared across a queue of thousands. An applicant who lodges now is not being processed in any ordinary sense; they are joining a queue, and the realistic planning assumption is that the permanent visa, if it comes, comes a very long time from now.
Then why does anyone lodge it?
For the bridging visa. An applicant in Australia on a substantive visa who lodges the onshore 835 or 838 is granted a bridging visa A when their current visa ends, and it lasts until the application is decided, which is the years the queue takes; it carries work rights in the usual case and, with a bridging visa B, travel. For a person who is otherwise out of options to stay with their family, decades of lawful stay on a bridging visa is the point, and the permanent visa at the end is secondary. The offshore 115 and 114 give nothing while they wait, and an applicant abroad gains nothing from lodging except a place in the queue.
What is a remaining relative?
A person who has no near relatives other than those in Australia: a near relative is a parent, a sibling, a child, or a step-equivalent, and the applicant's own partner's near relatives too; if the applicant, or their partner, has a parent, sibling or child who is not an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen usually resident in Australia, the applicant is not a remaining relative. A sibling in another country, a child who stayed behind, a parent still alive abroad: each defeats the test. The sponsor is the near relative in Australia, usually resident here, who is a citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen.
What is an aged dependent relative?
A person old enough to receive the Australian age pension, who has no spouse or de facto partner, and who has been dependent on an Australian relative, a child, sibling, grandchild, niece or nephew, or their step-equivalents, who is a citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen, for a substantial period, usually read as three years, for their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter; the dependency is financial and is shown by the money sent and the applicant's lack of other means. The sponsor is that relative.
What is the assurance of support?
A legally binding undertaking given to Services Australia by the sponsor or another assurer that they will repay certain social security payments made to the applicant in the first years after the grant, with a bond lodged; it is required for these visas before grant, and the assurer's income is assessed. For a visa granted decades after lodgement, the assurance is required at the end, not now, and the sponsor who gives it then may be a different person from the one who lodged.
What does the consultation cost?
A$330 inc. GST for 30 minutes by video with Keshab Chapagain (MARN 1576536), credited in full if you engage WIDEN. For these visas the session tests the definition, says what the queue means in years, and tells the family whether the bridging visa is worth the charge for the person concerned.
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