Australia’s offshore partner visa delays leave couples facing years of separation
Australian couples warn offshore partner visa delays are separating families for years as the government prioritises applications from people already in Australia.
PEOPLE & COMMUNITY
Australian couples separated from their partners overseas are urging the federal government to reconsider a decision to give lower priority to offshore partner visa applications, warning the policy could leave families apart for years.
For Nadine Chamas, the delay has made plans to start a family increasingly uncertain. The 44-year-old Australian citizen returned to Melbourne from Lebanon after conflict erupted in the Middle East, while her husband, Aboud Alsaid, remained overseas waiting for a partner visa decision.
Chamas said her medical team had advised her to remain in Australia if she wanted to conceive, leaving the couple to manage their relationship across borders while also worrying about Alsaid’s safety.
“The stress of navigating complicated planning while worrying about my husband in a conflict zone is an unbearable emotional burden,” she said.
The couple met online and married in Lebanon in June last year. They had initially planned to build their life there, but the conflict changed their plans and prompted Chamas to return to Australia. Alsaid lodged his partner visa application in March, while the couple is also waiting for the outcome of a visitor visa application submitted last month.
Their case is among many cited in a submission to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. Partner visa applicants and Australian sponsors have asked the minister to explain his July decision to deprioritise offshore applications in favour of people applying from within Australia.
Under the current processing arrangements, 90 per cent of offshore subclass 309 partner visa applications can take up to 39 months, compared with up to 29 months for onshore applications. The applicants’ submission argues that couples separated by the policy have relationships that are no less genuine and should not face a greater emotional burden simply because one partner is overseas.
Sasha Bellamy, who helped draft and coordinate the submission, described the policy as “fundamentally unjust”. Bellamy said her own partner had spent a year apart from her while waiting for a partner visa in Belgium, motivating her to use her legal expertise to support other applicants.
“I don’t believe there has been sufficient clarity regarding the reasons or processes behind such a significant decision that carries immense human ramifications,” she said.
The Department of Home Affairs said offshore partner visa applications would continue to be processed and approved in line with the government’s migration planning levels and priorities.
A department spokesperson said an onshore-focused program would help migrants already living and working in Australia transition to permanent residency more quickly. The government argues that this approach would reduce the program’s impact on net overseas migration.
But families affected by the delays say the change is causing significant emotional and financial harm.
Emily Hill-Ogbonnaya’s husband, Nick, applied for a partner visa from Nigeria in March last year. He later obtained a 12-month visitor visa in December, but the couple did not expect the partner visa wait to become so long after Emily became pregnant.
“Suddenly, in the last month or so, wait times have skyrocketed since this new ministerial directive was issued,” Hill-Ogbonnaya said.
She fears her husband may not be able to return to Australia until the middle of 2028 if he cannot secure another visitor visa. The couple is also concerned about the impact of the separation on Emily’s six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
“It would be incredibly destabilising for her to lose one of the most significant figures in her life and revert to video calls,” Hill-Ogbonnaya said.
David Elms has also been travelling regularly to see his wife while the couple waits for a decision on an application lodged in June last year. They married in 2022 after Australia’s borders reopened following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The cost of travel and the uncertainty surrounding the application have affected Elms’ mental health. As the sole provider for his family, he said he struggled to meet the financial demands of repeated trips and was unsure whether his wife would qualify for a visitor visa because of concerns about demonstrating strong ties to the Philippines.
“I always strive to stay optimistic, but it does affect me. I experience bouts of depression now and then,” Elms said.
“It feels like there’s no hope for the partner visa to be granted soon, especially following the government’s decision to deprioritise overseas applications. I hope someone in a position of authority will reconsider the situation and possibly initiate a change.”
Home Affairs figures show the number of partner visas granted offshore and onshore increased from 52,479 in 2019–20 to 105,000 in 2024–25, reflecting a sharp rise in demand.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Burke acknowledged that more Australians were forming relationships with people from overseas.
“We find ourselves in a situation where more Australians are falling in love with individuals from abroad than before,” he said.
Burke also said proposed changes to visitor visas would allow more offshore partner visa applicants to spend time with their Australian spouses. The changes would introduce a “no further stay” condition in some cases, preventing visitors from switching to a bridging visa while in Australia.
The minister said the previous option of moving from a visitor visa to a bridging visa had meant some visitor visas were not being issued to offshore partner visa applicants.
The Department of Home Affairs said 10,000 offshore partner visa applications had been waiting for more than a year as of March, while a further 2,500 had been pending for more than two years.
The department said migration law did not permit formal caps on partner visas, but allowed the minister to prioritise applications according to government planning levels and available resources.
“All programs, whether a planning level is set or not, are subject to limited resources, which can lead to delays in application evaluations, particularly in high-demand programs,” a spokesperson said.
Alan Gamlen, director of the Migration Hub at the Australian National University, said planning levels could operate like a cap in practice because they allowed the government to decide which visa applications were processed first.
“They can determine the order of visa prioritisation. Once they reach a certain threshold of visa grants, they can opt to halt processing partner visas and focus on other types instead,” Gamlen said.
He said the policy could eventually face a legal challenge.
“It is likely that this will eventually lead to a court case, and it should be legally scrutinised,” he said.
Peter Van Vilet, chief executive of the Migration Institute of Australia, said the government’s decision had pushed offshore partner visa applications “to the bottom of a very lengthy queue”.
“The timeline for processing offshore partner visas under this directive remains highly uncertain,” he said. “This will only extend the already lengthy processing times further.”
Van Vilet also argued that partner visas should not be treated as part of the broader population debate because their effect on net overseas migration was limited.
“Living with one’s life partner is a fundamental human right, and governments should not obstruct this,” he said.
The government maintains that offshore applications will continue to be assessed, but couples say the lack of a clear timeframe is leaving them unable to make decisions about pregnancy, work, housing, finances and family life. Their appeal is for the government to provide greater transparency and ensure that applicants living overseas are not effectively penalised for being separated from their Australian partners.
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