The parent visa category is subject to capping. This means that once the number of visas set by the Minister for a visa class for the Migration Program Year has been reached, no further visas can be granted in that program year. When a cap has been reached, applicants who have met the key legal requirements for the grant of the visa are placed in a queue. When further places become available and applicants meet all the legal criteria for the grant of the visa, visas are granted in order. This order is determined by the queue date given to an applicant. There are currently 2,000 visa places per year available worldwide under the parent category and up to 7,500 places per year for the contributory parent categories.

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The waiting periods for the non-contributory (cheaper version) parent visas are very long. 

On the basis of current information, all available places under the offshore Parent subclass 103 cap for 2009/10 will be filled with persons who have queue dates up to and including 30 June 2003.

For the onshore Aged Parent subclass 804 visas expect processing times of about 9 years following your queue date. The queue date is not the date the visa was lodged, it is the date that the application was assessed as meeting the initial criteria for a parent visa. It usually takes about a year after the visa was lodged to reach the queue date.

Contributory (expensive version) visas are completed much quicker. Our clients who lodged Contributory Parent subclass 143 and 173 cases in the middle of 2008 have been requested to complete health and character checks. Therefore, we expect their visas to be finalised in approximately 20 months. The onshore Contributory visas subclasses 864 and 884 are being processed quicker still. Our most recent cases have been finalised in 11 months but we may even see these times greatly reduced in 2010.

Please remember that we are at the whim of the authorities and we are providing this information as a guideline and cannot guarantee processing times.