From now on, all parent visa applications must be submitted directly to the Perth Visa Centre.
Application fees also increase by roughly two per cent.
Parents applying for the subclass 173 temporary contributory parent visa pay $2,595 instead of $2,540.
Subclass 143 permanent contributory parent visa, subclass 884 temporary aged parent contributory visa and subclass 864 permanent aged parent contributory visa applicants now pay $3,855 – that’s an extra $85 dollars.
Immigration lawyer and migration agent Kris Ahn from Crux Migration says parents are waiting longer to get their visas even if they opt for the more expensive contributory visa pathway.
“We’ve been experiencing constant increases in processing times. Now, just last year, when we had a look at the department’s estimated processing time, it used to state somewhere about 3 years, now it’s 4.5 years - this is for the contributory parent visa, and longer it processes, the parents obviously would age, and as the parents age their health may deteriorate which may affect their parent visa outcome.”
Natalya Khodan, a senior migration agent at Acacia Immigration, is expecting to see further changes to the parent visa category.
“There’s lots of uncertainty with potential Assurance of Support, whether it will increase or not. There is speculation that it will also increase next year, not just the salary of Australian citizens and permanent residents but also the amount of bonds that applicants will have to pay will go up as well.”
