The Department for Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) announced that as of the 18th November 2017, all partner visa applications from the Philippines can no longer be lodged with a paper-based format any office of the Department in the Philippines or in Australia for the following visa subclasses:
- Partner category visas (subclass 820, 801, 309, 100 & 300)
Filipinos must lodge their Partner visa and Prospective Marriage (Fiance) visa applications online through an Immi Account set up with the DIBP. These new arrangements will impact more heavily on older and less tech-savvy Filipino visa applicants and their older Australian sponsor partners. This is further complicated by those who attempt to lodge their visa application by themselves.
The departmental ‘compliance noose’ is constantly tightening and driving Filipino visa applicants towards online applications which can cause numerous technical issues for the less tech-savvy visa applicants. The Philippines isn’t known for its reliable internet connections either, further complicating the online application process. I feel really bad for my kababayan who are being thrown into an unfortunate situation. So how do you get around it?
If you’re considering applying for a partner visa to migrate permanently to Australia then we strongly urge you to use an agent. Get in touch with us now so we can guide you to the migration sweet spot, and prevent an application nightmare down the road.
Paper-based visa applications are now a thing of the past. That said, Respall Migration Australia has been operating with online-based applications since the moment they became available in the Philippines. After all, we were the first registered migration agent to lodge an online partner visa in 2013. This transition is explained in our online resource ‘KISS ME FORVER’, available here.
