Top reasons 870 visa applications are refused in 2026

Most Subclass 870 refusals are not random. They happen at a fixed set of criteria, in the order a decision maker works through them. According to the Australian Department of Home Affairs' official page for the Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (Subclass 870), as at August 2026, the Department refuses an application when the evidence does not show the requirements are met, then tells the applicant in writing why it refused and whether there is a right to a review of the decision — and does not refund the application fee. The criteria themselves are set out in the Migration Regulations 1994 and applied through the Department's procedural guidance, so the reasons below follow the sequence of that assessment and flag which ones can still be repaired.

What does a decision maker check first, and why does that decide most refusals?

An 870 application has to clear two gates. The first is validity: under the Migration Regulations 1994 the applicant must be at least 18, must not already hold a Subclass 870 visa, must be linked to an approved Parent Sponsor, must be outside Australia or hold Permission to Apply in Australia, must be under the cumulative 10-year limit on time spent on 870 visas, and must have paid the first instalment of the visa application charge. The second is the substantive criteria in Schedule 2 — sponsorship, funds, health insurance, the 90-day re-application rule, compliance with earlier visa conditions, genuine temporary intention, public health debt, the public interest criteria, and the special return criteria. An application that fails either gate must be refused.

Read this as a map, not as a verdict on your own case. This is general information about how the criteria fit together, not personalised advice; under the Department's official page, only registered migration agents, legal practitioners and exempt persons may lawfully give immigration assistance, and your outcome turns on your own evidence. Provisions and policy are amended from time to time, so confirm the wording currently in force on the official legislation and Department pages.

Is a missing or lapsed Parent Sponsor the reason?

This is the ground that ends applications earliest. The official page states plainly that you cannot apply for or be granted this visa if you do not have an approved Parent Sponsor. You must also be the biological, legal (including adoptive) parent, step-parent or parent-in-law of that sponsor, and be at least 18. Sponsorship is decided separately from the visa, so an approval in the sponsorship stream does not guarantee a visa grant — but sponsorship is also a requirement of the visa itself (clause 870.221) and of validity, so if there is no approved Parent Sponsor, or the sponsorship has ended, the application fails.

Sponsorship can also end after it is granted. Under regulation 2.64B, sponsorship terminates if the sponsor's permanent visa is cancelled, the sponsor dies, the sponsor withdraws in writing, or the sponsored person does not apply within the required period; the visa itself can then cease early, with a short buffer to find a new sponsor or arrange departure. Procedural guidance notes that a new approved sponsor can sometimes be accepted. What cannot be fixed is the relationship test: if you do not fit the parent definitions in the official eligibility criteria, no amount of documentation changes that.

Did identity or document problems sink the application?

The official page is unusually blunt here. If you cannot prove your identity, the Department will refuse the application, and it might not grant you another visa for 10 years. The documents requested are specific: the pages of your current passport showing your photo, personal details, and issue and expiry dates; a national identity card if you have one; and proof of any change of name, which can be a marriage or divorce certificate, change-of-name documents from an Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages or the relevant overseas authority, or documents showing other names you have been known by.

Two related failures sit in the same basket. The first is inaccurate information: the integrity public interest criterion 4020 turns on whether the information and documents given are genuine, and a correction after lodgement is made on Form 1023. The second is plain incompleteness — the official page warns that incomplete applications might be delayed or refused if there is insufficient information to show the requirements are met. Missing pages and untranslated records are usually curable; bogus documents are not.

Did the money evidence fall short?

Clause 870.222 requires sufficient funds, and the official page phrases it as having, or having access to, enough money to support yourself while you are in Australia. There is no balance of family test and no Assurance of Support for this visa, so the test is about your own access to money, not a third party's guarantee.

The official document list points to itemised personal bank statements covering a 3-month period, tax records, and pension or other regular income streams. Procedural guidance adds that the decision maker looks at the applicant's own bank statements and regular income, and that the sponsor's income test under regulation 2.60W is a separate, complementary requirement. This ground is one of the most fixable: a thin bank statement can be supplemented before a decision is made, provided the money is genuinely accessible to you.

Was health insurance missing, or not "adequate"?

Clause 870.224 requires adequate arrangements for health insurance for the intended stay, and the official page requires those arrangements to be with an Australian Health Insurance provider, covering unforeseen medical treatment, and to be maintained. Some countries have a reciprocal healthcare agreement with Australia, which is a separate matter from meeting this criterion.

Procedural guidance treats this as a ground where the decision maker should ask for evidence before deciding, and refusal follows if the evidence still does not arrive. It also notes that "adequate" has no legislative definition and is judged case by case. Practically, this is the easiest refusal ground to avoid: hold a policy that runs for the whole intended stay and keep the certificate and policy document.

Did the decision maker doubt your intention to stay temporarily?

Clause 870.226 is the genuinely-intends-to-stay-temporarily criterion, and it is where subjective judgement enters. The official page requires an intention to stay only temporarily and to do only the things the visa allows. If you have already lodged a permanent parent visa application, you may visit Australia but not remain permanently while that application is being decided; and you cannot apply for a permanent or temporary parent visa while you have applied for or hold an 870.

The evidence the official page invites includes proof of enough money for the stay and to leave, evidence of previous international travel, ties and commitments to your home country including family, significant financial ties such as a house, business or other major assets, and a letter setting out the purpose of the stay, your plans, and who you intend to visit. Guidance notes there is no fixed checklist — migration history, finances, home-country ties and Australian ties are weighed together — and that a pending permanent parent application does not by itself settle the question. New evidence helps, but a profile that reads as settlement intent is hard to reverse on the same facts.

Did health, character or return criteria fail?

Clause 870.228 requires the public interest criteria to be met: 4001, 4002, 4003, 4004, 4010, 4019, 4020 and 4021, with 4005 added for applicants outside Australia and 4007 for applicants in Australia. Clause 870.229 requires the special return criteria 5001, 5002 and, where relevant, 5010. The official page summarises these as the health requirement and the character requirement, and lists the documents that feed them.

Those documents are precise. Provide a complete disclosure National Police Certificate issued by the Australian Federal Police if you have spent a total of 12 months or more in Australia in the last 10 years since you turned 16 — standard disclosure certificates and state or territory police certificates are not accepted. Also provide an overseas police certificate from every country, including your home country, where you spent 12 months or more in that same 10-year period since turning 16, plus military service records or discharge papers if you served, and Form 80. Health grounds sometimes resolve through further examination, and a limited health waiver is available only where PIC 4007 applies to applicants in Australia; character and return-criteria problems rarely do.

Is an unpaid public health or government debt the problem?

Clause 870.227 covers outstanding public health debt. The official page states that if you owe the Australian Government money or have a public health debt, you must have paid it back or have arrangements in place to pay it back. The natural evidence is a receipt, a zero-balance statement, or a documented repayment arrangement. This is a highly fixable ground, and it is worth checking before lodgement rather than after a request.

Did an earlier visa breach or a re-application timing rule apply?

Two distinct issues live here. The first is compliance history: the official page requires that you have met and complied with any previous visa obligations, and clause 870.225 requires substantial compliance with the conditions of your last substantive visa and any subsequent bridging visa. A past breach is a matter of record and cannot be undone.

The second is timing: the 90-day rule can be cured by waiting, but the cumulative 10-year cap on time held on 870 visas cannot. Clause 870.223 provides that if you apply outside Australia and have previously held an 870 visa, you must have been outside Australia for at least 90 consecutive days since that visa ceased, unless exceptional circumstances apply. Separate from that, the cumulative time held on 870 visas is capped at 10 years, with individual grants of up to 5 years. Confirm the current wording of these provisions on the official legislation pages, since the calculations turn on your location when the previous visa ceased.

Was the application late, incomplete, or left unpaid?

The mechanics cause more refusals than applicants expect. You must apply online. From outside Australia, you must apply within 6 months of sponsorship approval; if you hold Permission to Apply in Australia, you must apply within 60 days of sponsorship approval, and the Permission to Apply letter must be attached to the application; if you do not apply within 60 days, your approved Parent Sponsor may apply again for Permission to Apply in Australia if the sponsorship is still valid and there are exceptional circumstances for applying while in Australia. If the Permission to Apply request is not approved, you must apply from outside Australia within 6 months of sponsorship approval, or hold a different visa to remain in Australia.

Fees are the second trap. The Department will not process an application until the fee is paid, and you must pay the second instalment before the visa can be granted — an invoice is sent when it is due, and non-payment leads to refusal. Guidance sets a period for paying that second instalment and a higher amount for longer stays, so check the current official figures. A missing payment is fixable while the window is open; a missed lodgement window generally is not, because it ties back to the sponsorship and permission-to-apply decisions.

Which 870 refusal grounds can be fixed, and which cannot?

Ground	What it turns on	Usually fixable?
No approved Parent Sponsor, or sponsorship ended	A separate sponsorship decision	Sometimes — if sponsorship is approved or a new sponsor is accepted
Relationship to the sponsor	Whether you fit the parent definitions	No
Identity not proven	Passport, ID and change-of-name documents	Usually, unless identity genuinely cannot be established
False or bogus information	Criterion 4020	Rarely
Insufficient funds	Evidence of access to money	Usually
Health insurance	Policy covering the whole stay	Usually
Genuine temporary intention	The whole profile, weighed together	Partly
Health criteria	Examination outcome, and any waiver available	Sometimes
Character and return criteria	Records and history	Rarely
Unpaid public health or government debt	Payment or a repayment arrangement	Usually
Previous visa non-compliance	Past record	No
Re-application timing rules	Dates, including the 90-day rule and the 10-year cap	Yes for the 90-day rule, by waiting; no for the 10-year cap, which is cumulative and cannot be waited out
Second instalment unpaid	Payment before grant	Yes, while the window is open
Application lodged late	Sponsorship and permission-to-apply deadlines	No — needs a fresh route

What will the refusal letter actually tell you?

The official page sets out only two things the Department must tell you: why the visa was refused, and whether you have a right to a review of the decision. The application fee is not refunded. Procedural guidance names the Administrative Review Tribunal as the review body, and draws a line worth understanding: a review looks at the visa refusal, while the sponsorship decision sits with the Department as a separate matter. Anything beyond what is written in your own letter is speculation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was my 870 visa refused?

An 870 refusal means the evidence did not satisfy one or more of the criteria: sponsorship, identity, funds, health insurance, genuine temporary intention, health and character, public debt, previous visa compliance, timing, or the fee and lodgement mechanics. The Department states it will tell you in writing which reason applied to your application, and whether you have a right to review the decision.

Can I re-apply after an 870 refusal?

Nothing on the official page bars a fresh application, but a re-application has to meet every criterion on its own and needs a valid approved Parent Sponsor and a current Permission to Apply letter where one is required. The fee paid for the refused application is not refunded, and a new application requires payment again.

My child's sponsorship was approved — why was the visa still refused?

Sponsorship and the visa are decided separately. Sponsorship approval establishes that the sponsor is qualified; it does not establish that you have sufficient funds, adequate health insurance, a genuine intention to stay temporarily, or that you meet the health, character and public debt requirements. Refusals most often sit in that second group.

Does having a permanent parent visa application lodged hurt my 870 application?

The official page allows you to visit Australia while a permanent parent visa application is being decided, but not to remain permanently, and you cannot apply for a permanent or temporary parent visa while you have applied for or hold an 870. Guidance treats a pending permanent application as one factor to be weighed separately, not as an automatic answer on temporary intention.

How much money do I need to show for the 870 visa?

The official page publishes no fixed figure — the test is whether you have, or have access to, enough money to support yourself while in Australia. It suggests itemised personal bank statements over a 3-month period, tax records, and pension or other regular income streams as evidence of your financial position.

Do I need Australian health insurance for the 870 visa?

Yes. The official page requires you to have and maintain adequate arrangements for health insurance with an Australian Health Insurance provider to cover unforeseen medical treatment during your stay. Some countries have a reciprocal healthcare agreement with Australia, which is a separate arrangement and does not replace the insurance requirement.

What if I made a mistake on my application after lodging it?

Tell the Department as soon as you can and attach a completed Form 1023 Notification of incorrect answers to your application in ImmiAccount. You are also expected to report changes after lodgement, including a new phone number, email, address or passport, a change in marital or de facto status, the birth of a child, or a criminal conviction.