Building a Two-Year Relationship Evidence Trail for Partner PR in 2026

Under subclause 801.221(2) of the Migration Regulations 1994, published by the Federal Register of Legislation, permanent residence at the Subclass 801 stage is not a rubber stamp of the earlier Subclass 820 decision: you must still be the spouse or de facto partner of the sponsoring partner, and at least two years must have passed since the application was made. What that means in practice is that the evidence has to work as a timeline, not as a bundle — a decision-maker reading it should be able to follow the relationship from the day the combined application was lodged through to the day the decision is made, without landing on a stretch of months where nothing exists. This article is general information about the rules rather than advice on any individual case; how the criteria bite depends on the documents in your own file, so verify anything time-sensitive against the current official text or with a professional who has seen your material.

What does the 801 stage actually re-test?

The Department's Procedures Advice Manual (PAM3) is explicit that relationship genuineness is assessed again at the permanent stage rather than carried over from the temporary visa. In Home Affairs policy summarised under subclause 801.221, the delegate does not simply rely on the Subclass 820 outcome; the relationship must satisfy the tests again on the evidence available when the 801 decision is made.

Those tests are the ones set by the Migration Act definitions of spouse (section 5F) and de facto partner (section 5CB), read with the assessment factors in regulations 1.15A and 1.09A. Those factors group the evidence into four categories: financial aspects, the nature of the household, the social context, and the nature of the commitment. Policy allows a delegate to make appropriate inquiries into whether the relationship still meets the requirements, and to ask for further documents or an interview where material raises doubt.

The practical consequence is straightforward: the file is judged at decision time, so documents generated after lodgement carry weight that documents generated before it cannot.

When does the two-year clock start?

The clock in clause 801.221(2)(d) runs from the date the application was made, not from the date the Subclass 820 visa was granted. Because 820 and 801 are normally lodged together as one combined application, that start point is the lodgement date of the combined application. Counting from the grant date instead is one of the most common ways applicants misjudge where they are in the timeline.

Several situations change the calculation:

• Ministerial intervention cases. If the Subclass 820 visa was granted following intervention under sections 351, 501J or the repealed section 417 of the Migration Act, the two-year period runs from the date of the minister's decision (clause 801.221(2A)).
• Long-term partner relationships. Clause 801.221(6A) disapplies the two-year wait where, at the time the application was made, the applicant was already in a long-term partner relationship with the sponsoring partner. That term is defined in regulation 1.03: not less than three years, or not less than two years where the couple has a child of the relationship together.
• 820 granted on a child or family violence basis. Applicants whose temporary visa was granted under clauses 820.221(2) or (3) can be exempt from the observation period under subclauses 801.221(3) and (4).
• Relationship ended, or sponsor died. Separate provisions apply — clause 801.221(5) for the death of the sponsor, clause 801.221(6) for family violence or child custody, access and maintenance cases — allowing the permanent visa to be considered without the two-year wait in defined circumstances.

There is no statutory timeframe for the 801 decision itself. In practice, decisions are commonly reached in roughly six to eighteen months, with cases involving family violence or the sponsor's death sometimes moving faster; those figures are practice observations rather than a legal deadline.

Why does continuity matter more than volume?

A thick folder does not answer the question the criteria ask. The question is whether the relationship existed throughout and still exists when the decision is made, so a case with 200 documents clustered around the first six months is weaker than one with steady material spread across the whole period. Assessments turn on pattern recognition: a delegate looking at a file notices where the record thins out and asks why.

Continuity also protects cases that hit turbulence. Assume an applicant whose partner moved cities for work and lived apart for four months during the observation period. Nothing in the criteria automatically ends the application at that point; what matters is whether the surrounding documents — money moving between accounts, shared bills, travel between the two addresses, ongoing contact — let the delegate read those months as part of one continuing relationship rather than as a hole in the record.

Where do evidence trails usually break?

These are the points at which the timeline most often loses consecutive coverage. The first column anchors each gap to a moment in the process; the substantive requirement stays the same throughout.

Point in the timeline	Typical break	What repairs it
Immediately after the 820 grant	The file stops with the material gathered for the temporary application; nothing is dated later	Deliberately restart collection after grant and keep going monthly, across all four evidence categories
Around month 22	A request for updated documents arrives but reaches an old address	Keep contact details current — policy allows a decision to be made on evidence already held if reasonable attempts to reach the applicant fail
Any period spent outside Australia	Joint records pause for the duration of travel	Keep joint financial and contact records running through the trip, not only before and after it
After a change of address	Household evidence jumps straight to the new address with no overlap	Keep documents spanning both addresses so the household discovery is traceable
After separation or family breakdown	Everything stops at the separation date	Move to the separate pathways below; the file must be rebuilt around the ground being claimed
Birth or addition of a family member	The new person has never been health-cleared or character-cleared	Every additional applicant must clear the relevant public interest criteria — one member failing them fails the group
After documents are uploaded	Nothing is added between upload and decision	Collection continues until the visa is granted, not until the upload is done

How do you line up the timeline before it matters?

Work backward from the decision, then forward from lodgement, and let every document carry a readable date.

1. Write down the date the combined application was lodged.
2. Record the Subclass 820 grant date separately.
3. Build a month-by-month index from lodgement to today.
4. Place each existing document in its month.
5. Read the index as a delegate would, looking for empty stretches.
6. Note every day you were apart from your partner during that span.
7. Note every change of address, employer, bank and phone number.
8. Fill each empty month with something dated, not something undated.
9. Check that names appear consistently across accounts, leases and correspondence.
10. Check that address history matches on every joint record.
11. List every additional applicant, including children born after lodgement.
12. Check each of them against the health and character criteria they must meet.
13. Confirm police certificates cover every country lived in for twelve months or more since the 820 grant.
14. Check those certificates have not aged past twelve months.
15. Reconcile the story told to the department across every submission you have sent.
16. Keep building after you upload, until the visa is granted.

Steps 9 and 15 exist because of public interest criterion 4020. A finding that false or misleading information or a bogus document was supplied can defeat the application, and the consequences of a public interest criterion 4020 finding extend beyond this visa. Inconsistency between two submissions reads as a credibility problem, and credibility problems are the ones delegates investigate hardest.

What if the two-year wait does not apply to you?

Exemption from the wait does not exempt you from proving the relationship still exists. An applicant relying on the long-term partner relationship exemption under regulation 1.03 still has to satisfy the delegate, at decision time, that the spouse or de facto relationship continues; the long-term label only removes the time condition, not the relationship condition.

Applicants whose temporary visa followed ministerial intervention should note that no separate 801 form is normally required because the two visas are lodged together, although a formal application and payment are expected where the 820 came from an intervention decision. In ordinary cases, policy describes a reminder message sent around twenty-two months after the temporary visa is granted asking for updated material; if no request has arrived by around the twenty-second to twenty-fourth month, practitioners generally prepare the package rather than wait.

What if the relationship has ended before the decision?

The regulations provide routes, but each one replaces the "ongoing relationship" evidence with a different, stricter evidence set.

• Family violence. Clause 801.221(6) covers applicants who have experienced family violence committed by the sponsoring partner, assessed against Division 1.5 of the Regulations and the evidentiary rules in regulation 1.23. Policy notes that the violence need not be causally linked to the breakdown of the relationship, but the evidence standard is not met by a statement alone — material such as court orders, police records and professional reports is what the provision contemplates.
• Children. The same clause covers applicants with custody, access or maintenance obligations for a child of the sponsoring partner. Formal court orders or recognised child maintenance obligations are required, not informal arrangements between the adults.
• Death of the sponsor. Clause 801.221(5) requires the delegate to be satisfied the relationship would have continued but for the death, and also looks at whether the applicant has developed close business, cultural or personal ties under clause 801.221(5)(d).

In all three cases the timeline work does not go to waste: evidence up to the date of the triggering event still has to establish that a genuine relationship existed.

What happens if the application is refused?

Refusal of an 801 application normally brings the Subclass 820 visa to an end. Review lies with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), and the application must be made within twenty-one days of receiving the refusal notification; the Tribunal can consider the evidence afresh. One condition deserves attention before you decide anything else about the case: the review right onshore depends on the applicant being in Australia when the decision is made, so an applicant who is offshore at that moment is placed in a materially weaker position. After a Tribunal decision, judicial review in the federal courts is confined to legal error rather than a re-argument of the facts, and ministerial intervention under section 351 or 501J is reserved for exceptional cases.

Where the Tribunal sets aside and remits the 820 decision, policy directs that the 801 application be progressed quickly unless new adverse evidence about the relationship has emerged.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we have to prove the relationship again if the 820 visa was already granted?

Yes. The decision-maker at the permanent stage does not simply adopt the earlier conclusion; the relationship must satisfy the spouse or de facto partner tests again on the evidence available when the 801 decision is made. Practically, that means documents created after the 820 grant matter as much as the ones you lodged originally.

Does the two-year period start when the 820 visa was granted?

No. Clause 801.221(2)(d) requires that at least two years have passed since the application was made, and because 820 and 801 are usually lodged together, that means the combined application's lodgement date. Counting from the grant date will usually leave you preparing too late.

Is a gap in the evidence automatically fatal?

A gap is not automatically fatal, but unexplained silence invites the inference that the record is thin because the relationship was too. Whether the criteria are met turns on the delegate being satisfied, at decision time, that the relationship continues — so the useful work is explaining and surrounding the gap with dated material.

When will we be asked for updated documents?

In Department of Home Affairs practice, a reminder message asking for updated material is sent around twenty-two months after the temporary visa was granted. No separate 801 application form is normally required, because the application was lodged as a combined 820/801 case.

Do we still need to collect evidence after we upload?

Yes, until the visa is granted. The assessment happens at decision time, and several items age: police certificates are generally treated as valid for twelve months, and any family member added to the application needs current health and character clearances.

What if our relationship breaks down because of family violence?

Clause 801.221(6) allows the permanent application to continue on the family violence ground, assessed under Division 1.5 and regulation 1.23. Evidence such as court orders, police records and professional reports is what these provisions contemplate, and the violence need not be shown to be the cause of the relationship ending.

How long do we have to challenge a refusal?

An application to the Administrative Review Tribunal must be made within twenty-one days of receiving the refusal notification. The applicant needs to be in Australia when the decision is made in order to have that review right, and refusals founded on false information under public interest criterion 4020 carry consequences beyond the refusal itself.

References

• Federal Register of Legislation — Migration Regulations 1994 (C2004A07446)