Adoption Compliance Certificates and Bilateral Arrangements: Subclass 102 Evidence From Application to Decision in 2026

A Subclass 102 (Adoption visa) case is carried by three documents, and they do not all work at the same moment: the adoption compliance certificate (ACC), evidence from an Australian state or territory central authority, and evidence from the child's own country that the child may leave. The Australian Department of Home Affairs lists all three under the adoption documents section of its Adoption visa (Subclass 102) official page, and the Migration Regulations 1994 (Schedule 2, Part 102) separates them further — some must already exist when you lodge, others only have to exist when the decision is made. This article is general information about published criteria rather than advice about any one family's case; because adoption law and visa criteria both move, confirm the current official text or take independent advice before lodging. Everything below was checked against the official pages as of August 2026.

What does an adoption compliance certificate actually certify?

The adoption compliance certificate is the Convention-route certificate. Under the Migration Regulations, cases that turn on clause 102.211(4) — an adoption arranged under the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, or under a type of arrangement recognised by regulation 5 of the Family Law (Bilateral Arrangements—Intercountry Adoption) Regulations 2023 — and cases under 102.211(5), where the adoption was already completed under the Convention, both end in a certificate issued through the central authority channel. Its job is narrow and specific: to show that the adoption was carried out along Convention lines, not merely inside a Convention country.

That distinction matters in practice. A private adoption that happens to be completed between two Hague Convention countries is not automatically a Convention adoption; the Convention path is the one that runs through the central authorities of the countries involved. Clause numbers and the wording currently in force should always be re-read against the official Migration Regulations text and the Department's published guidance before you rely on them.

For the Department's own checklist, the framing is looser: it asks for "the child's adoption papers or adoption compliance certificate." Either can evidence the adoption itself at lodgement.

Does the certificate have to exist when you apply, or when the visa is decided?

Under the Regulations, the ACC for a 102.211(4) or 102.211(5) case is a time-of-decision requirement: a valid certificate must be in place before the visa can be granted. That timing is what makes it possible to lodge while an intercountry adoption is still being finalised. The Department's "after you apply" instructions accept this shape — the page states that if you did not include all necessary documents when you applied, you should provide them as soon as you can, and it may ask for more information.

Assume an applicant whose allocation by the overseas authority is complete and whose Australian central authority suitability approval is already in hand, but whose adoption has not yet been finalised overseas. The application can be lodged on the strength of the existing documents, and the certificate follows later. The mirror-image risk is lodging too early with nothing at all to anchor the Convention claim, then being unable to point to the allocation or approval that was supposed to sit behind it.

A bilateral arrangement changes what satisfies the pathway, not when. If the arrangement is one recognised under regulation 5 of the Family Law (Bilateral Arrangements—Intercountry Adoption) Regulations 2023, it sits inside 102.211(4) alongside the Convention cases — the evidence differs, the decision-time certificate logic does not. Because that instrument's contents and status are best confirmed from official legislation, treat any summary of which arrangements qualify as a starting point for checking, not as the answer.

What does the Australian state or territory central authority document add?

This is the piece that must generally be in place before you lodge, and the Department asks for it in two forms.

Where an Australian state or territory central authority has found you suitable to be an adoptive parent and you have made a written undertaking to adopt the child, the page asks for evidence from the child's country about leaving (see the next section). Separately, it asks that you include a letter supporting the adoption if an Australian state or territory central adoption authority was involved. The Regulations put the substantive weight at time of application: for a planned non-Convention adoption under 102.211(3), and equally for 102.211(4), an Australian authority must have approved the prospective adoptive parents as suitable, and for 102.211(4) the overseas authority must also have allocated the child to them.

The practical consequence is that the Australian approval is the one item you cannot cure after the fact. There is no equivalent of "we will produce it later" available to a parent who lodges before any Australian authority has assessed them. The central authorities for each state and territory are listed through Intercountry Adoption Australia, and the Department links to that directory from its eligibility criteria.

What is the "can leave the country" evidence for?

This document answers a question the other two do not: not who adopted, and not whether the adopting parents are suitable, but whether the child's own country agrees to let the child go. The Department asks for evidence from the central authority of the child's country that the child can leave that country for adoption in Australia, or can leave it in the custody of the adopting parent.

Regulation-wise that permission is a time-of-decision item. For a planned adoption in Australia under 102.211(3), the overseas authority must have allowed the child to leave — whether for the adoption itself or into the prospective adoptive parents' custody. For a 102.211(4) case where the adoption is to happen in Australia, the Minister must be satisfied the overseas authority has permitted the child to leave in the prospective adoptive parents' care. Petitioning for this permission is usually the slowest moving part of the file, because it depends on an authority that is not part of the Australian process.

It is also separate from travel logistics. Even a favourable decision does not authorise travel in itself — the Department's instruction is not to arrange travel to Australia until it has told you in writing that the visa has been granted.

How do the three documents line up across adoption pathways?

Document	What it establishes	Pathways it belongs to	When it must exist
Adoption compliance certificate	The adoption followed the Hague Convention route (or a recognised bilateral arrangement)	Hague adoptions, planned or completed	At decision — must be valid then
Australian state or territory central authority suitability approval plus supporting letter	Australian authority has assessed the adopting parents and was involved in the arrangement	Adoptions arranged with Australian central authority involvement	At application — assessed and approved before lodgement
Overseas permission for the child to leave	The child's country consents to departure for adoption or into custody	Planned adoptions to be completed in Australia	At decision

Pathways without a certificate or a central authority look quite different. An expatriate adoption — one completed overseas with no Australian state or territory central authority involved — has neither an ACC nor an Australian support letter, and instead has to be proved through residence and parental-rights evidence.

What does an expatriate adoption have to prove instead?

The eligibility criteria set four evidentiary points, and the document list repeats them almost word for word:

at least one adoptive parent lived outside Australia for more than 12 months immediately before the application was lodged
the adoptive parent did not arrange to live overseas in order to avoid Australia's intercountry adoption laws
the adoptive parent holds full and permanent parental rights, with no remaining legal ties between the child and the birth parents
the adoption was made in line with the adoption laws of the child's home country

Note what is absent from this list: nothing here can be substituted by a certificate from Canberra. The Department states plainly that the Australian Government, including Home Affairs, has no role in the overseas expatriate adoption process and does not provide documents supporting or endorsing such adoptions, including letters of support or certificates of no objection. The limits of this guidance should also be stated plainly — it is general information, and both the migration and family-law sides of an expatriate case can turn on facts no published page can resolve, so independent legal advice in Australia and in the child's country of usual residence is the step the Department itself recommends before proceeding.

What has to stay true from lodgement to decision?

Eligibility is not a snapshot. The child must be under 18 at the time of adoption, when the application is submitted, and when the decision is made. The appeal to have met the adoption requirements, including compliance with the adoption laws of the child's home country, continues to apply at decision time under clause 102.213. Sponsorship must be approved by the Department before the visa can be granted, and it can be refused outright where the sponsor or their partner has a pending registrable offence charge, with approval possible only in very limited circumstances after a conviction.

Health, character for any applicant aged 16 or over, repayment of any debt to the Australian Government, and the best interests of the child all sit at the decision stage as well. A dependent child of the main applicant can be added at any time before the decision.

How is this evidence actually lodged?

Subclass 102 is a paper-only visa. Form 47CH (Application for migration to Australia by a child) and Form 40CH (Sponsorship for a child to migrate to Australia) are completed in English and sent together by post or courier to the Child and Other Family Processing Centre, Locked Bag 7, Northbridge WA 6865 for post, or Wellington Central, 836 Wellington Street, West Perth WA 6005 for courier. Applications cannot be lodged in person, and one delivered any other way is not valid. The application charge must be paid before posting, processing does not begin until it is paid, and evidence of payment goes in the envelope. No original documents should be sent — certified copies only.

Alongside the adoption documents, the practical bundle includes the child's current passport pages showing photo, personal details and issue and expiry dates, a national identity card if there is one, name-change evidence, a certified copy of the passport or travel document used to enter Australia and any held since, and four photographs of 45mm x 35mm taken within the last six months against a plain light-coloured background. Any child aged 16 or over needs police certificates from every country where they have spent 12 months or more in the past 10 years since turning 16, valid for 12 months from issue, plus Form 80.

After lodgement, the acknowledgement letter lets you import the application into ImmiAccount using the application ID, date of birth and identity document number; applications made outside Australia on or after 1 April 2020 are eligible. Mistakes go on Form 1023. There is no refund of the application charge if the application is refused.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need an adoption compliance certificate if our adoption was finalised years ago?

If the adoption went through the Hague Convention route, yes — completion date does not retire the certificate requirement. The Department asks for "the child's adoption papers or adoption compliance certificate," and where the case rests on clause 102.211(4) or 102.211(5), a valid certificate has to exist at decision time. If your adoption was an expatriate adoption with no Australian central authority involvement, no certificate exists to be asked for.

Can I lodge the application before the certificate is issued?

Often this is exactly how these cases run. Under the Regulations the certificate is a decision-time requirement for Convention cases, and the Department's own instructions anticipate documents arriving after lodgement. What cannot be deferred is the Australian central authority suitability approval, which belongs to application time.

Both countries are parties to the Hague Convention, so are we automatically on the Convention pathway?

Not necessarily. The Convention route is the one conducted through the central authorities of both countries; a private or domestic adoption completed inside a Convention country generally falls outside clauses 102.211(4) and (5). Where that leaves you depends on which of the three eligibility pathways your facts fit — Australian-authority-arranged, Hague adoption between two other countries, or expatriate.

Who issues the exit permission, and what does it need to say?

It comes from the central authority of the child's own country, not from Australia. It must show that the child can leave that country for adoption in Australia, or can leave in the adopting parent's custody. It is a decision-time document, and it does not by itself allow travel before a visa is granted.

Will the Australian Government write a letter saying it does not object to our overseas adoption?

No. The Department states that the Australian Government has no role in overseas expatriate adoptions and does not issue letters of support or certificates of no objection. It assesses and decides visa applications only, and a visa can be granted only if all eligibility requirements are met.

Could our child get citizenship instead of this visa?

In some cases, yes. The Department notes that where an intercountry adoption is finalised outside Australia under the Hague Convention, or is a recognised bilateral arrangement, the child may be eligible for Australian citizenship by adoption. If citizenship is granted, the child enters Australia on an Australian passport and does not need a visa.

Should we add the adoption unavoidable costs — forms, health exams and biometrics — before we know the outcome?

Health examinations are arranged only when the Department tells you to arrange them, and biometrics are requested only if the child needs them. Contact-derived out-of-pocket costs such as the application charge are not refunded if the application is refused, so anything spent before a decision is spent at risk.