Character Evidence for Children Over 16 in 2026 Subclass 102 Files: AFP Code 33 and Overseas Certificates

Yes — once the child in an Adoption visa (Subclass 102) case is 16 or over, character evidence becomes mandatory rather than optional. According to the Department of Home Affairs Adoption visa (Subclass 102) official page (as at August 2026), children over 16 must supply a police certificate from every country where they have spent 12 months or more in the last 10 years since turning 16, must supply an Australian Federal Police National Police Certificate applied for under Code 33 – Immigration/Citizenship for any Australian period, must complete Form 80, and must add military service or discharge papers if anyone included in the application served in the armed forces of any country. Certificates are treated as valid for 12 months from their issue date.

For agents preparing a file, the practical point is that character evidence has a defined trigger, a defined geography and a defined expiry, and all three are applied on the lodgement date. Miss any one of them and the file is incomplete rather than merely thin.

Who triggers the character requirement in a Subclass 102 file?

The trigger is age, not the adoption pathway. The official eligibility criteria state that if the child is aged 16 years or older they must meet the character requirement, and that Home Affairs might also ask any other dependent child applying for the visa with them to meet the requirement. Below 16, no police certificate or Form 80 is called for by the document list.

This sits alongside — and is separate from — the sponsorship screening that applies to the adoptive parent: the sponsorship and visa application will be refused if the sponsor or their spouse or de facto partner has a pending registrable offence charge, and sponsorship can be approved in only very limited circumstances where there is a registrable offence conviction. Keeping these two tracks distinct in the file index avoids the common confusion between the sponsor's child-protection screening and the child's own character documents.

Which countries need a police certificate, and how is the 12-month threshold counted?

Each applicant's residence history is assessed country by country. The Home Affairs wording is "every country they have spent 12 months or more in the last 10 years, since turning 16", and nothing in that wording requires the 12 months to have been a single unbroken stay; where separate stays inside the window fall either side of the line, the conservative preparation choice is to include the country and let the certificate speak. The obligation attaches to time spent in a country, not to citizenship or passport nationality.

Two hypotheticals show how narrow this can be in practice. Suppose a child turned 16 four months ago and has lived in one country for their entire life: the look-back cannot extend further than their 16th birthday, so a five-year-old period of residence before that date does not create a second country's certificate, and one certificate covers the whole window. Now suppose a 17-year-old spent seven months in one country two years ago and another six months there last year: because the published wording does not say whether separate stays are added together, the conservative preparation choice is to obtain a certificate for that country and let the certificate speak.

What counts as an acceptable Australian police certificate?

Australia is the one jurisdiction where the issuing body and the application code are both fixed. Home Affairs accepts only National Police Certificates applied for under Code 33 – Immigration/Citizenship, issued by the Australian Federal Police. Standard disclosure certificates are not accepted, and neither are certificates issued by Australian state or territory police. A family that already holds a "police check" obtained for employment, volunteering or a working-with-children clearance will usually need to apply again under the correct code, because those checks typically sit outside Code 33.

How long do these certificates stay valid?

For immigration purposes, police certificates are valid for 12 months from the issue date. That date matters for sequencing rather than for eligibility: because a certificate issued early can lapse while the file is still waiting, the useful discipline is to date-stamp every certificate on arrival and check each one against the expected lodgement date. A certificate that has passed its 12-month point is stale, and fresh evidence is needed.

Character document	Who it covers	What is accepted	Timing note
Police certificate — overseas countries	Child aged 16 or over; any other dependent child if asked	Certificate from every country with 12 months or more in the last 10 years since turning 16	Valid 12 months from issue date
Australian police certificate	Same applicants, for any Australian period	AFP National Police Certificate under Code 33 – Immigration/Citizenship only	Valid 12 months from issue date
Form 80	Children over 16	Completed Form 80 Personal particulars for assessment including character assessment	Completed and lodged with the application
Military service or discharge papers	Anyone in the application who served in the armed forces of any country	Military service records or discharge papers	Applies regardless of the applicant's age

When do armed forces records have to be added?

The armed-forces obligation is drafted more broadly than the rest of the character documents: it applies to anyone in the application who served in the armed forces of any country, and they must provide military service records or discharge papers. Nothing in the official wording limits this to people over 16 or ties it to the 12-month residence test, so it should be checked for every person included in the application, not only for the principal child.

The published requirement refers simply to service in the armed forces of any country and does not list which forms of service qualify, so national service, compulsory conscription and reserve periods are worth raising in writing during file preparation in case records are needed. Where service records are held by a Ministry of Defence or a national archive rather than by police, the certificate schedule and the service-records schedule are two separate retrieval tasks with different lead times.

What else goes into the character bundle, and how does it reach Perth?

Form 80 Personal particulars for assessment including character assessment is a disclosure document, not a substitute for certificates: children over 16 must complete and provide it, and its purpose is the personal particulars and character assessment the certificates cannot cover — addresses, employment and education history, and periods not evidenced elsewhere.

Subclass 102 is a paper-only stream. The application is made on Form 47CH Application for migration to Australia by a child together with Form 40CH Sponsorship for a child to migrate to Australia, completed in English and posted or couriered to the Child and Other Family Processing Centre in Perth, and the application charge must be paid before posting because the application will not otherwise be processed. Only certified copies should accompany the paper application — originals should be kept by the family — and the packet can later be imported into ImmiAccount once the acknowledgement letter arrives.

Two further points belong in the character section of a file plan. Providing false or misleading information carries its own consequences under this stream, so gaps in residence history are better disclosed than omitted. And anyone appointed to give immigration assistance must be a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner, or an exempt person — a distinction worth checking before anyone charges for assembling this evidence.

Everything above is general information about how the published rules are structured and is not advice on any particular visa case; the countries in scope, the Code 33 requirement and the armed-forces trigger all turn on facts specific to one child, so confirm the position against the official page in force at the time of lodgement or with a qualified professional.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a 15-year-old adopted child need a police certificate for Subclass 102?

No. The character requirement applies to a child aged 16 years or older, so the police certificate schedule and Form 80 are not triggered below that age. If the child turns 16 while the application is being prepared, the documents become relevant from that point.

Is a state police certificate acceptable for the Australian period?

No. Home Affairs accepts only National Police Certificates applied for under Code 33 – Immigration/Citizenship, issued by the Australian Federal Police, and expressly does not accept standard disclosure certificates or certificates issued by Australian state or territory police.

How is the 12-month residence test applied across multiple countries?

Each country is assessed on its own against the last 10 years since the applicant turned 16, and the test turns on time spent there rather than on citizenship. Certificates are required from every country that meets the threshold, so several certificates can be needed for one applicant.

Do military records apply only to the adopted child?

No. The requirement covers anyone in the application who served in the armed forces of any country, and they must provide military service records or discharge papers. It is not limited by the applicant's age or confined to countries that already appear in the police certificate schedule.

How long can a police certificate be held before it goes stale?

For immigration purposes certificates are valid for 12 months from the issue date. Beyond that point they are past validity and a fresh certificate is required, which is why issue dates should be tracked against the intended lodgement date.

Must the forms be translated before they are sent?

Yes, forms must be completed in English. Supporting documents in another language are a separate question from the forms themselves, and translation practice should follow whatever the department currently specifies for this visa.