Proving Clause 300.214 in 2026: Evidence That You Met in Person After Turning 18

Clause 300.214 is met by one thing only: a physical meeting that happened after both you and your prospective spouse had turned 18. On the Prospective Marriage visa (subclass 300) page published by the Australian Department of Home Affairs (as at the version current in July 2026), the eligibility section states that you and your prospective spouse "must have met in person as adults since turning 18, and are known to each other personally at the time you apply for this visa." The Migration Regulations 1994 put the same rule in clause 300.214(1): "The applicant and the prospective spouse have met in person since each of them turned 18." The practical difficulty is rarely the rule itself — it is turning a pile of boarding passes, photographs and booking confirmations into a file where a case officer can see, on a single timeline, that the meeting happened.

What does clause 300.214 actually ask you to prove?

The clause carries two separate requirements, and they are tested in different ways.

The first is the meeting: physical presence, in the same place, after each party's 18th birthday. The second is the state of the relationship at the moment you apply — that you are "known to each other personally." The official page expresses both limbs together, and the regulation's wording of 300.214(1) covers the meeting limb.

Both sit inside a set of criteria that must be satisfied not just when you lodge. Clause 300.221 requires the applicant to continue to satisfy clauses 300.211 and 300.214 to 300.216 at the time of decision, so the evidence you assemble has to hold up across the whole processing period.

Do phone calls, video calls or an online ceremony count as meeting in person?

No. The Department's policy guidance for case officers (PAM3) states that the meeting must involve physical presence, and it cites the Full Federal Court decision in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Yucesan as confirming that electronic communication does not constitute meeting in person. Text messages, calls, video calls and online interactions, however long and however well documented, cannot satisfy this limb.

That does not make them worthless. They belong to the second limb and to clause 300.216 (whether the parties genuinely intend to live together as spouses). Recording them is still useful — just not as proof of the meeting.

Where does the 18-year-old line fall on your timeline?

The qualifying window opens on the later of the two 18th birthdays, because the regulation says "since each of them turned 18." A meeting that took place when you were 17 and your prospective spouse was 25 does not satisfy the clause, even if that was the moment your relationship began.

This is the point where most evidence files fail: material from before the window is not proof of 300.214. Childhood photographs, school records or a long family friendship belong in your relationship history section as context, but they must be clearly separated from the documents relied on to prove the meeting. If your only in-person contact happened before the window opened, the file has no answer to the clause, and the rest of the relationship evidence cannot fill that gap.

How do you turn trips, photos and tickets into one timeline?

Build it chronologically and make each visit a self-contained entry, so every document you attach points back to a date and a place.

What it establishes	Typical documents	What it does not establish on its own
Both of you were in the same country on the same dates	Passport entry and exit stamps, boarding passes, e-ticket itineraries	That you were together rather than merely both present
You shared a place to stay	Accommodation bookings or invoices in both names	Shared presence, if only one name appears
You were physically together	Photographs of the two of you, with dates and locations visible or explained	Date and location, if nothing anchors them
Someone else saw you together	Statutory declarations from friends or family who were present	The visit, if the declarant cannot state dates and place
The trip was a joint arrangement	Bookings, tickets or tour reservations issued in both names	That the travel actually took place

Then assemble a one-page index at the front of the relationship evidence: Visit 1 — city, start date, end date, documents attached (with exhibit numbers); Visit 2 — the same; and so on. The index is what lets a case officer verify the clause in a few minutes instead of reconstructing it from scattered attachments.

For each visit, try to cover at least two independent categories from the table. A photograph shows two people in one frame; a boarding pass puts a person on a flight. Neither converts into the other, but together they place two named people in the same place on the same day.

What if one type of evidence is all you have?

Photographs alone are the most common weak file: they show two people together but usually say nothing about when or where without metadata, a caption, or a third-party statement that supplies the date and place. Travel records alone have the opposite problem — they prove movement, not company.

The consequence is procedural rather than dramatic. Under section 56 of the Migration Act 1958, if a case officer has doubts about material in the application, they must give written notice and a reasonable opportunity to provide further information. A thin file tends to generate that request; if nothing further is provided, or if the response still does not address the clause, a decision is made on the evidence already held. Policy guidance also lists failure of clause 300.214 among the common grounds on which subclass 300 applications are refused, which is why the gap is worth closing before lodgement rather than after.

How does "known to each other personally" fit into the same file?

Policy guidance describes the standard for personal acquaintance as varying from case to case with no fixed depth required, while noting that knowing very little about each other can affect the assessment under clause 300.216 of whether you genuinely intend to live together as spouses.

Practically, the same timeline structure works for this limb: fill the periods between visits with contact records — message logs, call histories, letters — so the relationship reads as continuous rather than as a single encounter. Where there are long gaps, explain them in a short statement rather than leaving the chronology broken. A file that shows a meeting in 2022 and nothing until the application in 2026 invites the second question even when the first is answered.

Does the requirement end once you lodge?

Not entirely. Clause 300.221 requires the applicant to keep satisfying clauses 300.211 and 300.214 to 300.216 when the decision is made, and section 104 of the Migration Act 1958 obliges you to notify the Department in writing of changes in circumstances. If you marry while the application is still being processed, policy guidance treats the relationship as no longer "prospective," which affects the continuing criteria; it also describes a change to a partner visa application under regulation 2.08E in that situation. The meeting itself is a historical fact and cannot be undone, but what happens to the relationship afterwards still has to be disclosed.

One caution on scope: this article is general information about how the criterion is written and how such files are usually organised — it is not advice on any individual case, and for your own situation rely on the current official page and, where you need case-specific help, a registered migration agent or lawyer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do we have to have met more than once?

The regulation requires a meeting, not a number of meetings; one qualifying encounter after both parties turned 18 can satisfy clause 300.214(1). Multiple visits make the file easier to verify and help the separate question of whether you are personally known to each other.

Does a video call or a proxy marriage count as meeting in person?

No. Policy guidance states that physical presence is required and that electronic communication does not constitute meeting in person, citing Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Yucesan. Online contact is still relevant to whether you know each other personally.

We met when I was 17 and my partner was 20 — does that count?

No, because the regulation requires the meeting to have occurred "since each of them turned 18." You would need a later meeting that falls after your 18th birthday, and the earlier meeting would only be relationship background.

Can we rely on photographs alone?

Photographs are rarely sufficient alone, because they generally do not establish date or place unless something else anchors them. Pairing them with travel records, joint bookings or a statutory declaration from someone who was there makes the visit verifiable.

What if we met in a third country?

The clause does not specify where the meeting must occur — only that the parties met in person after both turned 18. Entry and exit records from that country, plus joint accommodation or bookings, serve the same function as they would for a meeting in Australia.

What if old boarding passes and hotel records are no longer available?

Use whatever independently dated material survives — passport stamps, booking emails, bank or card statements showing the transaction, immigration records — and explain the gap in a statement. Where a record cannot be obtained, say so and supply a different category of evidence for the same visit rather than leaving the date unsupported.

Does the evidence have to be in English?

The official page does not set out a translation rule for relationship evidence within these criteria, so treat document requirements as governed by the Department's current published instructions. In practice, uncertified material in another language is harder for a case officer to weigh, and translated versions reduce that risk.