Family Violence and Partner Visas: What the Law Requires You to Prove in 2026
How Division 1.5 of the Migration Regulations 1994 sets the evidence standard for family violence claims in Subclass 820 and 801 cases.
A partner visa claim can survive the end of a relationship when family violence is involved — but not by assertion. Division 1.5 of the Migration Regulations 1994, set out alongside the Subclass 820 and Subclass 801 criteria on the Federal Register of Legislation, prescribes what must be evidenced, and an applicant's own account falls short of it. The certificates, orders and records described below are what carry the claim. This article explains how the rules operate generally; it is not advice about your circumstances, so check the current legislative compilation and seek qualified guidance before acting on it.
What does the law actually require you to prove?
Four questions sit behind every assessment, and each one narrows the next.
Who caused it. The violence must have been committed by the sponsoring partner. Conduct by anyone else — a former partner, a family member, a housemate — does not meet clauses 820.221(3) and 801.221(6).
Who experienced it. Either the visa applicant or a dependent child of the applicant can be the person who experienced family violence committed by the sponsoring partner, as set out in clause 801.221(6)(c)(i).
When it happened. The conduct must have occurred while the partner relationship was in existence. That is part of the requirement in regulation 1.23, which the Department's Procedures Advice Manual restates: violence occurring after the relationship has genuinely ended generally falls outside the provision.
Whether it caused the split. No. There is no requirement that the violence caused the relationship to end. The two can exist independently, and a decision-maker should not test them as cause and effect.
That last point is where many claims collapse unnecessarily: applicants assume the narrative has to be "I left because he hit me", when the test asks something narrower.
How do I prove it — is my own statement enough?
No. This is the single most important point in the entire topic.
Division 1.5 sets out evidentiary requirements, and regulation 1.23 is the provision your material is tested against. The manuals are blunt about the practical effect: a bare statement from the applicant is not a substitute for evidence sourced elsewhere. What decision-makers look for is documentation produced by a third party who observed, recorded or assessed the conduct at or near the time it happened.
Think of it in layers:
- What can you objectively show was recorded by somebody else?
- Who produced that record, and were they in a position to know?
- Does the document identify both you and the sponsoring partner?
- Do the dates line up with the period of the relationship?
For example, suppose an applicant files a five-page statement describing two years of controlling behaviour and several physical assaults, with nothing attached. Under Division 1.5, that file evidences nothing yet — regardless of whether the account is true.
How much weight does each type of document carry?
Weight is not a formal ranking in the Regulations; it comes from what each document can establish without you.
| Document | What it establishes | Its natural limits |
|---|---|---|
| Intervention order, protection order or other court order | That a court was satisfied enough to make an order naming the parties and the protected person | The order itself may not describe the incidents behind it |
| Police attendance or incident report | A contemporaneous record by an officer who responded — what was seen, by whom, and what action was taken | If officers attended but nothing was recorded, there may be very little to obtain |
| Hospital, general practice or counselling records | Injuries, treatment or disclosure recorded by a clinician around the time of the conduct | Clinical notes often describe the injury without naming who caused it |
| Report from a family violence service, refuge or other prescribed professional | That you sought help, and how a trained professional assessed the pattern and its effect | Prepared later from what you told them, so less independent than a record created at the time |
| Your own statement or statutory declaration | The sequence, context and pattern the other documents cannot set out | Standing alone, it does not meet Division 1.5 |
The practical reading is straightforward. A document created contemporaneously by someone official — a court, police, a treating clinician — establishes an event. A document created later from your retelling establishes that you reported something. Both help, but only one reduces the need for the decision-maker to take your word.
That is why the "hierarchy" matters more than the quantity of paper. Ten letters written after the fact, each repeating what you told the writer, do less work than one police report from the night in question.
What if the issue is children rather than violence?
The same provision has a second limb, and it fails for a similar reason.
Under clause 801.221(6)(c)(ii), an applicant can rely on having custody or access to a child of the sponsoring partner under a court order, or a formal obligation relating to the child — provided arrangements enable the parent-child relationship to continue. The evidentiary standard is equally strict about formality: the Department's manual states this requires a court order or a formal obligation, not a private arrangement.
An agreement you and your former partner sorted out between yourselves, however sincerely made, generally will not satisfy this limb. A parenting order under Australian family law, or a formal child support obligation, does.
Where does this sit in the 820 to 801 timeline?
Subclass 820 (Partner (Temporary)) and Subclass 801 (Partner (Permanent)) are usually decided together, and the exception applies at each stage under its own clause — 820.221(3) at the temporary stage, 801.221(6) at the permanent stage.
Timing runs favourably, though less automatically than people assume:
- The ordinary 801 pathway requires that at least two years have passed since the application was made (clause 801.221(2)(d)). Departmental policy refers to a reminder for updated material around the 22-month point.
- Where family violence or the child-based limb applies, an 801 application can be approved before that two-year point is reached.
- If your Subclass 820 was itself granted on the basis in clauses 820.221(2) or (3) — that is, on the family violence, child or sponsor death basis — the two-year period does not have to run again when you reach clause 801.221(3)–(4).
Read that together with the preceding sections and the shape of the task emerges: one set of evidence has to do two jobs — prove the violence or the child arrangement, and unlock the timing concession.
Does a family violence claim override everything else?
No, and believing otherwise creates avoidable refusals.
Health and character requirements still apply. So does the integrity criterion. Public Interest Criterion 4020 deals with false or misleading information and bogus documents, and a problem under it can defeat the application regardless of how strong the family violence material is — do not embellish a claim or attach anything that does not say what you think it says.
There is also a "one fails, all fail" principle recorded in the manual (clause 801.224): every family member included in the application must satisfy the public interest criteria before the main applicant can be granted.
What happens if my evidence is thin?
Decision-makers can ask for more information before making a decision. Under section 56 of the Migration Act 1958, further material may be requested, and if reasonable attempts to reach the applicant go unanswered, a decision can be made on what is already on file. Keeping contact details current and responding to requests matters more than applicants expect; staying silent is not neutral.
If a refusal issues anyway:
- Merits review can be sought at the Administrative Review Tribunal. The notification period is 21 days from receiving the refusal notice.
- Review rights for a refusal of the permanent visa generally depend on the applicant being in Australia when the decision is made.
- Where the Tribunal sets aside the earlier 820 decision and remits it, the associated 801 application is expected to progress promptly unless significant new evidence suggests the relationship was not genuine.
Because the original Subclass 820 usually ceases when the 801 is refused, understanding which decision is under review is not a technicality — it determines whether you still hold a visa while you argue it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need the sponsoring partner to be convicted, or even charged?
No conviction is required. Division 1.5 sets its own evidentiary requirements; whether the police laid charges affects the kind of documents available, not whether the pathway exists. A claim can be evidenced by orders, medical records or professional reports where criminal proceedings never began or failed.
Does the violence have to be the reason we separated?
No. The requirement is that the violence occurred during the relationship, not that it caused the breakdown. Claims are sometimes refused or delayed because they are presented as though causation is essential, which invites narrow questions about dates and motives that the rules do not actually ask.
What if the violence was against my child rather than me?
That still qualifies. Subclass 801 is available where the applicant or a dependent child experienced family violence committed by the sponsoring partner. The same evidentiary rules apply to evidence about the child's experience.
My ex-partner withdrew the sponsorship and says we reconciled, so nothing happened. What now?
Sponsorship is not determinative of what occurred. Contemporaneous third-party records — police reports, orders, clinical notes — continue to speak for themselves regardless of what either party says later. What matters is whether your material meets Division 1.5, not whether the account is disputed.
Is a private parenting agreement enough for the child-based pathway?
Generally not. The child limb calls for a court order or formal obligation; informal arrangements made between the parties are treated as insufficient. Where no order exists, the strength of a case usually turns on whether family violence evidence is available under the other limb.
How does family violence affect waiting times for permanent residency?
The two-year period counted from the date of application does not need to be completed where the family violence or child limb applies, and it does not re-run where the temporary visa was already granted on that basis. The gain is procedural; the evidence requirement is unchanged.