Prospective Marriage Visa Requirements

Prospective Marriage Visa Requirements

 

Applying for a Prospective Marriage Visa?  We will outline the Prospective Marriage Visa requirements and explain the evidence to include in your application.

Once a Prospective Marriage Visa is granted the applicant will be issued a temporary visa allowing him / her to travel to Australia and remain there for nine months.   During this nine month period, the applicant must marry their sponsor and lodge and onshore 820 Spouse visa.

Application Fee

The Prospective Marriage Visa application fee is currently $7160

Processing Time

Prospective Marriage Visa applications are current taking 14 to 16 months to be processed.

Form

The Prospective Marriage Visa must be submitted via the internet using form 47SP.  A person claiming to be a family member a person who is an applicant for Prospective Marriage Visa must lodge their application at the same time and same place, and combined with the application of the main applicant.  This means, at time of lodgement, you must include all your dependent children in your application .  You cannot lodge a Prospective Marriage Visa and then add an additional child after lodgement.

Overview

For the Prospective Marriage Visa the applicant must intend to marry a person who is an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen.  An applicant for a Prospective Marriage Visa must have turned 18 years of age.  The applicant must be sponsored by their spouse and their spouse must have also turned 18 years of age.

The Prospective Marriage Visa requirements stipulate that both the applicant and the sponsor must have met in person, since they both turned turned 18.  The applicant and the sponsor must be known to each other personally.  They must be able to establish that they genuinely intend to marry and that the marriage is intended to take place within the visa period. The visa period is 9 months after the date of visa grant.  The Minister must also be satisfied that the parties genuinely intend to live together as spouses.

Genuinely Intend to Marry

To demonstrate that the applicant and sponsor genuinely intend to marry, applicants must to provide evidence that arrangements have been made for the marriage ceremony to take place, after the applicant has first arrived in Australia.  The form of evidence required is a signed and dated letter from an authorised marriage celebrant who will conduct the marriage ceremony.  The letter must include the date of the intended wedding and the venue of the marriage ceremony.  It is acceptable that a date range be provided in the marriage celebrant’s letter.  As long as the date range is within the visa validity period.  The letter must also confirm that a Notice of Intention to marry has been lodged with the celebrant.

Under Australian law, if you wish to marry in Australia, you must lodge a Notice of Intention to marry with the celebrant will be conducting the marriage ceremony.  Notice of Intention to Marry must be lodged no less than one month and no more than 18 months before the propose day of the ceremony.  A Notice of Intention to Marry is valid for up to 18 months.

Arranged Marriages

A marriage that has been arranged by relatives, friends or brokers is considered an arranged marriage. Arranged marriages often arise from commitments given before one or both of the parties to the marriage have reached marriageable age. This often happens when the parties are infants.   Arranged marriages are accepted by the Department, although cases may arise where one of the parties has indicated that the marriage is only occurring due to pressure by the family.  In this scenario the case officer is likely to refuse the application.  It is therefore important to demonstrate that both parties agree and desire for the marriage to take place.

Applicants must demonstrate that they genuinely intend to live together as spouses. Even when it is an arranged marriage, both the applicant and the sponsor must ensure they submit evidence, to clearly demonstrate, that they intend to live together as spouses and that they want the marriage to proceed.

Must Have Met

The applicant and the sponsor must have met in person since both of them turned 18 years of age.  It is important to provide satisfactory evidence of having met in person. This would include photographs of the couple together, travel bookings, accommodation receipts, receipts for joint activities and statements from friends and family.  It is a good idea to provide evidence of this nature for each period time the couple have spent time together.  If you have travelled overseas in order to spend time together, you should include evidence for each period of travel.  We recommend that evidence demonstration continued communication, during these times of separation, should also be included.   For instance you may have telephone bills highlighting each other’s and phone number and the call duration or copies of emails and messages.

The applicant and sponsor should provide evidence to demonstrate how their relationship developed overtime.  The couple need to demonstrate that they are known to each other personally. This can be evidenced by the period of time they have spent together, knowledge of each other’s history and whether they have met each other’s family.  The degree of emotional and physical support should also be evidenced in personal statements written by both the applicant and the sponsor.

Free to Marry

At the time of applicant decision there must be no impediment to marriage. Both the applicant and the sponsor must be free to marry and the intended marriage must be valid be valid under Australian law.   If the applicant or sponsor is currently married to someone else and they cannot obtain a divorce, they will be unable to marry their sponsor in Australia and their Prospective Marriage Visa would be refused.   As they would be unable to meet the Prospective Marriage Visa requirements.  However, the application can be submitted when one of the parties is still married to somebody else, as long as the divorce is finalized before a decision is made on the Prospective Marriage Visa.

Marriage before Visa Grant

If the couple marry before the Prospective Marriage Visa is granted they can no longer meet the requirements for visa grant. As both the applicant and the sponsor must demonstrate that they intend to marry within the visa validity period.  This cannot occur if they are already married.  In this scenario for couple would be advised to apply for a Spouse 820 or 309 visa.

For more information and to discuss the particulars of your relationship, we invite you to contact our office and speak with a senior migration agent Sydney.