Student Visa to Partner Visa: Moving to the Onshore Partner Visa (820)

How the transition typically works

The subclass 820/801 is a combined application: the 820 is the temporary stage, and the 801 is the permanent stage assessed later. To use the onshore route, the applicant must be in Australia when the application is lodged and when the 820 is granted. A student visa holder in a genuine relationship with an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen lodges the 820/801 application through ImmiAccount while their student visa is still in effect, and their partner applies to be their sponsor.

Lodging the application does not cancel or replace the student visa. The 500 continues until it expires or otherwise ceases, and all of its conditions continue to apply during that time. When a valid onshore application is lodged by someone holding a substantive visa, the Department generally grants a Bridging Visa A at the same time — but it sits dormant and only comes into effect if the student visa ceases before the partner application is decided. Partner processing times are commonly measured in months to years, so most student-visa applicants do eventually spend part of the wait on the bridging visa.

Check this first: does your student visa carry condition 8534?

This is the single most common reason this transition fails, and it is checked far too rarely before people invest months planning around it. Condition 8534 is the student-visa version of the "no further stay" rule. If it is attached to your Student (subclass 500) visa, you generally cannot be granted a substantive visa — including the partner visa 820 — while you remain in Australia. The only built-in exceptions are the Temporary Graduate (subclass 485) visa, the Student Guardian (subclass 590) visa, and a protection visa. A partner visa is not on that list.

8534 is not on every student visa — whether the Department imposes it depends on the circumstances of the individual application, so two people in the same course can hold the same subclass with different conditions. The only reliable way to know your own position is to read your visa grant notice or check VEVO; do not assume based on a friend's experience or a general rule of thumb.

If 8534 is on your visa, the onshore 820 application this article otherwise describes cannot be validly made while it remains in force. Your options are to apply for the offshore partner visa (subclass 309) after leaving Australia, or to seek a waiver of the condition using Form 1447, which requires compelling and compassionate circumstances that developed since your visa was granted, were beyond your control, and caused a major change to your situation — circumstances that existed or were foreseeable at grant generally will not qualify. See /blog/visa-condition-8534-guide for the full waiver process, and check /blog/visa-condition-8503-guide as well, since a small number of student visas carry that no-further-stay variant instead. Given how much rides on this one check, it is worth confirming with a MARA-registered agent before you or your partner spend money on evidence-gathering for an application that condition 8534 would currently block.

The criteria the Department publishes

The Department's published criteria for the 820 centre on the relationship. The applicant must be the spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen. For married applicants, the marriage must be valid under Australian law. For de facto applicants, the Department generally looks for the relationship to have existed for at least 12 months before the application is lodged, with published exceptions — including where the relationship has been registered under an Australian state or territory scheme. The exact operation of these rules is one of the most common places applications go wrong, so check the current requirements on the Home Affairs website or with an agent.

The sponsoring partner must also meet sponsorship requirements, which include character checks and limits on how many times and how often a person can sponsor a partner. Health and character requirements apply to the applicant. Being on a student visa neither helps nor harms eligibility in itself — the assessment is about whether the relationship and sponsorship criteria are met and evidenced.

Evidence: what the Department asks applicants to show

Partner applications are assessed heavily on evidence of the relationship. The Department's framework looks at four broad aspects: the financial aspects of the relationship, the nature of the household, the social aspects of the relationship, and the nature of the couple's commitment to each other. In practice that means things like joint accounts or shared expenses, evidence of living arrangements, photos and statements showing the relationship is known socially, correspondence over time, and statements from the couple and people who know them.

Students sometimes worry that their circumstances look less conventional — shared houses rather than a jointly leased apartment, finances that are partly supported by family overseas, or a relationship that developed around study timetables. The evidence framework does not require any single document; it asks for a picture across the four aspects. How to build that picture from the documents a particular couple actually has is precisely the kind of judgement a MARA-registered agent deals with daily, and it is worth getting that input before lodging rather than after a request for further information arrives.

What happens to study and work rights in between

This is the part of the transition people most often misunderstand. While the student visa remains in effect, all of its conditions continue to apply — including course enrolment, attendance and course progress requirements, and condition 8105, which caps most student visa holders at 48 hours of work per fortnight while their course is in session (unlimited during a scheduled course break). Lodging a partner application changes none of that. A student who stops attending class or works over the cap because "the partner visa is in" risks their student visa being cancelled for breaching its conditions, which creates a far more complicated situation and can also undermine the partner application itself.

Once the student visa ceases and the Bridging Visa A comes into effect, the bridging visa's own conditions take over, and the 48-hour cap does not automatically carry across. Sources consistently describe Bridging Visa As granted from partner applications as generally carrying full work rights with no fortnightly limit, but conditions are set at grant and can vary — the authoritative record is the bridging visa grant notice and VEVO, and that is what employers will check. Study on a bridging visa is likewise governed by the conditions on the grant. Anyone planning to change jobs, stop studying or travel should check their current visa status and conditions first; travel in particular needs care, because a Bridging Visa A does not permit return travel — that requires a Bridging Visa B obtained before departure.

Timing considerations and common complications

Timing questions dominate this transition. The 12-month de facto question (or relationship registration) needs to be resolved before lodgement, not after. The application charge for the partner visa is one of the highest in the program — check the current figure on the Home Affairs website, as charges are adjusted each July. And because the 820 must be applied for and granted onshore, extended travel plans need to be thought through.

Common complications include: relationships that are genuine but poorly documented; sponsors who have sponsored a partner before, which can engage sponsorship limitations; applicants whose student visa is close to expiry or already subject to problems such as course progress warnings; and confusion between the onshore 820/801 and the offshore 309/100, which have different lodgement rules.

There are also applicants whose student visa has already expired — or who never held condition-free status — by the time they apply. Applying without a substantive visa engages Schedule 3 of the Migration Regulations, which generally requires either meeting specific time-limited criteria or being granted a "compelling reasons" waiver by the Department before an onshore application in that position can succeed. Compelling reasons are not defined in the Regulations and are assessed case by case; the hardship of having to leave Australia and apply from offshore is not, by itself, generally treated as enough. This is a materially harder situation than applying while the student visa is still current, and it is not one to navigate from a forum post. None of this is addressed well by guesswork. A MARA-registered migration agent can review the relationship history, the visa history and the evidence available, and give a professional view on readiness to lodge. Migratio's /agents/partner-visa directory can match you with agents who handle partner visa cases if you want that review.

Does applying for the 820 cancel my student visa?

No. The student visa continues until it expires or otherwise ceases, and all of its conditions — enrolment, attendance, course progress and work limits — continue to apply during that time. The bridging visa granted at lodgement only comes into effect if the student visa ceases while the partner application is still processing.

Can I stop studying once my partner visa application is lodged?

While the student visa is in effect, its conditions still apply, and breaching them can lead to cancellation. Once the student visa ceases and the bridging visa activates, the bridging visa's own conditions govern what you can do — check the grant notice and VEVO. What is safe to do in a specific situation is a question for a MARA-registered agent.

We are de facto but have been together less than 12 months. Can we still apply?

The Department generally looks for a de facto relationship of at least 12 months before lodgement, but publishes exceptions — including where the relationship is registered under an Australian state or territory scheme. Whether an exception applies to a specific couple is exactly the kind of question to put to a MARA-registered agent before lodging.

Can I work full-time while waiting for the 820 decision?

While the student visa is in effect, condition 8105 still caps most holders at 48 hours of work per fortnight during term (unlimited during a scheduled break). If the student visa ceases and the Bridging Visa A comes into effect, work rights depend on the conditions attached to that bridging visa — commonly reported as full work rights with no fortnightly cap for partner applicants, but always confirm against your own grant notice and VEVO.

Can I apply for a partner visa while I'm on a student visa?

Generally yes, provided you're in a genuine relationship meeting the published criteria and your student visa does not carry condition 8534 (or 8503), which are "no further stay" conditions that block the onshore grant of most other visas, including the partner visa. Check your visa grant notice or VEVO first — if either condition is present, you'd generally need to apply offshore instead or seek a waiver.

How long does a student visa to partner visa (820) application take?

Processing times for partner visas are published by the Department of Home Affairs and change regularly, with the full 820-to-801 journey commonly running to multiple years. Check the current global processing times for subclass 820 on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au rather than relying on a figure quoted elsewhere, since these are updated frequently and vary with caseload.

What if my student visa expires before I can apply for a partner visa?

If you no longer hold a substantive visa when you apply, Schedule 3 of the Migration Regulations is engaged, and you generally need to either meet specific time-limited criteria or obtain a "compelling reasons" waiver from the Department. Reasons are assessed case by case, and the general hardship of a relationship being separated is usually not, by itself, treated as compelling. This situation is significantly harder to navigate and is worth taking to a MARA-registered agent before you apply.