COVID19 Waiver to allow some offshore visa grants in Australia
The Department of Home Affairs has announced that it will waive the requirement for certain family visa subclasses to be offshore at the time of their visa grant commencing in early 2021.
The Department has advised:
“It is intended that changes will be implemented in early 2021 that would allow certain family visas, which have been applied for outside Australia, to be granted while the visa applicant is in Australia. This temporary concession will be for people who are in Australia and are not able to travel offshore to be granted the visa due to COVID-19 related border closures”
The concession is set to apply to certain applicants who have been impacted by the COVID19 border/travel restrictions for the following visa subclasses:
Child (subclass 101) visa
Adoption (subclass 102) visa
Dependent Child (subclass 445) visa
Prospective Marriage (subclass 300) visa
These changes will require a Legislative Instrument amendment to enable the visas to be granted for certain applicants onshore.
Ethos Migration Lawyers will continue to provide updates around how these changes will work as information becomes available.