On the 9th of February 2026, I received two emails one minute apart. One for the Partner Visa 820, one for the 801. We had been granted both on the same day.

If you’re applying for an Australian Partner Visa, you probably already know how daunting the process can be. I wanted to share what our journey looked like – not pretending it will be the same for everyone – but because reading real experiences helped me prepare and feel less overwhelmed.

In our case, we decided to do the application ourselves for financial reasons, but also because I believed our case was solid after five years together. That said, it was also really down to the amount of research I did. From dissecting all the information available on the Home Affairs website to watching videos from immigration agents, it gave me the confidence that I could do it.

In this blog article I’m giving as much detail as I can remember or check, and a full disclaimer: I am not an immigration agent and everything here is based solely on my own experience. You can check the most up-to-date information on the Home Affairs website.

What is a “double grant”?

Normally you receive the temporary 820 first, then wait two years before being assessed for the permanent 801. But if you’ve been together for at least two years at the time of application, both can be granted simultaneously.

What our timeline looked like

Processing times are available on the official website, but they’re updated (and potentially change) every month. To give you an idea, when we submitted our application in July 2024, processing time was around 1 year on average (for 90% of applications processed). A year later, it had doubled to 24 months. In our case, the process took just over 18 months from submission to grant.

I submitted my application on the 31st of July 2024 and my partner the following day, as he was the sponsor and needed an identifier from my application to proceed.

I applied without having all of the documents ready, mainly missing a police certificate and Form 80 (not requested initially, but I had read they could potentially ask for it). A few weeks later I added the police certificate, and in October I received a notification for the health exam, which I did that month.

And then nothing, absolutely nothing…. 

Until July 2025, when I received an email notification with the subject line: “Application in progress” and body copy included: “We are writing to inform you that your application for a Partner visa is in progress. Your application takes time to process as we complete a number of thorough checks.” My heart pounded when I saw the email in my inbox. However, after doing a bit of research and paying closer attention, I realised it was exactly one year since we applied, and it was just an automatic message that apparently everyone receives…

On November 2025, I received an email with the subject “Request for More Information”, this time from the specific partner visa email address. That’s when it felt an agent had actually looked at our application! I had 28 days to upload my partner’s Australian passport to my side of the application, while my partner was asked to provide a missing police certificate. Importantly, neither of us were asked to complete new health checks or obtain updated police clearances.

After that, I received another automatic “application in process” email in January.

Then in February, I received two emails one minute apart. Very succinct, standard “grant notification” emails. One for the Partner Visa 820 and the second with the 801 attached.

Turns out Gmail stacked them on top of each other and I only saw the 820 at first (everything gets blurry with emotion…). I had so many mixed feelings, and thankfully my partner logged in online and saw that we had also been granted the permanent 801. Yayyyyy!

Our background and decision to apply onshore 

To give a brief overview: I am French, and my partner holds Irish, UK and Australian citizenship, although he was born in Australia.

We met in Dublin, where we lived together for five years before moving to Perth in January 2024, where part of his family lives. I decided to apply for a Working Holiday Visa, which gave me flexibility to stay for a year and have working rights (although limited).

Being on a Working Holiday Visa limits you to working for one employer for six months. Therefore, I wanted to apply for the Partner Visa within the timeframe that would allow me to request an extension under the reason that I had “applied for a visa allowing full-time work.”

I did put myself under a lot of pressure by starting the application (gathering documents first) just over a month before the six-month deadline. But we wanted to give ourselves time to make sure we were happy with the move and the commitment it would involve.

The Partner Visa is not for the faint-hearted. In addition to the stress of the application itself, we paid over $8,000 AUD, and that’s just the visa fee, without additional costs like the health check (almost $400), document translations and police checks.

Preparing the application – and what I would do differently

Get a proper printer/scanner setup

I spent about four weeks working on the application. I set up my laptop and screens on the dining table so I could spread out all the paperwork, and worked most evenings until late.

We both used our work printers – which I definitely would not recommend for obvious reasons – and if I were to do it again, I would buy a printer/scanner just for this process. You cannot realise how much you’re going to need it.

Many documents need to be signed by hand, not digitally. You might want to highlight specific sections (we highlighted particular transactions on bank statements). Police certificates, even when received digitally, sometimes need to be scanned because they are protected from being uploaded in their original format.

Set up your filling system and drive storage from the start

The second thing I would absolutely do differently is organise a proper filing system from the beginning.

There are so many documents involved, and being disorganised just adds to the stress and increases the risk of mistakes. For example, I lost my 10-year travel history document because it was saved in my partner’s downloads folder and he cleared it without realising.

Create a master folder in a safe place and get organised from day one.

This is how I eventually structured mine:

• Original Word documents (which you’ll later convert to PDF for upload)
  
• Bank statements (all of them, before highlighting and merging)
  
• Photos (ideally in folders per year)
  
• Social media screenshots
  
• Witness statements (including IDs and any translations before merging)
  
• FINAL folder, ready for upload and organised by Immi categories:
  
  • Identity
    
  • Commitment
    
  • Financial
    
  • Household
    
  • Social
    
  • Witness Statements

Prioritise certain documents

What took us the longest was obtaining the Irish police certificate (it never arrived by post and had to be reissued by email), and collecting Form 888 statements from friends and family.

This is probably the first thing you should start with. You’ll need to give people very detailed instructions and clear deadlines.

Writing our relationship statement was also a big piece of work. I would definitely start early to allow for multiple revisions and to reference the documents you are attaching (something I read online, it’s not mentioned on the Home Affairs website).

The online application – what I wish I’d known

A good thing to know: the sponsor can only complete their side of the application after the applicant has submitted theirs.

I would strongly recommend not waiting until the last minute (like we did) to begin the online form. There are around 15 stages before you even get to the document upload section, and you can save and return to it anytime.

This would have saved us from the surprise of needing to write about the five pillars of the relationship within a 2000-word limit directly in the application form. After weeks of intense document preparation, I was completely fried. The idea of rewriting what I had already covered in our relationship statement, but in a condensed format, took a real toll on me. I’ve read that some people simply write “see relationship statement” in that field. Personally, I didn’t feel comfortable doing that and think it’s there for a reason. You also have to put yourself in the shoes of the case officer reading your application.

You will also need to provide full identity details for parents and siblings on both sides, which is something I hadn’t fully anticipated.

Full list of documents I provided

Identity:

• Police certificates 
• Birth certificate (I had a name change to document)
• Driving licence
• ID
• Passport
• Form 80

Commitment:

• Receipt of tax return (it has partner details on it)
• Emergency contacts proof from various jobs
• Capture of facebook status
• Call log
• What’s app conversation (proof of keeping in contact while apart)
• Social media post & stories (only key ones)
• Superannuation nominated beneficiaries
• Relationship statements

Financial:

• Car insurance policy
• Electricity, Gas and internet bills
• Join account bank statements
• Both personal bank statements with specific transaction highlighted with comments (gifts, money transfers, whatever is part of our story)

Household:

• Tenancy agreements
• Proof of ownership
• Proof of addresses
• Pictures of the places we lived

Social:

• Flight bookings
• Accommodations bookings
• Event tickets
• Pictures of us in chronological order

Witness Statements:

• 3 witness statement each

Note that photos are not “official” proof of relationship, same with social media screenshots, but my guess is that it supports the overall relationship story (only guessing here). I have seen people mentioning using Canva to design a storyline with photos along key events. Well I did not do that, it was simply too much work to go through 5 years of events and since it’s not in the required document I only put them on a word document in chronological order with a small explainer text underneath. 

So here we are at the end of this (rather lengthy) blog post. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you found it helpful! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, or if you think I’ve missed something :).