Visitor Visa Subclass 600 for Parents: Cost and Processing Time

Bringing your parents to Australia for a visit, whether for a graduation, a wedding, the birth of a grandchild or simply time together, usually starts with the Visitor visa (subclass 600). It is the most common option for parents living overseas, and for most families the Tourist stream is the right door.

The headline numbers: the visa costs AUD250 per applicant, so two parents means two separate applications and two charges. Tourist stream applications are currently decided in about 13 days at the median. The standard stay granted is three months, though parents of Australian citizens and permanent residents can sometimes be granted a visa valid for longer than 12 months. This guide covers the cost, the timing, which stream to choose, what the Department is actually assessing, and what to do if an application is refused.

Visitor visa 600 for parents at a glance

• Cost: AUD250 for each applicant. Family members cannot be included in one application, so each parent applies and pays separately.

• Processing: Tourist stream, 50 per cent decided in 13 days and 90 per cent in 35 days. Sponsored Family stream is slower, at 43 and 89 days.

• Standard stay: generally 3 months, with up to 12 months granted in certain circumstances.

• Where to apply: your parents must be outside Australia when they apply and when the decision is made.

• Work: not permitted. Study or training is capped at 3 months.

• The test: the Department must be satisfied your parents are genuine visitors who intend to stay temporarily and comply with their visa conditions.

• For longer stays: the Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870) allows 3 or 5 years per visa.

How much does the subclass 600 visa cost?

The visa application charge is AUD250 for each applicant in both the Tourist and Sponsored Family streams. This is the point most families get wrong: you cannot include family members in a subclass 600 application, even people listed on the same passport. If both your parents are coming, that is two applications and AUD500 in charges. If they are travelling together, you can indicate in the form that they are applying as a group so the applications are considered alongside each other.

Beyond the charge, budget for health examinations if the Department asks for them, police certificates where required, biometrics, certified translations of any document not in English, and travel health insurance. From 1 July 2026 a reduced visa application charge applies to eligible citizens of Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste, based on the passport used in the application. The listed countries are the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Charges change, usually on 1 July. Confirm the current figure with the Department's Visa Pricing Estimator before you lodge.

How long does a parent visitor visa take?

Processing times reflect applications recently decided and are a guide, not a commitment. As at the date this article was checked, the Department's processing time guide shows:

• Tourist stream: 50 per cent processed in 13 days, 90 per cent in 35 days.

• Sponsored Family stream: 50 per cent processed in 43 days, 90 per cent in 89 days.

Those medians are fast, but the 90th percentile is what you should plan around, particularly if the visit is tied to a fixed date such as a wedding or a due date. Apply at least two to three months ahead. An application that is incomplete, or that triggers a request for health examinations or further documents, moves into the long tail rather than the median.

Tourist stream or Sponsored Family stream?

For most parents visiting children in Australia, the answer is the Tourist stream. Home Affairs itself signposts this on the Sponsored Family stream page, noting that the Tourist stream also lets people holiday in Australia to see family and friends, and does not require a sponsor.

Tourist stream

Applied for from outside Australia, with no sponsor required. It permits visits to family and friends, tourism and cruises, and up to three months of study. It can be granted with single or multiple entry, and this is the only stream under which a parent can receive a visa valid for longer than 12 months. A family member in Australia can still support the application with an invitation letter and financial evidence without becoming a formal sponsor.

Sponsored Family stream

Here an eligible relative in Australia formally sponsors the visitor. It has real trade-offs that are often left out of guides:

• The visa will carry condition 8503, No Further Stay. That is not discretionary in this stream. Your parents will not be able to apply for another visa while in Australia except in very limited waiver circumstances.

• It is generally granted with a single entry and a six-month validity period, so if they leave Australia they need a new visa to return.

• The Department may require the sponsor to pay a security bond.

• It is slower, at roughly three times the Tourist stream median.

The stream makes sense where a sponsor is required or where a formal sponsorship genuinely strengthens a borderline case, not as a default choice.

Who can sponsor, and who cannot

A sponsor must be a settled Australian citizen or permanent resident, at least 18 years old. Settled usually means having lived in Australia for the last two years, though the Department can reduce this in compelling and compassionate circumstances.

You can sponsor a spouse or de facto partner, parent or child, brother or sister, grandparent or grandchild, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew, and the step equivalents of these. You cannot sponsor a fiancé or fiancée, an in-law, a cousin or a friend, and a New Zealand citizen cannot be a sponsor. Limited exceptions apply where the person is part of the family unit of another applicant you are eligible to sponsor.

Sponsorship limitations also apply if you have sponsored a subclass 600 applicant before, particularly where that visa has not yet expired or where the previous visitor breached a visa condition within the last five years.

The security bond

The Department may ask a sponsor to pay a security bond. Bonds are usually between AUD5,000 and AUD15,000 per person, though the Department can ask for any amount. The bond must be paid in full before a final decision is made, and it is refunded if the visitor complies with their visa conditions and leaves Australia before the visa expires.

How long can your parents stay?

The Department decides the stay period case by case, based on how long your parents want to stay and why. Generally a stay of three months is granted. Up to 12 months may be granted in certain circumstances. You might not get the length you asked for, so read the grant letter carefully rather than assuming.

There is a specific concession worth knowing about. If your parents are the parent or step-parent of an Australian citizen or permanent resident and meet all the visa criteria, the Department may grant a visa valid for more than 12 months, often with multiple entry. Two conditions come with it: they cannot stay in Australia for more than 12 months in total in any 18-month period, and they must have made adequate arrangements for health insurance. These applications are assessed case by case, so make the family relationship and the health insurance arrangements explicit in the application.

A visitor visa cannot be extended. To stay longer, your parents must apply for another visa, and they can only do that onshore if their current visa does not carry condition 8503. One trap: on a round trip cruise, time spent on the cruise counts as time in Australia and does not reset the stay period.

Staying longer: the Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870)

If your parents want to stay longer than 12 months at a time, the subclass 600 is the wrong tool. The Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870) lets a parent of an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen stay for up to 3 or 5 years per visa, with a maximum of 10 years in Australia across successive visas.

• Up to 3 years: AUD6,370. Up to 5 years: AUD12,440.

• You must have an approved Parent Sponsor before the visa application can be lodged, and the visa application must follow within 6 months of sponsorship approval.

• The visa holder cannot work in Australia.

It is a substantially bigger commitment than a visitor visa, and the sponsorship stage has its own income and character requirements. It is worth costing out properly if the realistic plan is repeated long visits rather than a single trip.

What if the goal is permanent residence?

Most families who look into bringing parents over eventually ask about staying for good. It is worth seeing the numbers, because they explain why a visitor visa is the practical route for the foreseeable future.

All permanent parent visas are capped and queued: there is a maximum number granted each year, and applications wait in a queue until a place becomes available. The Department publishes its own estimates for new applications:

• Parent visa (subclass 103) and Aged Parent visa (subclass 804): from AUD8,665 over two instalments for a single applicant. Estimated processing time for a new application is around 33 years.

• Contributory Parent visa (subclass 143) and its temporary equivalent (subclass 173): from AUD49,900 over two instalments for a single applicant. Estimated at around 15 years for a new application.

As at 31 May 2026, the Department was releasing Contributory Parent applications with queue dates up to November 2018, and Parent and Aged Parent applications with queue dates up to early 2014, for final processing. Those are the real waits behind the estimates.

One sequencing trap matters here. You cannot apply for a subclass 103 or 143 parent visa if you have already applied for, or hold, a Sponsored Parent (Temporary) subclass 870 visa. If permanent residence is the long-term goal, decide the order before committing to an 870.

For most families, that leaves repeat visitor visas, and the 870 for longer stays, as the realistic ways for parents to spend meaningful time in Australia in the near term.

The genuine visitor test: what actually decides the application

Almost every refusal comes back to one criterion. The Department must be satisfied your parents intend only to stay temporarily and to comply with the conditions and stay period attached to the visa. Everything else in the application is evidence pointing at that question.

What builds a persuasive picture:

• Reasons to return home. Property, ongoing employment or a business, a pension, other dependants, community and family ties in the home country. This is the single most important element, and it is the one weak applications neglect.

• A specific, dated purpose. A graduation on a known date, a wedding invitation, a due date. Vague, open-ended visits invite doubt.

• Enough money, clearly evidenced. Their own funds, your support, or both, with documents that match the stated plan.

• Travel history. Previous visits to Australia or other countries where they complied with visa conditions and returned on time.

• Internal consistency. Dates, addresses, relationships and financial figures should agree across the form, the invitation letter and the supporting documents.

Documents to prepare

• Valid passports with adequate remaining validity.

• Evidence of the family relationship, such as birth certificates or family registration documents, translated where required.

• An invitation letter from the child in Australia, with evidence of their status here.

• Proof of funds: bank statements covering several months rather than a single snapshot balance.

• Employment, business, pension or retirement evidence for each parent.

• Property titles, leases, or other evidence of ties to the home country.

• Travel history: previous visas and passport stamps.

• A day-by-day or week-by-week travel plan with intended arrival and departure dates.

• Evidence of travel health insurance, particularly for older parents.

• Certified translations of every document not in English.

The invitation letter

An invitation letter explains the visit in your own words and ties the evidence together. It should identify who is inviting whom and the relationship, the reason for the visit, the proposed arrival and departure dates, where your parents will stay, who is covering which expenses, and a clear statement that the visit is temporary and that they will return home. Attach evidence of your own status in Australia and, if you are funding the trip, your financial documents.

The letter must agree with the rest of the application. A letter saying the visit is for three months alongside a form requesting twelve is the kind of inconsistency that turns a routine application into a refusal.

Financial support and health insurance

Your parents can rely on their own funds, on your support from Australia, or a combination. Useful documents include payslips, employment letters, bank statements, tax records and evidence of accommodation. Financial support on its own is not enough. A well-funded applicant with no reason to go home is still a refusal risk, so the money evidence has to sit alongside evidence of ties to the home country.

Health insurance deserves more attention than it usually gets. Visitors are personally liable for their healthcare costs in Australia, and medical treatment is expensive. The Department strongly recommends adequate travel health insurance, may impose condition 8501 requiring it to be maintained, and requires adequate arrangements for parents granted a visa valid for more than 12 months. A few countries have reciprocal healthcare agreements with Australia, but these are limited and do not replace insurance.

Visa conditions to check on the grant letter

• 8101 No work. Your parents cannot work in Australia on this visa.

• 8201 Study limit. No more than three months of study or training.

• 8501 Health insurance. Where imposed, adequate insurance must be maintained for the whole stay.

• 8503 No Further Stay. No further visa can be applied for in Australia except in limited waiver circumstances. Automatic on the Sponsored Family stream.

• 8531 Must leave before the visa expires. Breaching this affects future applications, including your ability to sponsor.

• Single or multiple entry. Check VEVO or the grant letter before booking any travel that involves leaving and re-entering Australia.

Common reasons for refusal

Refusals cluster around a short list: weak ties to the home country, an unclear or open-ended purpose of visit, insufficient or unexplained funds, documents that contradict each other, little or no travel history, previous refusals or overstays by the applicant or close family, unclear employment or financial circumstances, and untranslated or uncertified documents.

What to do if the visa is refused

Read the decision record first. It sets out the criterion that was not met and the reasoning, and that is the roadmap for what to do next. Importantly, a visitor visa application made and decided outside Australia generally carries no merits review rights, so for most parents there is no tribunal appeal. The decision record will state whether review is available and, where a sponsored application is refused, the Australian sponsor may have review rights.

Where there is no review right, the path forward is a fresh application that directly answers the reasons for refusal, with better evidence, rather than a resubmission of the same material. Where review is available, the time limits are short and strictly applied. You can read more on our Administrative Review Tribunal applications page.

Step by step

• Confirm which stream fits, and check whether an ETA (subclass 601) or eVisitor (subclass 651) is available for your parents' passport, since those are cheaper and faster where eligible.

• Gather your parents' documents, including translations.

• Prepare the invitation letter and your supporting financial and status documents.

• Create or log in to ImmiAccount. Lodge a separate application for each parent, indicating a group application if they travel together.

• Pay the visa application charge for each applicant.

• Complete biometrics or health examinations if requested, promptly.

• Read the grant letter in full: stay period, entry type, expiry and conditions.

• Book flights only after the visa is granted and you have checked the entry conditions.

When to get advice

Most parent visitor applications are straightforward. It is worth having yours reviewed before lodging if your parents have had a visa refused before, have overstayed anywhere, have limited travel history and few assets in the home country, have health conditions that may trigger the health requirement, are applying for a long-validity visa, or if the visit is tied to a date you cannot move. A refused application is not just the lost charge; a refusal history makes the next application harder.

For applicants from Nepal, see our page on applying for an Australian visa from Nepal. To discuss your parents' visit, see our visa services or book an appointment with Possible Migration.

Official sources

• Department of Home Affairs: Visitor visa (subclass 600)

• Department of Home Affairs: Tourist stream (apply outside Australia)

• Department of Home Affairs: Sponsored family stream

• Department of Home Affairs: Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870)

• Department of Home Affairs: Parent visas queue release dates and processing times

• Department of Home Affairs: Visa processing times guide

Information checked 2 September 2026. Visa application charges, processing times and policy settings change, so confirm current figures with the Department before you rely on them. This article is general information only, is not legal or migration advice, and is not a guarantee of a visa outcome.