This article is general information about Australian Partner Visa documentation. It is not migration advice. For advice on your circumstances, consult a registered migration agent (search MARA).
Most onshore Partner Visa (subclass 820) applicants lodge while holding some other Australian visa — a student visa, a working holiday visa, a visitor visa, a graduate visa. Those visas are called substantive visas, and the application process is broadly the same for everyone in that group.
But a smaller group of applicants lodges without a substantive visa. That path is permitted, but Home Affairs imposes three extra documentation requirements on top of everything every other 820 applicant submits — and one of those requirements has a sharp Form 888 trap that can render an application invalid if you get it wrong.
This guide walks through what "substantive visa" means, exactly what Home Affairs requires for the no-substantive-visa path, and why Form 888 will not satisfy the statutory declaration requirement even though Form 888 is a standard inclusion elsewhere in a Partner Visa application, under the Social category.
If you're trying to compile the rest of your relationship evidence in the meantime, VisaBinder compiles the four evidence categories into upload-ready PDFs so you can focus on getting the specialist documents right.
What "substantive visa" means
Home Affairs uses the term substantive visa to mean any visa other than a Bridging visa, a Criminal Justice visa, or an Enforcement visa. The everyday Australian visas most people hold — student, working holiday, skilled work, partner provisional, visitor, graduate — are all substantive visas.
You can confirm the technical definition on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au. The practical test: if you're currently on a Bridging visa (commonly Bridging A or Bridging C while a previous application is being decided), or you have no visa at all, you don't hold a substantive visa, and the extra requirements below apply to you.
The three extra requirements
Home Affairs spells out three additional things you must include when lodging an 820 without a substantive visa (PDF p.7, official Partner Visa guidance):
A 'Sponsorship for a Partner to Migrate to Australia' online form completed by your sponsor. This is the standard sponsorship form; the difference at this stage is that it must be completed and lodged, not promised.
Evidence to demonstrate your sponsor's status — for example, passport or birth certificate. Home Affairs is explicit that a driver's licence or Medicare card is not sufficient evidence of Australian citizenship or permanent residency at this stage. The acceptable documents are an Australian passport, a foreign passport plus an Australian citizenship certificate, or an Australian birth certificate.
A minimum of two statutory declarations, each made within the last six weeks, by an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident, or eligible New Zealand citizen, confirming that you and your sponsor are in a married or de facto relationship.
The third requirement is where the most expensive mistakes happen.
Why Form 888 won't satisfy this requirement
Form 888 is the official witness supporting statement under the Social evidence category of a Partner Visa application — it sits alongside photos, joint events, and other social material. Home Affairs requires statements from two witnesses for that category.
But Home Affairs has stated, in plain language: Form 888 is not a statutory declaration. The current and any previous versions of Form 888 are not acceptable as they do not satisfy this requirement.
The two documents look superficially similar — both are written statements about your relationship signed by a third party — but they are governed by different laws and serve different purposes. Form 888 is a Departmental form for witness supporting statements; a Commonwealth Statutory Declaration is a sworn declaration under the Statutory Declarations Act 1959 governed by the Attorney-General's Department.
For the no-substantive-visa requirement, you need the Commonwealth Statutory Declaration form, which you can download from the Attorney-General's Department. Each declarant fills it out, has it witnessed by an authorised person (the form lists who qualifies — JPs, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, police officers, and so on), and signs it in front of the witness.
The "made within the last six weeks" requirement means the declaration must be sworn no more than six weeks before you lodge your 820 application. Old declarations from earlier in the relationship don't count.
If you'd like a fuller walkthrough of Form 888 — for the Social category, where it is the right document — see our Form 888 guide.
What the declarations need to say
The two (or more) Commonwealth Statutory Declarations need to confirm that you and your sponsor are in a married or de facto relationship. Each declarant should be someone who knows you both, has spent time with you as a couple, and can describe the relationship from direct observation.
The Commonwealth form provides space for the declarant to write their own statement. As with Form 888, specifics outperform generalities: details about how the declarant knows you both, occasions they've spent with you, observations of your living arrangements, and their direct view of the relationship are far more useful than abstract affirmations.
Sponsor identity evidence — the driver's-licence trap
Home Affairs' wording on sponsor identity is unusually explicit: a driver's licence or Medicare card is not sufficient evidence of Australian citizenship or permanent residency. This catches applicants who think any government-issued ID will do.
Acceptable evidence for the sponsor:
- Australian passport (bio page).
- Australian birth certificate plus a photo ID linking the name on the certificate to the sponsor.
- Foreign passport plus an Australian citizenship certificate for naturalised citizens.
- Australian permanent residency evidence — typically a visa grant letter or a VEVO check printout — for permanent residents who are not citizens.
If your sponsor only has a driver's licence and a Medicare card, they need to order or locate one of the above before you lodge.
The verbatim closing warning
Home Affairs' guidance closes the no-substantive-visa section with this sentence (verbatim, PDF p.7):
If this information is not included when you lodge your application, it may be deemed invalid.
An invalid application is not assessed — Home Affairs returns it without making a decision, and the Visa Application Charge is generally refunded. The unrecoverable money sits on the other track: a validly lodged application that is refused generally forfeits its charge. The cost of an invalid lodgement is the lost time — and having to prepare and lodge again.
VisaBinder helps you compile and label the documents Home Affairs lists. For advice on whether the no-substantive-visa requirements apply to your circumstances and how to mitigate risk, consult a registered migration agent.
Putting it all together
If you're lodging without a substantive visa, your 820 lodgement needs to include the standard Partner Visa evidence — the four categories of relationship evidence, Form 80, identity documents, Form 888s under Social, police certificates where requested (what's asked for depends on your residence history), and a health examination arranged via a HAP ID, commonly after lodgement — plus the three extras above: the sponsorship form, sponsor identity evidence beyond driver's-licence-or-Medicare, and a minimum of two Commonwealth Statutory Declarations made within the last six weeks.
Documents aren't the whole story on this path, either: applicants without a substantive visa must also meet additional legal criteria (commonly called "Schedule 3" criteria) that sit beyond any document checklist — another reason to talk to a registered migration agent about your circumstances.
Our subclass 820 evidence checklist walks through the standard evidence categories every applicant deals with. And if compiling the four relationship-evidence packs feels like the more solvable problem, VisaBinder turns the pile into the ImmiAccount-ready PDFs so the time you have left can go on chasing the specialist documents only you can collect.
A final note
The Commonwealth Statutory Declaration requirement is a legal document signed under penalty of perjury. The two declarants are signing under Australian law and could face penalties for a deliberately false declaration. Make sure anyone you ask understands what they're attesting to — and make sure you give them the Commonwealth form, not Form 888.