For many migrants who have made Australia their permanent home, bringing elderly parents here can be one of migration’s hardest challenges. The latest figures show more than 157,000 parent visa applicants in the queue. For new applications, estimated waits are around 18 years in some pathways and approximately 42 years in others. Behind these figures are families whose children may grow up in Australia while their grandparents live thousands of kilometres away. Some elderly parents also face the serious question of whether they will still be alive when their visas are granted.
A new SBS report has again drawn attention to one of the most complex parts of Australia’s migration system. At the end of the 2024–25 financial year, more than 157,000 parent visa applicants were in the backlog, around 52,000 more than six years earlier. Meanwhile, recent changes to conditions on some visitor visas have heightened concerns for families trying to spend at least some time with their elderly parents during the long wait.
Why is the parent visa queue so long?
The main problem is not simply slow administration. The structure of the Parent Visa program itself plays an important role.
Australia’s Department of Home Affairs explains that permanent parent visas are subject to capping and queueing . Capping means only a specified, limited number of these visas can be granted each migration program year. Once the annual cap is reached, remaining applications must wait until places become available in future years.
Even if an applicant meets the main visa requirements and has complete documentation, this does not necessarily mean a visa will be granted quickly. Demand greatly exceeds the number of places allocated each year.
This gap between demand and annual capacity has caused the queue to grow over time.
18 years or 42 years: why the difference?
Not all parent visas are the same.
One well-known pathway is the Contributory Parent visa . This category includes visas such as subclasses 143 and 173. It costs much more, but has a shorter queue than some other parent visa pathways.
According to the latest official Home Affairs information, the estimated wait for a new Contributory Parent visa application is around 18 years .
By contrast, for Parent and Aged Parent visas, the current estimated wait is approximately 42 years . This is an enormous difference. A family joining the queue today may face a wait of several decades for the less expensive pathway.
However, an important technical point must be understood. These figures should not be read as guaranteed visa grant times. Home Affairs says it cannot provide exact processing times for these visas. The 18-year and 42-year figures are estimates based on current application numbers and the places available each year . Changes in allocations, demand and migration policy could alter these estimates in future.
How does the queue work?
The Parent Visa system generally has two main stages.
First, Home Affairs assesses whether an application meets the requirements to enter the queue. If the main criteria are met, the application is assigned a queue date .
The application then waits. When its turn arrives under the annual cap, it is released from the queue for final assessment.
This distinction matters. “Being in the queue” does not mean “a visa is being issued”. An application may remain queued for years before final assessment.
Home Affairs says parent visa applications are released according to their queue date. Chronological order is therefore a key part of the system.
Applications from which years are currently being assessed?
Official information as at 31 August 2026 shows a substantial gap between new applications and those being released for final assessment.
In the Contributory Parentcategory, applications with queue dates up to November 2018 had been released for final assessment. For Contributory Aged Parent , the date had reached November 2020.
However, in the standard Parent visacategory, applications with queue dates up to March 2014 were being released for final assessment. For Aged Parent visa , the date was October 2014.
These dates may illustrate the scale of the queue better than any other figures. In some pathways, the system is still finalising applications that entered the queue about a decade ago.
A more expensive visa and a shorter wait, but still almost two decades
The Contributory Parent visa was designed to reduce part of the waiting time, but costs considerably more.
SBS reported that this pathway can cost approximately $49,000 per applicant. Despite this significant cost, the estimated wait for a new application is now around 18 years.
This leaves families facing a difficult choice. The cheaper pathway can involve decades of waiting. The more expensive option costs tens of thousands of dollars and still does not guarantee a quick visa grant.
The term “contributory” should therefore not be confused with a fast visa. Under current conditions, even this pathway can leave a parent waiting through a substantial part of their later life.
Some applicants die while waiting
The long queue is more than an administrative problem. Applicants’ ages give time a different significance in parent visa cases.
According to Home Affairs data released in 2026, 1,536 parent visa applicants died between 1 July 2024 and 31 March 2026 while still waiting for their visas.
SBS also reported on a family that applied for a Contributory Parent visa in 2018. The mother died in 2022 before the visa was finalised, while the father remains waiting.
These examples highlight a fundamental issue. An 18-year or 42-year wait means something very different for a 30-year-old applicant than for a parent aged 65 or 70.
Why have visitor visa changes worried families?
Alongside the long Parent Visa queue, changes affecting some visitor visas have also caused concern.
SBS reported that broader use of the No Further Stay condition could prevent some parents from applying for another visa from within Australia after arriving on a Visitor visa. They may instead need to leave Australia and pursue the relevant process offshore.
The government’s stated aim is to ensure Visitor visas are used for genuine visits rather than repeated extensions of stay. Critics say, however, that the change may also affect families whose elderly parents have spent years waiting for permanent visas.
Overgeneralisation should be avoided. Conditions differ between Visitor visas. Whether No Further Stay applies must be checked in the visa grant letter and the conditions of that particular visa. Not all parents entering on visitor visas will therefore face identical circumstances.
Can parents spend longer with their children on a temporary visa?
Australia also has a separate temporary pathway: Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa – subclass 870.
This visa may allow an eligible parent to stay in Australia with their child for three or five years. It is not a permanent Parent visa or a direct pathway to permanent residency.
For some families, subclass 870 can reduce long periods of separation. Eligibility, sponsorship, costs and visa conditions must nevertheless be assessed separately.
Families should therefore not assume a temporary visa necessarily resolves the permanent parent visa queue problem.
Does illness or old age lead to faster processing?
This is one of the most important questions for families with elderly parents.
The general rule is that Parent visas are assessed in queue order. Home Affairs says these applications are generally processed in the order received, with queued applications released for final assessment according to their queue dates.
However, the rules provide for priority in limited and exceptional circumstances . A family visa application may be considered for priority on a case-by-case basis in particular compassionate circumstances where compelling reasons exist. This is not an automatic entitlement. A parent’s age or a long wait alone does not guarantee that their application will move ahead of others.
This matters because many Parent visa applicants face difficult emotional and family circumstances themselves. The criteria for priority are therefore limited.
More than a visa issue: caring for elderly parents
For migrant families, this long queue has consequences beyond migration.
Someone may have lived in Australia for years, become a citizen or permanent resident and bought a home. Their children may have been born or grown up here. Their job and entire social network may also be in Australia.
Yet their parents are growing older in another country.
This raises a difficult question: if an elderly parent becomes ill and needs daily care, what should their child do?
SBS spoke to families who said they had even considered leaving Australia to care for their parents. For them, the choice is no longer simply between two visas. It is between the life they have built in Australia and being with an ageing parent.
This issue also matters to Afghan migrant families
For many Afghan families in Australia, the situation may be more complex. Their parents may live in Afghanistan or a neighbouring country, where access to healthcare, international travel or required documents may be difficult.
In these circumstances, waiting years for a Parent visa means more than geographical separation. Security conditions, parents’ health, travel options and conditions in their country of residence can add to the family’s concerns.
However, Parent visa rules apply according to the legal circumstances of each application. Nationality alone does not remove these decades-long queues. Afghan families must therefore distinguish between permanent and temporary pathways and avoid assuming outcomes or grant times based on others’ experiences.
Why does the government not simply increase visa numbers substantially?
This is another part of Australia’s migration policy debate.
Australia is a migrant nation, with more than half its population having at least one overseas-born parent. At the same time, the migration program must balance family connections, population size, public service costs and economic goals.
An Australian parliamentary committee previously acknowledged that permanent parent visa waiting times were unrealistic for many applicants. It also cited migration system review findings that criticised offering a pathway involving decades of waiting and little prospect of some applicants reaching its end.
There is still no simple answer. A large increase in Parent visas could reunite more families sooner, but government must also consider demographic, financial and service implications. Keeping allocations limited produces the current outcome: a queue that, in some pathways, can span a substantial part of a person’s life.
Before applying for a Parent visa, compare more than costs
For a family applying for their parents today, comparing visa fees alone is not enough.
They need to identify which subclass suits the parent, the estimated queue time, whether the application must be lodged onshore or offshore, and requirements concerning age, sponsorship and other criteria. They should also consider whether a temporary visa such as subclass 870 is suitable and check conditions on the parent’s current visa.
Social media information or a friend’s experience should not replace official rules. Two families may appear similar while differing in visa subclass, application date, place of lodgement or current visa conditions.
A 42-year wait: when a queue loses its ordinary meaning
A queue is usually something we expect eventually to reach the end of. But when the estimated visa wait reaches 42 years , the meaning of waiting changes.
A parent who is 65 today would be 107 after a 42-year wait. Even an 18-year wait for a Contributory Parent visa is extremely long for an elderly parent.
The Parent Visa debate is therefore about more than immigration application numbers. It concerns time, ageing and the structure of migrant families.
Australia asks migrants to work, pay taxes, raise families and build their futures here. Many have done precisely that. Yet for some, an important family member remains outside the life they have built: a parent growing older in another country.
More than 157,000 applicants in the backlog and estimated waits of 18 to 42 years show that parent visas are no longer a matter of routine administrative delay. They represent a structural challenge in Australia’s family migration policy.
For a waiting family, the most important question may not be “What year will our turn come?” but when it does come, will there still be time to share a life with our parents?
Reminder: The 18-year and 42-year figures are current Home Affairs estimates for new applications, not guarantees that a visa will be granted on a particular date. Rules, allocations, fees and processing times may change. This report provides general information, not legal or migration advice for an individual case.
Sources: Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, SBS News and Australian parliamentary documents.
