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Hoping your parents can follow you to Australia from the UK? The 33-year queue to know about first

Visa guide · 2026-08-31 · 4 min read

When people in the UK talk about emigrating to Australia, the conversation often turns to the family left behind. Can Mum and Dad come out later? Could they help with the children once you are settled? Before you build plans around that, there is one figure to take in: 33 years.

That is roughly the current wait for the non-contributory Aged Parent visa. The quicker contributory route, which costs close to $50,000 per applicant, now takes around 15 years. For many families, that is longer than the reason they wanted their parents there in the first place.

The cost of waiting, in plain figures

This is not a theoretical risk. Senate estimates data for the 21 months to 31 March this year shows that more than 1,500 parent visa applicants died while still waiting. Many of them had paid tens of thousands of dollars and supplied every document requested.

A 2023 review of the migration system commissioned by the government was blunt about it, describing a visa that is unlikely to arrive in someone's lifetime as cruel and unnecessary.

Why the line moves so slowly

The queue is slow by design. Two things keep it that way:

• A small, fixed number of places. The government caps parent visa grants each year, and the cap has fallen from 8,500 places to 7,060 for this financial year. Meanwhile the backlog has grown past 157,000 people.
• An onshore route that skips ahead. Parents who arrive on a visitor visa and then apply for a parent visa from inside Australia can stay on bridging visas while their case is processed, often ahead of people who applied properly from overseas. This is widely seen as the loophole the government now wants to close, and it is one reason offshore applicants feel pushed further back.

A proposed change that could cut both ways

A wider migration overhaul is expected, and family visas look set to be part of it. One proposal would stop the spouses, children and parents of Australian citizens from applying for visas while in the country as tourists, aimed squarely at the onshore route above.

For families who applied from abroad, that could ease some of the queue-jumping. But it is not yet clear whether new arrivals will be able to use the onshore route at all, and losing it would remove one of the few ways families can keep parents in Australia while a permanent visa is pending. Nothing is final yet.

The practical strain on working families

For many skilled migrants, having a parent nearby is not just a nice idea. People working long hours often rely on a parent for childcare and help at home. When that help is only possible in six-month blocks on a temporary visa, with parents having to leave Australia for long periods in between, it puts real pressure on careers, finances and the health of older parents.

If you are moving from the UK with parents in mind

• Plan your move on the basis that your parents may not be able to join you permanently, and treat any parent visa as a long-term possibility, not part of your first few years.
• Think about visits rather than relocation in the early years, and look at the visitor visa conditions on the Home Affairs visa listing.
• Factor family support into your choice of job and city, especially if you have young children.

If your parents are already in the queue

1. Check which stream they are in. Contributory and non-contributory parent visas differ hugely in cost and waiting time, so it is worth confirming the one you chose still suits your situation.
2. Keep their temporary visas fully compliant. If they travel between Australia and home on visitor visas, every re-entry must follow the rules, because a breach can put the main application at risk.
3. Watch ministerial directions on processing priority. These decide which applications are dealt with first and can change the real order of the queue regardless of when someone applied.
4. Work from a realistic timeline. Estimates move. If your plans depend on a parent visa arriving within a certain period, test that against current figures, not an estimate from years ago.

Weighing it all up

The parent visa system is under serious strain, and an overhaul is likely to change the rules for new and existing applicants alike. Getting the stream or the timing wrong costs more than money: it can cost years your parents may not have.

For more on family visas, read about the partner visa backlog and how the health requirement affects families. You can also browse jobs in Australia for UK citizens.

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