Australian partner visa answers

Is Form 80 Necessary Or Can I Just Skip It?

Last updated: 19 September 2022

Thursday Answers are a response to questions submitted by readers on our regular Ask Mondays posts.

Every Monday I ask people to send in their questions and concerns and I select one to answer. In doing this, I hope you will see that a) you’re not alone in this, b) there are no stupid questions and c) we’re all here to help!

This is a question that I’m getting with increasing frequency and I know why. I’m going to paraphrase:

“Is Form 80 really necessary? It’s not on the Department checklist anymore and I’m just repeating myself with the other parts of the application.”

Firstly, what is Form 80?

Form 80 officially is called: 80 – Personal particulars for assessment including character assessment and still accessible from the Department’s website.

Although I include a Form 80 with the book so that you get a complete set of all the required documents, it’s always good to check on the Department site for the most up to date version of any forms, not just Form 80.

Anyway, the dreaded Form 80. It’s that really long and tedious form that the applicant aka the foreign partner has to fill in that lays bare their entire life. From where you lived, where you travelled, what you studied and what jobs you had – it’s all there. But wait, you might have noticed that you’ve already dealt with this in the application form or that you’re already including the relevant evidence with your visa application. Certainly, if you followed the book, you should have.

The official stance of the Department is that Form 80 is not necessary anymore for partner visa applications. Form 80 is no longer listed on the checklist of required documents that’s readily available on the Department website.

But this would be too simple of an answer.

You’re here on my site asking very important questions on how to do your Australian partner visa application by yourself, so of course I’m here to explain things with detail and a simple answer will never do.

Buckle up and come with me on the journey as I explain why Form 80 is still a necessary form to your Australian partner visa application.

Form 80 is generally required for a lot of permanent visas so that the Australian government can really investigate as to whether the applicant is a good person to let into the country. We’re talking permanent residency (which can turn into citizenship) so of course the Australian government wants to be thorough in their checks. The primary use of Form 80 is to determine where the applicant has been and where the Department or case officer should request police checks from i.e. for character purposes.

Nowadays I’m seeing Form 80 being requested by the case officer in temporary visa applications, even though Form 80 was not listed as a required document. Now we all know what that means when a case officer requests more information; it means delays in processing!

So let’s look at this in relation to the partner visa. The partner visa application is a 2-in-1 application: both a temporary and a permanent visa application at the same time.

We know Form 80 is generally required for permanent visas and we know that increasingly Form 80 is being requested for temporary visas.

This leads us to the conclusion that YES I still recommend including Form 80 in your applications because chances of it being requested later on are still very high. By that time, your visa application would have been processing for what seems like years and now you have to fill in a really long form within a short space of time and hope to get it back to the case officer to finalise the case. But by the time you remember everything and have Form 80 filled out it’s already too late, the case officer has other cases and your case goes back into his/her queue and won’t be dealt with for another month or so. FAIL.

So what is my advice? You’ve already done the work and you already gathered the information to answer everything in Form 80, so why risk delays by not filling it in and submitting it with your partner visa application?

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts in Australian partner visa applications (except for the ones I’ve written about here). I know it’s a long form and it’s a lot of repetition but you’re about to move your partner to Australia to join you and start building your new life together, don’t let Form 80 stand in the way of it.

Now available on:

That concludes this week’s Thursday Answers.

Until next time,

Fiona

P.S Don’t forget to send me your questions! Use the contact form here or send us an email.

P.P.S I talk more about Form 80 in the book and how to answer some of the tricky questions such as explaining gaps or which addresses are considered the addresses you need to list in the form. I also show you samples and examples of statutory declarations that incorporate crucial answers to Form 80 questions.

Download a sample of the book now to see if it’s right for you!

 

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