The Department will waive the requirement for certain family visa subclass applicants to be offshore for grant of their visas in early 2021.

The Department have posted the following message on their website:

It is intended that changes will be implemented in early 2021 that would allow certain family visas, which have been applied for outside Australia, to be granted while the visa applicant is in Australia. This temporary concession will be for people who are in Australia and are not able to travel offshore to be granted the visa due to COVID-19 related border closures.

Concessions will be made available for the following family visa subclasses:

Adoption (subclass 102) visa

Child (subclass 101) visa

Dependent Child (subclass 445) visa

Partner (subclass 309) visa

Prospective Marriage (subclass 300) visa

It is expected that further information regarding the concessions will be made available in early 2021.