The wait on a parent visa is now 33 years, and the visitor visa is getting harder

Read that number again, because it is not a typo and it is not an estimate from a migration agent. It is the Department of Home Affairs’ own published figure. For the Parent visa and the Aged Parent visa, subclasses 103 and 804, the parent visa processing time the department estimates for a new application is 33 years.

For most Indian Australian families, that number ends the conversation about permanent residence for a parent and starts a different one about visitor visas. And that door is narrowing too.

What the department publishes on parent visa processing time

The parent visa page, updated on 9 July 2026 with data as at 31 May 2026, gives two figures. For Contributory Parent visas the estimated processing time for new applications is 15 years. The department’s capping and queueing section lists Parent (103), Aged Parent (804), Contributory Parent (including subclasses 143 and 173) and Contributory Aged Parent (864 and 884) as separate entries. For Parent and Aged Parent visas, subclasses 103 and 804, it is 33 years.

The queue release dates tell the same story from the other end. Applications being released from the queue now are those lodged or queued up to November 2018 for subclasses 143, 173, 864 and 884. For subclass 103, the department is releasing applications queued up to March 2014. For subclass 804, up to April 2014.

A parent who lodged a non-contributory application in 2019 is waiting behind a queue the department is currently working through at 2014. A parent lodging now, at 65, would be 98 on the department’s own estimate.

Migration lawyers report that parent places were reduced for 2026-27, from 8,500 the previous year to 7,060, a cut of about 17 per cent. Work Visa Lawyers puts the reduction at 8,500 to 7,060 and dates the announcement of the 2026-27 planning levels to 20 May 2026.

So families use the visitor visa, and that is tightening

If a parent cannot come permanently, they come for three months at a time. The department’s Visitor Visa Program Report to 31 December 2025 shows what is happening to those applications.

For Tourist Visitor visas, subclasses 600 and 676, decided between 1 October and 31 December 2025, India’s grant rate was 69.8 per cent. The all-country grant rate for the same quarter was 78.6 per cent.

The direction matters more than the single figure. India’s grant rate was 73.2 per cent in the same quarter a year earlier, 73.6 per cent in January to March 2025, 73.4 per cent in April to June 2025 and 73.1 per cent in July to September 2025. Four consecutive quarters at roughly 73 per cent, then a drop to 69.8.

The volumes explain why families feel the squeeze even when they get through. Across all visitor visa streams, not the Tourist stream alone, Indian lodgements for 2025-26 to 31 December 2025 were 222,710, up 8.3 per cent on 205,718 a year earlier. Grants were 151,336, up only 1.3 per cent on 149,375. More people applying, barely more people approved. On that all-streams basis India ranked fourth among source countries for lodgements and sixth for grants.

What nobody budgets for

Australia has reciprocal health care agreements with 11 countries. India is not one of them.

The eleven are Belgium, Finland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Because there is no agreement with India, a visiting Indian parent has no access to whatever a reciprocal arrangement would otherwise provide. Smartraveller says reciprocal health care is not a substitute for travel insurance.

Travel insurance for an older parent with existing conditions is the only answer available, and the cost of it should be part of the trip budget rather than an afterthought.

And it costs more than it did

Visa application charges rose on 1 July 2026. The immigration law firm Fragomen, writing on 8 July 2026, states that most visa application fees increased by approximately 25 per cent. It gives the student subclass 500 charge for primary applicants rising from AUD 2,000 to AUD 2,500, and the subclass 482 charge for primary applicants from AUD 3,210 to AUD 4,015.

What this actually means for a family

If a parent is already in a parent visa queue, the useful thing is to know which queue and where the department has reached, both of which are on the department’s parent visa page. The 15-year and 33-year parent visa processing time figures are a reason to stop planning around a date. What withdrawing or staying in the queue would mean for an individual application is a question for a registered migration agent, not for an article.

If a parent is coming to visit, lodge earlier than feels necessary, given both the grant rate and the volume of applications ahead. Assemble the application as though it will be assessed by someone who has never met the family, because it will be. And price the insurance before booking the flights.

The part worth saying plainly

There is a version of this story that treats a falling grant rate as evidence of something unfair, and the numbers do not support that on their own. A grant rate can fall because policy changed, because the mix of applicants changed, or because a backlog is being processed in a particular order, and the department has not said which applies here. That question deserves an answer rather than an assumption.

What the numbers do support is simpler and harder. A generation of Indian Australians in their forties and fifties is making decisions about ageing parents on the other side of the world, using a permanent pathway measured in decades and a temporary one that is becoming less reliable. A third route exists, the sponsored parent temporary visa, subclass 870, which is not covered here and deserves its own piece. None of the three got easier this year.