Reg 2.08E – Getting Married without a Prospective Partner Visa granted?

I thought it would be fun to share this one, as we stumbled on it today.

If an applicant applies for a prospective marriage visa (300), and marries before it is granted, then they no longer qualify for the prospective marriage visa (kind of obvious, you can’t get a visa to get married if you are married!).

However, if you notify the department about your wedding, they can convert your 300 visa application into a partner visa application. Neat huh? Obviously it’s not as easy as that, we don’t recommend you try to do it yourselves without professional advice, but it’s an odd bit of the law.

Following on from that, if your PMV 300 is refused, and you appeal, you can also get married while waiting for the appeal, inform the Tribunal, and they will remit your case back to the Department for consideration for a Partner Visa. Also pretty cool.

Just bear in mind, one reason we may advise a PMV over a partner visa is that there’s less evidentiary requirements. A partner visa requires you to prove various aspects of your relationship that a PMV may not, so it may not always be the best move to marry when waiting for your PMV.

Further to that, our understanding (not confirmed), is if you convert your PMV to a partner visa application, it may reset your time in the queue for processing. Given current waiting times, that may be a bad thing.