Carer visas 116/836 — moving to Australia to care for a sick relative: stricter than the rumours

“My mother in Australia had a stroke — I want to go over and care for her. I’ve heard there’s a carer visa that lets you stay permanently?” The question is real, and so is the visa: the subclass 116 (lodged outside Australia) and 836 (lodged inside Australia) — permanent visas for someone moving to Australia to care for a relative with a long-term illness or disability.

But an honest short answer has to come first: this is one of the hardest visas to win in the family program. The name sounds humane — “care for your sick relative and receive PR” — but the criteria are deliberately narrow, and most applications fail not because the patient is “not sick enough”, but because of a barrier few people expect: Australia has its own care service system.

This article walks through each condition the way it actually operates, so your family can assess realistically before pinning hopes on it.

What the 116/836 is

The Carer visa allows a relative of an Australian citizen, PR or eligible New Zealand citizen to move to (or remain in) Australia permanently to provide care — where that person has an illness or disability requiring long-term help with daily life. The 116 is the offshore version; the 836 is onshore. It is a direct PR visa — not a temporary one.

Precisely because the benefit is so large, the three core conditions below are assessed very strictly.

The three core conditions — and which one bites hardest

1. A medical assessment confirming a sufficiently high care need

The person receiving care must be assessed through the Department’s designated immigration medical services provider (currently operated through Bupa Medical Visa Services — check the current provider on the Department’s website), confirming that the condition is long-term and that the need for help with daily activities reaches a sufficiently high rating on the assessment scale. A letter from the family GP, however detailed, cannot substitute for this official assessment — and not every “needs someone around” situation reaches the threshold.

2. The need cannot reasonably be met by services in Australia — the biggest hurdle

This is where most applications fail. The law requires showing that the care need cannot reasonably be met by health services, community services or other relatives in Australia. The problem: Australia has extensive aged care, NDIS and in-home care systems. The Department can — and routinely does — argue that the patient’s needs can be met by local services, even when the family feels “nobody cares like family”.

Counter-arguments with real weight usually centre on genuine service gaps: language and cultural barriers (an elderly patient who only speaks Vietnamese, in an area with no Vietnamese-speaking care staff), specialised care needs public services don’t cover, or documented waiting lists for services in the specific area. This is the part of the application that needs the most careful evidence — specifics, not sentiment.

3. No other relative in Australia can provide the care

If the patient has children, siblings or other relatives in Australia who could reasonably provide care, the application weakens considerably. “Could reasonably” is assessed practically — that relative works full-time, lives interstate, has their own circumstances — but it still has to be demonstrated, not merely asserted.

Who counts as a “relative”

A point few people know: the definition of relative for the carer visa is broader than immediate blood family. Beyond parents, children and siblings, relationships such as aunts and uncles (including by marriage) can qualify in some cases — the precise definition sits in the current regulations and should be checked against your circumstances. This is one of the rare advantages of this stream compared with other family visas — and it is why the carer visa sometimes appears in the “bringing a relative over” calculations we analyse in sponsoring a sibling to Australia.

A small cap — a queue measured in years

The carer visa sits in a family visa group with a very small annual cap. The direct consequence: even an application that meets every condition faces a wait measured in years — the Department publishes this openly for the “other family” visa group. We won’t quote a specific figure because it shifts with each program year; what is certain is that families need an interim care plan for a long wait, and cannot treat this visa as an immediate solution.

Where applications actually fail

From the structure above, the practical picture:

• Most failures land on condition 2 — the Department concludes Australian services can reasonably meet the need;
• Failures because the medical assessment doesn’t reach the threshold — support is needed, but not at the prescribed level;
• Failures because another relative in Australia hasn’t been convincingly addressed;
• The applicant and accompanying family members must still meet the usual health and character requirements of any PR visa — see Australian visa health examinations and the health waiver.

Need to be there now? The 600 visitor visa for the short term

If the immediate need is being at your relative’s side soon — after surgery, during treatment — the subclass 600 visitor visa is a far more practical tool: much faster to obtain, suited to short-term care, and it doesn’t preclude lodging a carer application later. Many families combine the two: a visitor visa for the urgent phase, and a carer application (where genuinely eligible) for the long term.

Who should seriously consider it

The carer stream is worth real effort when the factors line up: the patient has a clearly documented long-term condition; the care need has a cultural or language dimension local services can’t cover (for example an elderly patient who only communicates in Vietnamese, in an area with few Vietnamese-language services); no other relative in Australia is positioned to provide care; and the family accepts a multi-year queue with a clear interim plan.

Summary

The 116/836 is a real visa with a real prize — PR for someone caring for a sick relative — but the three conditions (a medical assessment at threshold, Australian services unable to reasonably meet the need, no other relative available) plus a years-long queue make it far narrower than the rumours. Before building your family’s plan around it, assess coldly: where does your case stand on each condition? Book a free assessment with VisaAffairs — we will give you a straight analysis of the strengths and fatal weaknesses of a carer application before you spend money on it.

References

• Department of Home Affairs — Visa list — official pages for the Carer visa (subclasses 116 and 836).
• Department of Home Affairs — Health examinations — health assessment requirements in migration applications.
• My Aged Care — Australia’s aged care service system (context for the “services can meet the need” test).

This article is general information current at publication. Australian migration rules change regularly — check the date and contact VisaAffairs before relying on it for your own case. Book a consultation for advice on your specific circumstances.