For elderly parents' immigration, you may already know that whether it's a paid application (864) or a queue-based application (804), the primary applicant must meet Australia's retirement age requirement at the time of application, which is currently 67 years old.

This way, the primary applicant can bring their spouse as a secondary applicant, even if the spouse is not yet of retirement age when submitting the application.

However, situations may arise where:

After submitting the application, the primary applicant unfortunately passes away. In such cases, the secondary applicant will theoretically automatically become the primary applicant.

According to the internal review guidelines of the Department of Home Affairs (PAM), the regulations for this situation are:

The secondary applicant will be transferred to the primary applicant's role.

As long as the new primary applicant meets the retirement age at the time of decision (during visa processing), they can be approved.

If they do not meet the retirement age, the visa application will be rejected.

In such cases, YMJ (migration agency) typically requires the following documents:

A certified death certificate (or other means of confirming the applicant's death).

A letter from the secondary applicant confirming they wish to continue with the visa application.

Neither the secondary applicant nor the sponsor need to submit any additional forms or documents.

Once the immigration office receives these documents, the secondary applicant’s role will be changed to the primary applicant, and the queue time will remain the same until the visa is ready for decision.

For the 864/804 parent visas within Australia, if the secondary applicant is not an “elderly parent” (i.e., under the age of 67), they will remain in the queue until the visa decision stage.

However, if the "new" primary applicant (the former secondary applicant) still does not meet the “elderly parent” standard at the final visa decision stage, the application will be rejected because it does not meet the requirements, including the “elderly parent” age requirement at the time of decision.

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