Australia Contributory Parent Visa (Subclass 143) From Pakistan: Cost, Balance of Family Test and the Queue (2026)

What the subclass 143 visa is

It is a permanent visa. A parent granted one lives in Australia indefinitely, works, enrols in Medicare, sponsors other eligible family members, and after the usual residence period can apply for citizenship. The word contributory in the name is doing real work: the applicant contributes toward the health and welfare costs an older migrant is expected to generate, and the charge reflects that.

The route sits inside the Family stream of the Migration Program, alongside the partner and child categories. Parent places are capped. Home Affairs says so plainly on its parent visa overview: a limited number of permanent places exist each program year, and once they are gone no more are granted until the next year opens.

That single design decision explains everything else on this page. A capped category with demand far above supply does not form a short waiting list. It forms a queue measured in decades.

Can Pakistani nationals apply at all?

Yes. Nothing in the subclass 143 criteria excludes Pakistani passport holders, and this firm has filed Australian family applications for Lahore families since 2016. The barrier is never the passport.

The barrier is arithmetic. This visa asks where your children live, counts them, and compares Australia against every other country. Pakistani families are often large and often spread across the Gulf, the UK, Canada and Pakistan itself. A family of six children with one daughter in Melbourne does not pass, however much money is available and however close the relationship.

So the honest first step is not a budget. It is a list of your children with their current immigration status in whichever country they are in. If that list does not work, nothing further on this page applies to you, and a consultation that tells you so in twenty minutes has saved you a great deal.

What it costs, instalment by instalment

As of 11 November 2026, the Department of Home Affairs prices the Contributory Parent visa (subclass 143) at from AUD49,900 over two instalments for a single applicant, and every family member who applies with you adds to that.

You pay in two parts, and the gap between them is the part families underestimate. The first instalment falls due when you lodge. The second is invoiced much later, when the Department is ready to decide, and the Home Affairs page is blunt about what happens if it is not paid: the application is refused.

Think about what that means over an 18 year estimate. The second instalment is not a figure you can fix today. It is whatever the charge is at the time the invoice arrives, years into the future, after however many annual indexations have been applied in between. Budgeting for today's number and assuming it will hold is a mistake.

On top of the visa charge sit costs the Department lists separately: health examinations for every applicant, police certificates from every country of residence, biometrics, document translation, and the Assurance of Support bond covered further down. None of those is the headline figure, and together they are not small.

Converting any of this to rupees is something to do on the day you pay, at the rate your bank actually applies, and not before. An exchange rate quoted in an article written years before your invoice arrives is worse than no figure at all.

How long the wait really is

As of 11 November 2026, the Department’s own parent visa processing page puts the estimate for a new Contributory Parent application at 18 years, against 42 years for a new Parent or Aged Parent application.

Read those two estimates together, because the comparison is the point. The contributory stream is not quick. It is simply far less slow than the alternative, and the difference between 18 years and 42 years is what the extra money buys.

The Department also publishes where the queue has actually reached, which is more useful than any estimate. As of 11 November 2026, that same processing page reports that, as at 31 August 2026, the Department had released Contributory Parent applications with a queue date up to November 2018 for final processing.

Sit with that. Applications lodged in 2018 are only now being released for final processing. The same page shows queue assessment, the earlier stage, running on applications lodged in April 2024, which tells you roughly how long a new file waits just to be placed in the queue before the long wait even begins.

Processing happens in two stages and the distinction matters. First the Department checks the core criteria and, if they are met, assigns a queue date. Then, as places open in later program years, it releases files from the queue in queue date order for final assessment. An application that fails the core criteria at the first stage is refused there, and never joins the queue at all.

What the estimate is and is not

Home Affairs is careful about this and so should anyone advising you be. The published estimate is modelled on current annual places against current demand. It is not a prediction about your application. Planning levels change, application volumes change, and a figure updated once a year moves with them.

The balance of family test

This is the gate. A parent passes if at least half their children and stepchildren are eligible children, or if there are more eligible children than children living in any other single country, and the Department states that it will not waive this test even in compelling or exceptional circumstances.

Two routes to a pass, then. Half or more of your children settled in Australia, or Australia holding more of your children than any other single country holds. The second limb is the one that saves scattered families: four children across four different countries with one in Australia can pass, because no other country has more than one.

Which children count

Your children and your partner's children, including stepchildren and adopted children, all enter the count. A stepchild means your current partner's child, or a former partner's child under 18 over whom you hold guardianship, custody or a parenting order under the Family Law Act 1975. Stepchildren from polygamous or concurrent relationships are not counted.

Some children drop out of the count entirely. A deceased child. A child removed from your exclusive legal custody by adoption, court order or operation of law. A child registered with UNHCR as a refugee living in a UNHCR camp. A child living somewhere they face persecution or human rights abuse and cannot be reunited with you elsewhere.

Eligible and ineligible children

An eligible child is an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident usually resident in Australia, or an eligible New Zealand citizen usually resident in Australia. Every other child is ineligible, and an ineligible child is treated as resident overseas.

Children who are in Australia on a temporary visa, a student visa included, are not treated as usually resident there, so for this test they sit on the overseas side of the count.

That rule catches Pakistani families constantly. A daughter who has lived in Sydney for six years on successive student and graduate visas feels settled to her parents and is not settled for this test. The day her permanent residence is granted, the count changes. The day before, it does not.

If a child's whereabouts are unknown, the Department treats them as resident in their last known usual country of residence. You cannot improve the count by leaving a child off the form, and you must declare every family member in the application whether or not they are migrating.

Our guide to sponsoring a sibling or cousin across the four main destinations covers the adjacent question families usually ask next, which is who else can be brought over and by whom.

Who can sponsor you

You need an approved sponsor, and in almost every case that is your child in Australia. Where the child is under 18, an eligible relative or a community organisation can sponsor instead.

The Department treats a sponsor as settled once they have lived lawfully in Australia for a reasonable period, usually at least 2 years, as an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen.

The sponsor signs up to support the applicant and their family for their first 2 years in Australia, and applies on Form 40 Sponsorship for migration to Australia.

Sponsorship is approved by the Department, not assumed. A child who has held permanent residence for eight months is not settled yet, and an application lodged on that basis carries that weakness from day one. Waiting a few months for the sponsor to qualify properly is cheaper than lodging early and losing the charge.

The Assurance of Support and its bond

An Assurance of Support is a legal undertaking that the migrating parent will not rely on Australian government income support. Services Australia assesses it, not Home Affairs, and the Home Affairs page on the subject says so directly.

For a permanent Contributory Parent or Contributory Aged Parent visa the Assurance of Support stays in place for 10 years, the longest period Services Australia applies to any visa.

As of 11 November 2026, Services Australia sets the Assurance of Support bond for a ten year assurance given by an individual at AUD 10,000 for one adult assuree and AUD 14,000 for two.

The money is refundable. At the end of the ten years, if the parent has claimed no recoverable Centrelink payments, Services Australia tells the bank the security is no longer needed and releases the funds. If payments were claimed, the relevant amount is recovered from the deposit first, and any shortfall is pursued from the assurer under the Social Security Act 1991.

Who can be an assurer

An assurer must be 18 or over, an Australian resident or citizen, and must pass an income test for the current and the previous financial year. Services Australia will not accept a tax return as proof of current income. It wants a notice of assessment from the Australian Taxation Office for the previous year, and separate evidence for this one. Self employed assurers provide a profit and loss statement or an accountant's letter.

If one person's income is not enough, up to three people can act as joint assurers. All of them must apply the same way, online or on paper, and each is interviewed.

The income threshold itself moves with the number of dependent children the assurer has, the number of adults being assured, whether there are joint assurers and what other assurance cases the assurer already holds. Services Australia publishes a checker for exactly this reason, and the sensible step is to run it rather than to assume. We have deliberately not printed a single threshold figure here, because a number that depends on five variables misleads the moment it is quoted flat.

143 against 103, 173, 864 and 870

Five parent routes exist and families confuse them regularly. Here is how they line up.

As of 11 November 2026, the non contributory Parent visa (subclass 103) starts from AUD8,665 over two instalments for a single applicant. Roughly a sixth of the contributory price, and the estimate attached to it is 42 years, which for most applicants over sixty is not a route at all.

As of 11 November 2026, the temporary Contributory Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 173) starts from AUD33,375 over two instalments for a single applicant and lets a parent stay 2 years.

The 173 matters for one specific reason. A parent who holds it and then applies for the 143 before the temporary visa ceases does not have to meet the balance of family test a second time. The two step path costs more in total and gets a parent into the country sooner.

The 870 deserves its own look, because families often reach for it once the 143 timeline lands. We have written it up separately in the guide to the subclass 870 sponsored parent visa for Pakistani parents, including the sponsor income test it uses.

If the parent in question is coming to look after a student under 18 rather than to settle, the student guardian visa (subclass 590) is the right page instead. For short family trips with no migration intent, the sponsored family stream of the visitor visa covers the sponsor rules and the bond.

Documents to assemble

Nothing here is exotic. What catches families is the breadth: the Department wants every child documented, not only the sponsoring one.

• Passport biodata pages for every applicant, valid and readable
• Birth certificates or NADRA records for every child and stepchild, including those not migrating
• Marriage, divorce or death certificates as they apply, plus any change of name documents
• Evidence of each child's status in their country of residence, which is what the balance of family test turns on
• Form 40 completed by the sponsor
• Police certificates from every country lived in for the relevant period
• Health examination results for every applicant once requested
• Assurance of Support documents from Services Australia, with the assurer's customer reference number given to Home Affairs within 28 days of the assurance being lodged

Translations have to be done properly, by a translator whose credentials the Department will accept, not by a relative with good English.

The health examination uses the same machinery as other Australian routes, and our page on the immigration medical from Pakistan explains how the panel clinic process runs.

A worked example with dates

Take a Lahore couple in their late fifties. Four children. One son holds Australian permanent residence, granted in March 2023, living in Perth. One daughter is in Dubai on a work visa. Two children are in Pakistan.

The count first. Australia holds one eligible child. Pakistan holds two. That fails both limbs: one of four is not half, and Pakistan holds more children than Australia does. The family does not pass today, and no amount of money changes that.

Now change one fact. The daughter in Dubai moves to Australia and is granted permanent residence in January 2027. Australia now holds two and Pakistan holds two. The second limb still does not help, because Pakistan equals rather than falls below Australia. The first limb now does: two of four is half. The family passes.

• February 2027. The Perth son, settled since March 2023 and well past the two year mark, completes Form 40.
• March 2027. The couple lodge the subclass 143 with the first instalment and the full document set, every child declared.
• Through 2027 and beyond. The Department assesses the core criteria. On the queue assessment timeline published during 2026, a file lodged now waits a considerable period before even reaching this stage.
• Queue date assigned. The application joins the queue and the long wait begins. The published estimate for a new application at this point is 18 years.
• Years later. Services Australia assesses the Assurance of Support, the bond is lodged, the second instalment is invoiced at whatever the charge then is, health and character checks are redone because the earlier ones have expired, and the visa is decided.

Written out like that, the planning question answers itself. A couple in their late fifties lodging in 2027 against an 18 year estimate are planning for their late seventies. That is precisely why families who can afford it look at the 173 first, and why families who cannot look at the 870 instead.

What goes wrong most often

Counting a child on a temporary visa

The most common and the most expensive. Years on a student or graduate visa do not make a child usually resident for this test. Check the status, not the time spent.

Lodging before the sponsor is settled

Two years is the usual mark. A sponsor who has held permanent residence for ten months is not there yet.

Budgeting the second instalment at today's price

The invoice arrives years later at the charge applying then. Treat today's figure as the floor of a range, not the number.

Assuming the assurer will pass the income test

The threshold depends on dependants, assurees, joint assurers and existing cases. Run the Services Australia checker early, because discovering a shortfall at the end of a decade in a queue is a bad way to learn it.

Treating the 870 as a cheaper 143

It is not a step toward permanent residence. It is a long visit. Families who confuse the two spend money expecting an outcome the visa does not produce.

Letting documents and checks lapse quietly

Over a wait this long, passports expire, addresses change and family circumstances move. The Department expects to be told. Silence over a decade is its own risk.

Frequently asked questions