Domestic and family violence visa support
About us
Our Domestic and Family Violence Support Section is a specialised team within the Department of Home Affairs. We support temporary visa holders experiencing domestic and family violence in Australia.
We can:
- provide visa information
- support on immigration matters
- work with you and service providers to resolve visa issues.
How to contact us
To contact us, use the Temporary visa holder domestic and family violence contact form. We will respond to you within 7 working days.
When you contact us, you can give us as much information as you feel comfortable sharing.
We will use the details you give us to safely contact you.
Consent to share your information with a third party
Privacy is important to us. We will always make sure we have your approval before releasing any information about you to someone else.
If a service provider or third party contacts us on your behalf, we must have your consent to share your information with them. You will need to:
This information allows us to communicate with the person you say is providing you support. This form does not mean this person is your authorised recipient.
Migration agents, legal practitioners or authorised recipients should use these forms to assist you:
Family violence provisions - Partner visa applicants
Partner visa applicants or holders may be eligible for us to grant their permanent visa if:
- their relationship with their former sponsor has ended, and
- there has been domestic and family violence.
There is detailed information on the family violence provisions.
We encourage you to seek independent immigration assistance.
If you need help to apply for the family violence provisions, you can contact a legal or migration service.
If you are not eligible for the family violence provisions, and need help understanding your visa options, you can contact a legal or migration service.
For information about these services see Where to get help.
ImmiAccount
Use the ‘Notification of relationship cessation’ form to notify us where your relationship with your former sponsor has ended and you have experienced family violence. You can also use this form to tell us if you want to claim the child of relationship or death of sponsor provisions. You can find this form in ImmiAccount.
When you use this form and select the family violence option, the Partner visa application and sponsorship application will be automatically removed from all ImmiAccounts. This is to protect your safety and privacy. We will contact you to restore access.
Migration agents and legal practitioners can also use this form to assist Partner visa applicants who are notifying us of relationship cessation. They can choose to opt-out of the removal of the partner visa application from ImmiAccount. The sponsorship application will be automatically removed.
We encourage applicants and service providers to use ImmiAccount to submit all documents and information for the Partner visa application.
If you do not have access to the application in ImmiAccount you can let us know by completing the Partner processing enquiry form.
Family violence provisions - Secondary applicants
Secondary applicants on a permanent visa application may be eligible for the grant of a permanent visa if:
- their relationship with the primary applicant has ended, and
- there has been domestic and family violence.
There is detailed information on the family violence provisions.
We encourage you to seek independent immigration assistance.
If you need help to apply for the family violence provisions, you can contact a legal or migration service.
If you are not eligible for the family violence provisions, and need help understanding your visa options, you can contact a legal or migration service.
For information about these services see Where to get help.
To tell us that your relationship with the primary applicant has ended due to family violence you can complete the ‘Notification of family violence – Secondary applicants’ form in ImmiAccount.
If you cannot use ImmiAccount, use the Notification of family violence – Secondary applicants form.
For detailed information on how to notify us, see Family violence provisions – Secondary applicants.
