What Counts as an Orphan Relative for Subclass 117 in 2026?
Subclass 117 requires a child to have no parent able to care for them — here are the three situations the Department recognises, and what each demands in evidence.
For the Orphan Relative visa (subclass 117), "no parent who can care for them" is not a general welfare assessment — it is a closed legal test. According to the Department of Home Affairs Orphan Relative visa (subclass 117) page, the visa cannot be granted unless the child has no parent able to care for them, and that arises where each parent is deceased, is permanently incapable of caring for the child, or cannot be found. The same page states the reverse rule plainly: if the parents are capable of caring for the child but do not want to, the visa will not be granted.
What exactly does "no parent who can care for them" mean?
It means each of the child's parents has to fall inside one of three statutory situations. There is no fourth category based on hardship, family breakdown, or the practical difficulty of care in the child's country.
- The parent is deceased.
- The parent is permanently incapable of caring for the child.
- The parent cannot be found.
Two features of this list decide most cases. The first is that the word carrying the weight is permanently: temporary illness, overseas work, detention, or poverty does not, on the face of the official criteria, place a parent in limb two. The second is that capability is the whole enquiry. A parent who is fully capable of caring but has chosen not to — through abandonment, remarriage, or refusal to consent — leaves the child outside the visa, however compelling the child's circumstances. This article is general information only and is not advice on any individual case; where a family's situation sits near the boundary, the assessment turns on the person's own facts and should be tested against current official material.
Is there any flexibility in how the three situations are read?
Very little in the official eligibility text, which is deliberately narrow. The wider regulatory setting comes from the Migration Regulations 1994, where regulation 1.14 defines "orphan relative" and adds requirements alongside the parental test: the applicant is under 18, has no spouse or de facto partner, and has not been adopted by someone other than the Australian relative who is sponsoring them. Regulation 1.14 also expresses the parental limb in the same three terms — parents dead, permanently incapable of caring, or cannot be found.
The Regulations and Department policy guidance (PAM3) sit alongside the eligibility criteria above, so check the version currently in force on the Federal Register of Legislation and current Home Affairs guidance.
Assume an applicant whose mother is deceased and whose father left the family years ago and now lives in another country, in good health, and objects to the child migrating. On the official test, that child does not qualify, even if the father has had no contact since infancy, because he is neither permanently incapable nor missing. Contrast that with a father who is alive, traceable, and in permanent institutional care documented by a specialist medical report: that child may fall within limb two.
How do you prove a parent is deceased?
The Department's evidence list for this limb is short: a death certificate or other official document. The operative requirement is official sourcing — a record issued or held by a competent authority, rather than a family statement alone.
Where a death certificate cannot be obtained, Department policy guidance (PAM3) expects applicants to show genuine efforts to obtain the required records, and decision makers may take other credible and relevant evidence into account. That is a tolerance for unavailable records, not a substitute for trying.
What evidence establishes permanent incapacity to care?
The Department asks for evidence such as a medical report showing why the parents are unable to care for the child. Three things follow from that wording. The report has to explain why care is impossible, not merely that a diagnosis exists. It has to speak to permanence, because capability assessed as recoverable does not meet the limb. And it has to address both parents, since the test is not satisfied by one parent's incapacity alone.
In practice this is where applications are won or lost: a short letter confirming a condition without addressing functional capacity gives a decision maker nothing on which to find permanent incapacity.
What does "cannot be found" require you to show?
If the child's parents cannot be found, the Department requires evidence of how long they have been missing and what efforts have been made to contact or find them.
Applicants need to demonstrate, with records, that the parent concerned is genuinely unlocatable, showing both how long they have been missing and what efforts were made to find them.
Applicants cannot rely on a bare assertion of lost contact; evidence of the enquiries made to find the parent should accompany the submission.
Official sources do not specify a fixed period, so assumptions should not be made about how long is sufficient.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core condition the child must meet?
The central requirement is that each parent is deceased, permanently incapable of caring for the child, or cannot be found.
Does parental unwillingness qualify if the parent is capable?
No. Capable-but-unwilling parents do not satisfy the condition.
What additional elements apply at the regulatory level?
The applicable regulations add requirements of age, marital status and adoption status.
How should a 'missing' parent situation be approached?
Evidence about search steps should be assembled and the condition treated as an evidentiary question.
Is there a fixed timeframe for the 'missing' limb?
A fixed period is not specified, so sufficiency is assessed on the evidence provided.