Holding or Applying for a Subclass 870 Visa: Does It Block Your Parent Visa 103 in 2026?

No. If you have applied for or hold a Sponsored Parent (Temporary) subclass 870 visa, you cannot apply for a Parent visa (subclass 103).

Published: 10 July 2026 Reading time 12 min

Short answer: no. According to the Australian Department of Home Affairs' official Parent visa (subclass 103) page, current as at the July 2026 version, you cannot apply for this visa if you have already applied for or hold a Sponsored Parent (Temporary) (subclass 870) visa. The condition is repeated in more than one place on the page, and neither version leaves room for a case-by-case exception. What follows is general information about those published rules rather than advice on any individual situation, so the way it lands on a particular family still needs to be checked against the requirements published at the time you apply.

Does the 870 bar really stop a subclass 103 application outright?

It does, and the wording is unusually blunt. The eligibility section lists "Not have this visa" as a standalone criterion, followed by the single sentence: you cannot apply for this visa if you have already applied for or hold a Sponsored Parent (Temporary) (subclass 870) visa. The same sentence reappears in the "Apply for the visa" step, and a third version in the overview asks applicants to not have already applied for or hold a subclass 870 visa when applying for this visa.

Because it is drafted as an eligibility criterion rather than a discretionary consideration, there is nothing on the page that lets a decision-maker weigh the sponsorship, the length of stay, or the family's circumstances against it. If either half of the test is true at the moment you lodge, the object of a subclass 103 application is not met.

Why does merely having "applied" count, even if the 870 was never granted?

The trigger is participation, not the grant. The page pairs two verbs — "applied for or hold" — so lodging a subclass 870 application is enough on its own to engage the bar. You do not need to have been granted the visa, travelled to Australia on it, or used it for its full validity.

The test also runs at a defined point in time. The overview frames the condition as applying "when applying for this visa", so the relevant moment is the lodgement of the subclass 103 application. Read alongside the 2026 lodgement change on the same page — applications made on or after 22 April 2026 must be lodged online through ImmiAccount — the check happens at the point the online form is submitted, not at some later stage of assessment.

Why do these two visas pull in opposite directions?

Look at what subclass 103 actually delivers. Success opens the door to staying in Australia indefinitely, working and studying, enrolling in Medicare, sponsoring family members, travelling to and from Australia for five years, attending Adult Migrant English Program classes if eligible, and applying for Australian citizenship if eligible. Those are settlement outcomes, not visit outcomes.

The safeguards around the visa point the same way. Applicants must be able to obtain an Assurance of Support — a guarantee that they will not rely on government assistance after entering Australia on the visa, covering the assurance period and any family members who come with them — and the second instalment must be paid before the visa can be granted at all. Presence rules reinforce the split: you must be outside Australia while the application is processed unless you hold another valid visa, and you are not entitled to a bridging visa tied to a subclass 103 application unless you apply under the Retirement visa pathway.

A temporary sponsored parent arrangement sits on the other side of that line. Its own official name carries the word "Temporary", whereas subclass 103 is a permanent parent visa that leads into Medicare and eventual citizenship eligibility. The Department does not publish a rationale for the bar, but read structurally, pairing those two categories in one person would let a short-term visiting arrangement function as a holding pattern for permanent reunion — and undercut the cost and queue settings that separate them.

What if my 870 was refused, expired, or withdrawn?

The page does not address any of those three situations, and it is worth being precise about the difference between them. An expiry case is covered by the plain wording: "hold" and "have already applied for" both remain true after the visa itself ceases. A refused or withdrawn application is different — the page states the bar in terms of having applied, without carving out applications that did not end in a grant, but it never says in terms what happens if one is withdrawn.

There is also a published withdrawal mechanism nearby, which makes the silence more noticeable. For one specific situation the page is explicit: if you have applied for a different Parent visa and no decision has been made on it, you must withdraw that application when you apply for subclass 103, and you can do so as part of the new application. That withdrawal-and-continue route is a different mechanism from a bar. Anything beyond what the page publishes should be confirmed against the requirements in force when you lodge.

Does the retiree pathway offer a way around it?

Nothing on the page suggests so. The Retirement visa pathway removes several standard requirements, but the subclass 870 condition is presented as a general criterion that applies before any pathway question arises.

Requirement	Standard subclass 103	Retiree pathway
Sponsor approved via Form 40	Required	Not required
Balance of family test	Required	Not required
Assurance of Support	Required	Not required
Must be in Australia at lodgement	No	Yes
Adequate health insurance maintained until grant	Not stated	Required

The pathway itself is narrow. You can apply as a retiree if, on 8 May 2018, you held or had previously held an Investor Retirement (subclass 405) or Retirement (subclass 410) visa, you have not held any other substantive visa between 8 May 2018 and the date you applied, and you are in Australia. Retiree applicants cannot include children or a partner's children in the application, and they do not get the standard requirement exemptions extended to the second instalment or the health and character criteria.

What else does subclass 103 require once the 870 is off the table?

Removing the sponsorship question changes nothing about the rest of the criteria, which all still have to be met:

an eligible sponsor, usually an eligible child, whose sponsorship must be approved
the balance of family test — at least half of your children and step-children are eligible children, or there are more eligible children living in Australia than in any other single country
an Assurance of Support, unless you apply as a retiree
the health requirement and the character requirement, for you and for family members applying with you
repayment of any debt to the Australian Government, or an approved arrangement to repay it
no immigration history that counts against you — cancelled visas and refused applications are taken into account
the Australian Values Statement, if you are 18 or over, after reading Life in Australia
any applicant under 18 only being granted where it is in the best interests of the child

If an 870 path is unavailable and you are weighing other parent options, the page notes that Contributory Parent visa (subclass 143) and the two-step Contributory Parent (Temporary) (subclass 173) route may be processed faster than subclass 103 but cost more, and that switching preserves your original subclass 103 application date without disadvantaging you. Whether the subclass 870 bar affects those subclasses is not stated here, so check each visa's own published criteria.

One more point worth knowing before you commit: the application fee is not refunded if the application is refused, and the second instalment must be paid when invoiced or the application will be refused. Subclass 103 is also a queued visa family, and progress updates are not provided within normal processing times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I lodge a subclass 103 application while my subclass 870 is still being decided?

No. Wording on the official page covers applicants who "have already applied for" the subclass 870 visa, so a pending 870 application engages the bar just as a granted one does. Waiting for the 870 decision does not create a window in which a 103 application becomes valid.

The 870 bar is a hard limit, but does it expire once the visa ceases?

By its terms, no — the condition is written as having applied for or held the visa, so ceasing to hold it does not undo the fact that you held it. The page publishes no time limit, no cooling-off period and no expiry date on the bar.

My subclass 870 application was refused — does that change anything?

The page does not say. It frames the bar around the act of applying and sets out no exception for applications that did not result in a grant. Because the published wording reads as absolute, this is a point to confirm against the current official requirements rather than assume.

Can I withdraw my subclass 870 application and then apply for subclass 103?

The page sets out a withdrawal route for a pending different Parent visa application, not for a subclass 870. No withdrawal mechanism is published for the 870 bar, so whether withdrawing changes your position is not answered by this page and needs to be checked against the latest published criteria.

Does the bar apply to retiree-pathway applicants too?

As published, the retiree pathway exempts applicants from the sponsor, balance of family test and Assurance of Support requirements only. The subclass 870 condition is stated separately as a general criterion, and no retiree-specific exemption from it appears on the page.

Where do I need to be when the subclass 103 decision is made?

You must be outside Australia when the decision is made, unless you applied as a retiree, in which case you may be in or outside Australia. During processing you must be outside Australia unless you hold another valid visa, and subclass 103 itself carries no bridging visa entitlement outside the Retirement visa pathway.