Balance of Family Test Explained: How Home Affairs Counts Your Parents’ Children

Most families first hear about the balance of family test from a cousin or a Facebook group. One person says half the children must live here, and another says most of them.

Both are partly right. The Department of Home Affairs uses two rules. Your parents only need to meet one of them to pass the balance of family test in Australia.

The test is a headcount of all your parents’ children. Each child is sorted by the country they usually live in and the visa or citizenship they hold.

Families rarely go wrong on the rule itself. They go wrong on the list. A sister on a student visa (subclass 500) still counts, and so can a stepbrother or a sibling nobody has called in years.

Below, the balance of family test is explained the way Home Affairs applies it, with worked examples to check your family against. If your count is close, our registered agents can check it with you.

What is the balance of family test?

The balance of family test is the rule that decides whether your parents have enough of their children settled in Australia to apply for a parent visa. It applies to six of the seven parent visas, and it can’t be waived.

The rule sits in regulation 1.05 of the Migration Regulations 1994. The Department of Home Affairs balance of family test page explains how it’s applied. Your parents pass if either of these is true.

The two ways to pass:

• The half rule: at least half of their children and stepchildren are eligible children.
• The most-in-one-country rule: they have more eligible children than children living in any other single country.

The word “balance” can mislead people. It has nothing to do with how close you are, who supports your parents or who visits. It’s a count, weighted by where each child lives.

Home Affairs says it will not waive the test, even in compelling or exceptional circumstances. That sounds strict, but it also means nobody has to guess. So the real question is who goes into the count.

How does the Department of Home Affairs count your parents’ children?

Home Affairs counts every child of your parents, in Australia or overseas, and then sorts each one as an eligible or an ineligible child. You, the sponsor, are counted too.

That includes adopted children, children from earlier relationships and children the family has lost touch with. If nobody knows where a child lives, Home Affairs treats them as living in their last known country of residence.

A child is an eligible child if they are:

• An Australian citizen.
• An Australian permanent resident who usually lives in Australia.
• An eligible New Zealand citizen who usually lives in Australia.

Every other child is an ineligible child, and Home Affairs treats an ineligible child as living overseas. It also says that a child in Australia on a temporary visa is not usually resident here.

So a brother in Sydney on a Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) counts on the overseas side. He stays in the total. Leaving him off the list gives your family the wrong answer.

“Eligible New Zealand citizen” has a narrow meaning. It’s tied to being in Australia on or around 26 February 2001 as a special category visa holder, and a New Zealand passport alone doesn’t meet it.

A child is left out of the count completely only if they:

• Have died.
• Were removed from your parents’ exclusive legal custody by adoption, court order or operation of law.
• Are registered as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and live in a camp the UNHCR operates.
• Live in a country where they suffer persecution or human rights abuse and can’t be reunited with your parents in another country.

Stepchildren follow their own rule. A child of your parent’s current partner counts at any age. A former partner’s child counts only if they’re under 18 and your parent holds guardianship, custody or a parenting order under the Family Law Act 1975.

Stepchildren from polygamous or concurrent relationships are not counted. With the list settled, the sums themselves are quick.

Do your parents pass? Seven worked examples

Count every child once, mark each as eligible or ineligible, then test both rules. These rows follow the method in the Home Affairs worked table, so you can use them as a simple balance of family test calculator.

The word that matters in the second rule is “more”. A tie with another country doesn’t meet it. A tie can still pass on the half rule, as the four-child row shows.

The second rule also helps more families than people expect. Australia is compared with each country on its own, not with everyone overseas added together. That leads to the next question: which visas use this count at all.

Which parent visas need the balance of family test in Australia?

Six parent visas need the test, and only the Sponsored Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 870) does not. The three aged parent visas also require your parent to be old enough for the Australian Age Pension.

You need to pass the test for the:

• Parent visa (subclass 103).
• Contributory Parent visa (subclass 143).
• Contributory Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 173).
• Aged Parent visa (subclass 804).
• Contributory Aged Parent visa (subclass 864).
• Contributory Aged Parent (Temporary) visa (subclass 884).

The subclass 870 visa uses a sponsor income test instead. It allows stays of three or five years at a time, up to 10 years in total, but it doesn’t lead to permanent residence.

There’s one trade-off to weigh first. Home Affairs says a parent can’t apply for another parent visa while they hold, or have applied for, a subclass 870 visa. Our parent visa guide compares all seven options side by side.

When does Home Affairs check the balance of family test?

Home Affairs checks the test at its first assessment of your parents’ application, which usually comes years after lodgement. If the test isn’t met at that point, the application is refused.

The first instalment of the visa application charge is generally not refunded after a refusal. That’s why the count is worth settling before anything is lodged, not after.

As at 31 August 2026, the Home Affairs parent visa queue page showed initial assessment had reached applications lodged in these months.

Initial assessment reached, as at 31 August 2026:

• Contributory Parent visas (subclasses 143 and 173): April 2024.
• Contributory Aged Parent visas (subclasses 864 and 884): April 2023.
• Parent visa (subclass 103): February 2023.
• Aged Parent visa (subclass 804): January 2023.

So a family that miscounts may not find out for two to four years. Our contributory parent visa processing time guide covers the full timeline after that first check.

If something changes while you wait, such as a sibling being granted permanent residence, tell Home Affairs on Form 1022. Changes can work in your favour as well as against you.

What proof does Home Affairs ask for?

You need to prove two things about each child: that they exist, and where they usually live and with what status. Your parents list the family on Form 47PA, and the evidence has to back up every line.

Documents families usually provide:

• Birth certificates for every child, including children overseas and any who have died.
• Citizenship certificates, passports or visa grant notices for each eligible child.
• Proof that permanent resident children usually live here, such as leases, payslips or tax records.
• Marriage, divorce or custody papers where stepchildren are involved.
• Death certificates, adoption orders or UNHCR papers for any child left out of the count.

Declare every child, including any the family no longer speaks to. Case officers compare family details across every form in the file and the sponsor’s records, so a missing child can look deliberate even when it’s an honest slip.

Where do families miscount the balance of family test?

Most miscounts come from three habits, and each one is easy to fix before lodging. At our Harris Park office, the first list a family brings in is often one or two children short.

The three most common errors:

• Leaving out a sibling on a temporary visa. They belong in the total as an ineligible child, counted overseas.
• Adding up everyone overseas and comparing that with Australia. The second rule compares one country at a time.
• Counting a permanent resident sibling who has lived abroad for years. The wording is “usually lives in Australia”, and they may not meet it.

Timing matters too. A sibling close to a permanent visa grant can change the result, so the order in which family members apply is worth planning.

If your count sits on the line, or stepchildren and custody orders make it unclear, send us each child’s name, country and visa. Our MARA-registered agents (MARN 2619480) will run both rules with you. Book a parent visa consultation.

How The Migration helps with the balance of the family test

We confirm the count before anything else in a parent visa matter, ahead of costs, timelines or forms. There’s no point planning around a visa that can’t be granted.

What that looks like in practice:

• We list every child of both parents, including stepchildren and children from earlier relationships.
• We confirm each child’s status and usual country of residence from documents, not memory.
• We test both rules, because many families pass the second rule after assuming they failed the first.
• We advise on timing when a sibling’s permanent visa is pending, and on the subclass 870 visa when the test can’t be met.
• We prepare the family evidence so that Form 47PA and every supporting document match.

The Migration has worked with parent visa families for more than seven years from Harris Park, Sydney. Advice comes from agents registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA), under Migration Agent Registration Number (MARN) 2619480.

You can check that listing on the MARA public register. No registered agent can guarantee a visa outcome, and no agent can waive this test.

Final thoughts

The balance of family test in Australia comes down to one careful list. Count every child once, place each one where they usually live, and remember that a temporary visa keeps a child in the count.

If the numbers work, your parents have cleared the first real requirement for a parent visa. If they don’t, you’ve found out early, and the subclass 870 visa may still suit your family.

Either way, it’s worth being sure before you lodge. Book a consultation with our MARA-registered team (MARN 2619480), and you’ll leave knowing whether your parents pass, which visa suits them and what evidence to gather. You can also contact our Harris Park office with a question first.

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