The Prospective Marriage Visa (Subclass 300) for Filipino Couples

You are engaged to an Australian, and the obvious question follows: how do you get to Australia to actually get married? For many Filipino-Australian couples, the answer is the Prospective Marriage visa (subclass 300) — often called the "fiance(e) visa." It is a provisional visa that lets you enter Australia, marry your partner, and then transition onto a permanent partner pathway from inside the country.

The PMV 300 is appealing because it gets you together sooner, but it comes with a sequence that trips couples up if they don't understand it: you must marry and lodge a second application before the visa expires. Get the timing right and you save thousands of pesos in fees. Get it wrong and you can find yourself starting over. Here is how the marry-then-transition route really works for Filipino couples.

How the Prospective Marriage visa (subclass 300) works

The PMV 300 exists for one specific situation: you and your Australian partner intend to marry, but you are not yet married and you want to wed in Australia. It is a provisional (temporary) visa. It does not, by itself, let you stay in Australia long-term — it is the front door to the permanent partner pathway, not the pathway itself.

To be granted a PMV 300, both of you must generally be at least 18, you must have met in person, and your Australian fiance(e) sponsors the application. You will need to satisfy the case officer that your relationship is genuine and that you genuinely intend to marry. Like all family-stream visas, the base visa application charge is significant: AUD 9,365 for the main applicant, the same headline fee as the partner visa.

Once granted, the visa lets you travel to Australia and marry your sponsor. The PMV 300 is officially a temporary visa valid for around 9 months — that is the window inside which the marriage must take place. Treat that as a planning timeframe, not a deadline to leave to the last minute: wedding logistics, celebrant bookings and document delays all eat into it.

Marry in Australia, then lodge the onshore 820

This is the part couples most often misunderstand. The PMV 300 does not turn into a permanent visa on its own. After you arrive and marry, you must lodge a separate onshore Partner application (subclass 820/801) from inside Australia. The 820 is the temporary partner visa; the 801 is the permanent stage that follows it.

The crucial trigger is the marriage. You cannot lodge the 820 until you are actually married to your sponsor. Once you are married — and ideally well before your PMV expires — you submit the onshore partner application. Your time together as an engaged then married couple becomes part of the evidence that your relationship is genuine and continuing.

So the realistic sequence for a Filipino applicant looks like this:

• Step 1. Apply offshore for the PMV 300 while in the Philippines, with your Australian fiance(e) as sponsor.
• Step 2. Once granted, travel to Australia within the visa's validity.
• Step 3. Marry your sponsor in Australia, before the PMV expires.
• Step 4. Lodge the onshore Partner (820/801) application — before the PMV expiry — to keep your reduced fee and stay lawfully.

The reduced second-stage fee if you lodge on time

Here is the single most important number to protect: if you lodge your onshore 820 application before your PMV 300 expires, you pay a reduced second-stage charge of around AUD 1,560 — not the full AUD 9,365 again.

This is a deliberate concession. The government does not expect a PMV holder to pay the full partner-visa fee twice. The roughly AUD 9,365 you paid for the PMV is, in effect, the heavy part of the bill; the onshore partner stage that follows is charged at a fraction of that, provided you stay within the rules. For a Filipino couple budgeting in pesos, the difference between AUD 1,560 and AUD 9,365 is enormous — it is the strongest financial reason to keep your timeline tight and lodge the 820 on time.

Miss the window — fail to marry in time, or let the PMV lapse before lodging — and you lose that concession. You could be looking at a fresh partner application at the full charge, or worse, a gap in your lawful status in Australia. This is exactly the kind of timing risk where a registered migration agent's oversight earns its keep.

The PSA documents you'll need

Australian visa processing runs on documents, and for Filipinos the document trail starts with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). For a PMV 300 you will typically need PSA-issued civil documents authenticated for overseas use. The two that matter most are:

• PSA birth certificate — to prove your identity and age.
• CENOMAR (Certificate of No Marriage Record) — to prove you are free to marry, which is central to a prospective marriage visa.

These civil documents must be PSA-issued and, for use with Australian authorities, authenticated through the DFA Apostille. There is an important recent change here: from 16 March 2026, the DFA issues only electronic Apostilles (e-Apostille) for PSA eCertificates destined for Apostille-Convention countries — and Australia is a member. In practice, confirm whether the office requesting your document accepts the e-Apostille or still wants a paper version, so you authenticate the right format the first time.

You will also need character documentation. Filipino applicants generally provide an NBI Clearance covering the Philippines, plus a police certificate from any country where you have lived for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Police certificates are generally valid for about 12 months, so don't gather them too early.

Validity and timing expectations

Timing is where the PMV pathway rewards the organised and punishes the casual. The visa itself is officially valid for around 9 months from grant, and within that period the marriage must happen. As for how long the PMV takes to be granted in the first place, processing-time estimates vary and are not guaranteed — published and agent estimates have ranged widely, so plan around the official Home Affairs processing-times tool rather than a fixed promise.

The practical takeaway: build slack into every stage. Engage early on documents, book your wedding with a realistic buffer, and aim to lodge the onshore 820 well before the PMV's expiry rather than in the final week. Because so much hinges on hitting that lodgement window, the PMV 300 is a visa where careful sequencing matters more than for almost any other family pathway.

If you are weighing the PMV 300 against simply applying for a partner visa, it helps to compare the full cost and structure of the partner route too — our guide to the partner visa cost from the Philippines sets out the 309/100 versus 820/801 choice and the all-in budget.