Partner Visa Home Loans: Buying on an 820 or 309 Visa

Yes, you can buy a home on a partner visa. Partner visa holders are the best-placed temporary residents in the Australian property system.

The reason is the spouse exception. Buying jointly with your sponsoring Australian citizen or permanent resident partner, as joint tenants, means no FIRB approval and no FIRB fee. Established homes also stay on the table.

Lenders also treat partner visa couples well, because the application is usually a joint one with a citizen or permanent resident on it.

This guide covers what you can buy on an 820 or 309 visa and what lenders will offer. It also covers the costs to check before you sign and what changes at the 801 or 100 grant. All figures are as at July 2026.

What you can buy on a partner visa

Buying jointly with your sponsoring partner

Almost nobody on a partner visa buys alone, and that is the point of this page. Purchasing jointly with your sponsoring spouse or de facto partner, as joint tenants, falls within the spouse exception in the foreign investment rules.

Under the spouse exception, as at July 2026:

• No FIRB application and no FIRB fee, which sits around $15,600 for a purchase up to $1 million.
• Any property type, including established homes. The 2025 to 2029 ban on temporary residents buying established dwellings does not block a joint spousal purchase.
• Joint tenants is the required structure, not tenants in common. The exception has precise conditions, so your solicitor should confirm the wording against your contract.

Your partner must be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen. The mechanics of the title, the loan and the duty are covered step by step in our guide to mixed-visa couples buying property, which is the right next read for nearly everyone on this page.

Buying alone on an 820 or 309 visa

Buying alone, the standard temporary-resident rules apply. From 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2029 you cannot purchase an established dwelling in your own name.

That leaves new dwellings, off-the-plan property and vacant land you commit to building on, each requiring FIRB approval before you sign. Our FIRB approval guide for home buyers covers the process, the 30-day decision window and the fees.

Provisional and permanent: how the two stages work

A partner visa is one application with two stages. The 820 (onshore) or 309 (offshore) is the provisional stage, and the 801 or 100 is the permanent stage of the same application.

On the provisional stage you are a temporary resident for property purposes. At the 801 or 100 grant you become a permanent resident, and every foreign-buyer rule on this page stops applying to you.

That two-stage structure is why timing questions dominate partner visa purchases. The permanent stage is typically assessed around two years from the original application, as at July 2026, which is close enough to plan around.

Who this page suits

This page is written for couples where one partner holds a provisional partner visa. The other partner is an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen.

If you are still waiting on the partner visa and holding a bridging visa in the meantime, start with our bridging visa home loan guide instead. If your partner is a New Zealand citizen on a subclass 444 visa, read our subclass 444 guide alongside this one.

What lenders will offer

How lenders assess a partner visa couple

Lending on a partner visa is generally the easiest conversation among temporary visas. The application is usually a joint one, so many lenders assess the couple together: two incomes, shared deposit, one household.

Some lenders apply near-standard policy when the co-borrower is a citizen or permanent resident. A couple where only the citizen partner earns can still qualify on one income, and a couple with two incomes generally borrows more.

How much can we borrow?

Expect lending up to around 80% to 90% of the property value for joint applications with a citizen or permanent resident partner. The exact figure depends on the lender and the strength of the file. Some lenders will consider higher ratios for strong joint applications with the sponsoring partner.

Borrowing above 80% of the property value usually means paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance. Our LMI calculator shows what that costs at your price point, and our LMI waivers guide covers who can skip it. Our deposit calculator shows how far your savings stretch.

One structural point that surprises couples: with some lenders, one partner can be on the loan without being on the title. The bank assesses who repays the loan, and the duty office assesses who owns the house. Those do not have to be the same names. This is central to the duty planning covered below.

What evidence will we need?

For the partner-visa applicant, lenders want the usual file:

• Income evidence, meaning recent payslips and an employment contract, with overseas income heavily discounted or ignored by many lenders.
• Visa evidence, usually your visa grant notice showing the 820 or 309 and its conditions.
• Savings history showing a genuine pattern of saving, not just a lump sum that appeared last month.
• Clean credit in Australia, and in your home country where the lender checks it.

What if my situation is not covered?

Self-employed applicants, couples with overseas income, and couples where the sponsoring partner has credit issues all sit outside standard policy. Each is a lender-matching exercise rather than a dead end.

The wider market picture for every subclass is in our guide to home loans by visa type, and you can get a quick read on your position with the visa buying eligibility checker. For anything unusual, a free assessment is the fastest way to an answer.

The costs

Buying jointly under the spouse exception removes the FIRB application fee entirely. The cost that remains in play is state foreign buyer duty.

In Queensland, Additional Foreign Acquirer Duty (AFAD) of 8% can still apply to the temporary-resident partner’s share of the purchase. The FIRB exception and the duty rules are separate regimes, so clearing one does not clear the other.

Because AFAD is charged per owner rather than per couple, the ownership split drives the bill. Illustrative figures at 8%, as at July 2026:

Illustrative only, as at July 2026. AFAD treatment depends on your ownership split and circumstances, and duty rules change without notice. Have your conveyancer confirm the position before you sign.

Standard transfer duty applies on top for every buyer. Run your numbers through the Queensland stamp duty calculator and the foreign buyer duty calculator to see both title options side by side.

Read More: How mixed-visa couples structure the title and the loan

Case study: buying before the 801 grant

Priya holds a subclass 820 visa. Her husband Tom is an Australian citizen, and they found an established home in Brisbane for $650,000.

Buying jointly as joint tenants under the spouse exception, they needed no FIRB approval. That saved the application fee of around $15,600 that Priya would have paid buying a new property alone.

The open question was AFAD. With Priya on title for a 50% share, the 8% duty pointed to roughly $26,000 on her half. With Tom as sole owner and Priya as a co-borrower on the loan, no foreign person acquired a share. There was nothing for the surcharge to attach to.

They took both options to their solicitor and weighed the $26,000 against Priya holding a registered interest in the home. Then they made the call with the numbers in front of them. Their broker’s job was finding a lender whose policy accepted the structure they chose.

Illustrative example with rounded figures, as at July 2026. Names are invented. Title and duty structuring has legal and tax consequences, so decisions like this belong with your solicitor as well as your broker.

The Hunter Galloway process for partner visa couples

The order of operations matters more than any single step:

1. Free assessment. We confirm both incomes, your deposit and your visa stage, and map what you can borrow together.
2. Confirm the purchase rules. We check whether the spouse exception covers your intended purchase, and refer the contract wording to your solicitor.
3. Model the title both ways. Both names versus the eligible partner’s name only, with the duty and lending consequences of each side by side.
4. Match the lender. We compare how lenders across our panel treat the partner-visa income and the structure you chose. Then we prepare the file the way that lender’s credit team expects.
5. Pre-approval, then purchase. You shop with a budget the lender has already accepted, then we manage the approval through to settlement.

If this is also your first purchase in Australia, our first home buyer guide covers the wider process from deposit to settlement.

The PR horizon: what changes at the 801 or 100

The provisional partner visa converts to permanent residence at the grant of the subclass 801 (onshore) or 100 (offshore) visa. That grant is typically assessed around two years from the original application, as at July 2026.

At that grant, three things change at once:

• Foreign buyer duty stops applying to you, so both names can go on title without an AFAD bill on your share.
• FIRB stops being a consideration for any purchase structure.
• Government schemes open up. The Home Guarantee Scheme requires every borrower to be a citizen, permanent resident or subclass 444 holder. The couple becomes eligible to apply once your permanent stage is granted.

If your 801 or 100 decision is plausibly months away, compare buying now under the spouse exception against waiting, with the duty difference priced in. That comparison is a standard part of our free assessment for partner visa couples.

Next steps and how to apply

Start with the structure, not the lender. Confirm the spouse exception covers your purchase, model the title both ways, and then pick the lender whose policy fits the structure you want.

Our brokers do this comparison across 30+ banks and lenders, and the service costs you nothing. Call 1300 088 065 or book a free assessment online and we will map your borrowing power, the duty question and the timing before you sign anything.

Related guides:

• Mixed-visa couples buying property
• Home loans by visa type
• Bridging visa home loans
• Student visa home loans
• Subclass 444 for NZ citizens
• FIRB approval for home buyers

Information as at July 2026. Lender and government policies change without notice and are assessed case-by-case. This is general information, not credit or legal advice.