What a de facto relationship means under Australian migration law
Under section 5CB of the Migration Act, a de facto relationship is one where two people (regardless of sex) are not married to each other, are not related by family, and have a mutual commitment to a shared life to the exclusion of all others, where the relationship is genuine and continuing, and where they live together — or do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis. Home Affairs applies the same criteria whether the relationship started in Australia, in a country, or anywhere else.
The 12-month cohabitation rule
The default rule is that, at the time of lodging the application, you must have been in a de facto relationship for at least 12 months. "In a de facto relationship" includes the period before you started cohabiting if you can show mutual commitment from an earlier date — but conservatively most applicants count from the date they started living together. The 12 months must be immediately before lodgement, so a relationship that paused and restarted may not satisfy the rule.
The rule can be waived in three situations: a registered relationship (see below); compelling and compassionate circumstances (typically the existence of a child of the relationship); or where the relationship could not be registered or lived openly due to the applicant's home-country laws.
Registered relationships in Australia
Several Australian states and territories run relationships registers: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania, and South Australia. Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not currently run a register that is recognised for migration purposes. Registration under a recognised scheme is the cleanest way to waive the 12-month rule — you submit the certificate of registration with your application and the cohabitation clock no longer matters. You still need to prove the relationship is genuine and continuing through the four evidence categories.
De facto relationships vs marriages — how evidence differs
Married applicants submit their marriage certificate and the cohabitation requirement disappears entirely. De facto applicants must build the same picture of a shared life without that single document. In practice, this means de facto applications usually contain more pieces of evidence than marriage-based ones — the case officer needs the cumulative weight of joint leases, joint bills, joint travel, and statutory declarations to reach the same level of comfort that a marriage certificate provides instantly.
The four evidence categories — what each one looks like
Financial aspects: joint bank statements, shared credit cards, joint loans, joint insurance, evidence of pooling income, shared major purchases. Nature of the household: lease or title in both names, utility bills in both names, joint contents insurance, evidence of shared chores and responsibilities. Social aspects: photographs together with friends and family, social media posts naming each other as partners, statutory declarations from people who know you as a couple, joint memberships, joint travel bookings. Nature of the commitment: length of the relationship, knowledge of each other's personal circumstances, financial commitments for the future, statements about future intentions.
Aim for at least 5 to 10 strong pieces of evidence in each category, weighted across the entire timeline of the relationship rather than clustered around the application date.
Spanish-language documents that form de facto evidence
Couples who lived together in a country before moving to Australia (or who maintained a relationship across borders) usually have a strong base of Spanish-language evidence. The most common pieces are the contrato de arrendamiento (lease agreement) showing both names, extractos bancarios (bank statements) from joint accounts or accounts that show transfers between partners, facturas de servicios públicos (utility bills) for the shared household, and correspondencia (postal mail, formal letters) addressed to both partners at the same address.
Statutory declarations from family members in your country of origin are also strong evidence, especially for couples whose relationship pre-dates migration. These are typically prepared in Spanish before a notary public (notario público) and need NAATI-certified English translations to be useable in your application.
When Spanish documents need NAATI-certified translation
Every Spanish-language document you submit as relationship evidence must include a NAATI-certified English translation. This is non-negotiable for Department of Home Affairs purposes — case officers will not give weight to a document they cannot read, even if the meaning seems self-evident. The translator's certification statement (name, NAATI credential number, signature, date, declaration of accuracy) is what makes the translation acceptable.
A practical tip: translate the document in full, not just a summary. Home Affairs prefers a complete translation of every page, header, and footer, so that the relationship between the Spanish original and the English translation is unambiguous. Partial or selective translations are routinely sent back for re-work.
Common mistakes to avoid
Three mistakes appear in almost every weak de facto application: thin evidence in one of the four categories (often "nature of the commitment"), evidence clustered around the application date rather than spread across the relationship, and Spanish-language documents submitted without NAATI-certified translations. Address all three before lodgement and your application will be substantially stronger than the average.