Health waivers: when failing the health requirement is not the end

Current as at 11 September 2026. Whether a health waiver is available depends on the public interest criterion attached to your visa subclass, which is set by the Migration Regulations and can change. Confirm the criterion for your subclass before relying on a waiver. This is general information, not legal advice.

An adverse health assessment reads like a refusal, and for some applicants it effectively is one. For others it is the point at which a second, quite different decision begins, one that looks at your personal circumstances rather than your medical costs.

Which of those two situations you are in was determined the day you chose your visa subclass. This article explains that distinction, what can never be waived regardless of circumstances, and what actually persuades a decision-maker. For how the underlying assessment works, see our guide to the significant cost threshold.

PIC 4005 and PIC 4007: the whole difference

The health requirement is imposed through public interest criteria in the Migration Regulations. Two of them matter here, and their substance is almost identical. They diverge on one point.

If PIC 4005 applies to your subclass and you do not meet the health requirement, there is no discretion to exercise. The application fails on that ground alone, however sympathetic the circumstances. Where PIC 4007 applies, the decision-maker can go on to consider a waiver.

This is why subclass selection is a health strategy as much as an eligibility strategy. Where a family member has a condition likely to be costed above the threshold, identifying which available pathways carry PIC 4007 should happen before an application is lodged, not after a refusal.

What can never be waived

Even where PIC 4007 applies, a waiver is unavailable in two situations. These are absolute:

• You have active tuberculosis.
• Your health condition may pose a danger to the Australian community or is a threat to public health.

Both connect back to the first aim of the health requirement, protecting the community from public health and safety risks. That aim is not tradeable against personal circumstances, so no amount of compelling evidence reaches it. Everything else in this article concerns the cost limb and the short supply limb.

You do not apply for a waiver

This trips people up constantly. There is no health waiver application form and no fee. If you fail the health requirement and a waiver is available for your subclass, the visa processing officer contacts you, tells you a waiver is available, and asks for further information.

You will be asked to explain why a waiver should be exercised and to complete a formal submission template. That template, and what you attach to it, is the entire case. There is no hearing and no oral advocacy. In practice this makes a health waiver a written advocacy exercise, decided on the papers by someone who has never met you.

One consequence worth planning for: the request arrives with a deadline attached, often at an inconvenient moment. Assembling specialist reports, costings and supporting statements takes time that you generally will not have once the letter lands. Where an adverse assessment is foreseeable, the material should be prepared in advance.

What the decision-maker has to be satisfied of

Before a waiver can be exercised you must first meet all other criteria for the visa. A waiver cures the health ground and nothing else, so an application weak elsewhere is not rescued by a strong waiver submission.

The decision-maker must then be satisfied that granting the visa would be unlikely to:

• result in significant health care and community service costs to the Australian community, or
• prevent Australian citizens or permanent residents from accessing health care or community services that are in short supply.

Waivers are considered case by case. Two categories of factor carry the weight:

1. Mitigation of cost and reliance

Whether you or your family members can lessen the potential cost of the condition and the reliance on public health care and community services. This is the evidential heart of most submissions, and it rewards specificity: private health insurance in place, family capacity and willingness to provide care, income and assets available to meet costs privately, treatment already funded without public subsidy, and a realistic account of what services will and will not be drawn on.

2. Compassionate and compelling circumstances

Any compassionate and compelling circumstances supporting the exercise of a waiver. In practice this is where the human case is made: length of residence and ties to Australia, the position of Australian citizen or permanent resident family members, the consequences of separation, contributions made, and what would follow if the visa were refused.

Building a submission that works

Waiver submissions succeed or fail on evidence rather than sentiment. Some practical points:

• Engage with the actual costing. The MOC has estimated a figure across a defined period. A submission that does not address what was assumed, and where those assumptions overstate real-world need, leaves the number unchallenged.
• Make mitigation concrete and verifiable. A policy number, a premium schedule, an employment contract and a bank statement carry weight. An assurance that the family will manage does not.
• Get current specialist evidence. A report that speaks to stability, prognosis and realistic service use is more useful than a historical diagnosis, particularly for conditions assessed across ten years.
• Do not conflate the two limbs. If the adverse finding was about short supply services, meaning dialysis or organ transplants, evidence about affordability does not answer it.
• Put the compassionate case in properly. It is a stated consideration, not a plea. Evidence it like any other element.

Outcomes, and what follows a refusal

If the waiver is exercised, processing of your application continues as normal. If it is not, the application is refused and the processing officer will tell you.

A refusal is not necessarily the end. Depending on the decision and where you applied, there may be a right of merits review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, which can consider the waiver afresh on the material before it. Our guide to ART appeals covers how that works, and what to do when your visa is refused walks through the options straight after a decision.

There is also a separate pathway for children born and ordinarily resident in Australia who do not meet the health requirement. No application for special consideration is required, a processing officer considers eligibility directly.

Where Rise fits in

Health waivers are won in writing, well before the Department asks. Our health waiver practice identifies whether your subclass carries PIC 4007 before you lodge, assembles the mitigation and compassionate evidence while there is time to obtain it, and responds to the submission template with a case built around the actual costing rather than around hope. If a health issue sits anywhere in your application, book a consultation early.