What Documents Prove I'm Related to My Australian Sponsor for the 117 Visa? (2026)

Plain-language guide · general information, not immigration advice

To prove your relationship to your Australian sponsor on the Orphan Relative visa (Subclass 117), the Australian Department of Home Affairs names four starting points on its Orphan Relative visa (Subclass 117) page, as of the August 2026 version: a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, an adoption certificate, and — if it was officially issued and maintained — a family status certificate or family book. The practical difficulty is rarely the existence of those documents. It is that almost no single certificate links a child straight to a sponsor, so most applicants have to build a chain out of two or three of them and then explain every gap in it.

This article describes published requirements for general information only; it isn't advice about any individual's case, and where your records sit somewhere unusual you should confirm your position against the Department's current guidance or a qualified professional.

Which relationships actually count for a 117 sponsor?

Before gathering paper, check that the relationship you are documenting is one the visa recognises. The Department lists the eligible sponsors as an eligible sibling or step-sibling, grandparent or step-grandparent, aunt, uncle, step-aunt or step-uncle, and the sponsorship has to be approved before the visa can be granted. Note what isn't on that list: a parent. The visa exists precisely because the child has no parent able to care for them, so the relationship you document always runs sideways or across generations — and almost always through at least two links.

Assume a sponsor is the child's aunt. You need evidence that the aunt and one of the child's parents share parents, plus evidence that the child belongs to that parent. Two birth certificates, read together, usually do the work. Add a step-relationship and you need a marriage certificate as well.

Document	What it establishes	Where it runs out
Birth certificate	The direct parent–child link	Shows parents' names, not the sponsor's; usually needs a second certificate (or more) to reach the sponsor
Marriage certificate	A spousal link, including step-relationships and post-remarriage name changes	Doesn't establish parentage on its own
Adoption certificate	The legal relationship where the tie is created by law rather than blood	Its usefulness depends on the names on it matching the rest of the file
Family status certificate or family book	Household composition, including parent–child links, where such registers exist	Only counts if officially issued and maintained
Change of name documents	Bridges different names across two otherwise mismatched records	Explains names only; never proves the relationship itself

A certification issued after adoption tells a decision-maker that a legal parent–child relationship exists. It doesn't, by itself, say anything about who the child's siblings, grandparents, aunts or uncles are.

Are birth certificates enough on their own?

Usually not, unless the sponsor appears on the child's own certificate — which happens rarely, since these are relationships that skip a generation. In practice you send the child's certificate to establish parentage, then a second generation of records to connect that parent to the sponsor.

The hidden requirement is consistency. If the parent's name is spelled differently on the child's certificate and the sponsor's, or if a shortened form of the name is used in one place, the chain visibly breaks and the difference needs to be accounted for in the file. Where the child's own name has changed, the Department asks for proof of change of name if applicable, and lists as examples change of name documents issued by an Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages or the relevant overseas authority, and documents showing other names the child has been known by; whichever you rely on only works if you include it.

Why does a marriage certificate matter here?

Two situations produce most of the marriage certificates in these files. The first is the step-relationship: step-sibling, step-grandparent, step-aunt and step-uncle are all eligible sponsor categories, and none of them can be documented without evidence of the marriage that created the step tie. The second is subtler — a parent who remarried and now uses a different surname than the one on the child's birth certificate. The marriage certificate is what carries a reader from one name to the other.

Where the child's own parent remarried and the child acquired a new surname informally, check whether that change was ever registered. If it wasn't, there may be no authority-issued change of name document to send, and the file has to rely on records that show both names in use.

Do household registers and family books count?

Yes, but with a qualifier attached. The Department's list includes a family status certificate or family book on the condition that it was officially issued and maintained. That condition is doing real work: it is the difference between a government record that is authoritative about who belongs to whom, and a private document that merely asserts it.

A family tree compiled from relatives' recollections, an unregistered religious record, or a printout with no issuing authority on its face does not meet that test. If you are relying on a household register, send the version issued by the authority and check that it reflects current family composition — a register that stopped being updated before a birth, death or marriage will document a family that no longer matches the application.

Can anything substitute for a missing certificate?

The Department introduces the relationship list with "such as", which means the four named documents are examples rather than an exhaustive set. That leaves some room for other official evidence, but the page does not name or describe any substitute for a civil record that was never issued, and nothing here should be read as creating one.

What you can control is the order of operations. Send the strongest links you hold rather than holding the whole application back for one missing piece. Where documents are missing at lodgement, additional documents can be uploaded later: through ImmiAccount if the paper application has been imported into it, or through the Child and Orphan Relative Visa Processing Centre online form where ImmiAccount can't be used or the application was lodged outside Australia before 1 April 2020.

One caution worth stating plainly: the Department also publishes separate requirements about what happens when identity can't be proven or information provided isn't true. Relationship documents that paper over a gap in identity create a bigger problem than the gap did.

Should you send originals?

No. The Department's instruction is explicit: do not send original documents with the application, send certified copies only, and keep a copy of the completed application — including supporting documents — for your own records. The definition of a compliant certified copy is set out on the Home Affairs certified copies page, and it is worth reading before you visit whoever will certify your documents, since a certification that doesn't meet the published standard is wasted effort.

Separately, Form 47CH and Form 40CH must be completed in English. The visa page doesn't set out translation rules for civil documents, so check the current Home Affairs guidance rather than assuming a bilingual extract will be read on its own terms.

Where relationship gaps persist, remember that these documents sit in a file that also has to establish something else: that the child has no parent able to care for them. Those are distinct questions with distinct evidence — death certificates or other official documents, medical reports explaining incapacity, or, where parents can't be found, evidence of how long they have been missing and what efforts were made to contact or locate them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need my sponsor's documents, or only my own? You need documents covering both ends of the relationship and every link between them. A birth certificate naming the child's parents proves the first link only; unless the sponsor appears on that certificate, you need records covering the sponsor's side as well.

Can a household register or family book prove the relationship by itself? It can form part of the evidence, but only if it was officially issued and maintained. Where it fully records the parent–child link and the link between that parent and the sponsor, it may carry more of the load; where it is incomplete or privately produced, treat it as supporting material rather than proof.

What if names don't match across my documents? Provide change of name documents from an Australian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages or the relevant overseas authority, or documents showing other names the child has been known by. A mismatch left unexplained is read as two different people, not as one person with two names.

My adoption was never formally registered. Can other documents replace the certificate? The Subclass 117 document list names an adoption certificate as evidence of the relationship, and while its wording suggests the list is not exhaustive, it doesn't identify any alternative for an unregistered arrangement. Evidence that establishes the legal relationship, rather than the family's intention to create one, is what the category calls for.

Do I still need relationship evidence if both my parents are deceased? Yes. Relationship to the sponsor and the absence of a parent able to care for the child are two separate requirements with separate evidence. Death certificates and other official documents address the second one; birth, marriage, adoption and family status records still have to establish the first.

Where do relationship documents actually get sent? They go with the paper application — Form 47CH and Form 40CH — posted or couriered to the Child and Other Family Processing Centre in Perth, as certified copies rather than originals. Later additions can be uploaded to ImmiAccount once the application has been imported into it.