No residence by ancestry, and citizenship by descent stops at the parent
Nothing in Schedule 1 to the Migration Regulations 1994 grants residence on the basis of an ancestor. The family classes in that Schedule run through a living relationship - a partner, a child, a parent, a carer, a remaining or aged dependent relative - and each requires an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen to sponsor. What Australia does offer is citizenship by descent, which is a different thing: under section 16(2) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 a person born outside Australia on or after 26 January 1949 is eligible to become a citizen if a parent was an Australian citizen at the time of the birth. One generation. Where that parent was themselves a citizen by descent, the parent must additionally have spent at least two years in Australia before the application is made, which is the provision that stops the line running indefinitely through people who have never lived there.
At a glance
- Residence route based on ancestry
- None: no class in Schedule 1 to the Migration Regulations 1994 is granted on the basis of descent from an Australian
The family classes in Schedule 1 all require a sponsor who is an Australian citizen, an Australian permanent resident or an eligible New Zealand citizen, and turn on a living relationship rather than on an ancestor.
- Generations citizenship by descent reaches
- 1: a parent who was an Australian citizen at the time of the birth
Section 16(2)(a) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. A grandparent does not qualify a person unless the intervening parent was themselves a citizen.
- Presence the parent must have if they were themselves a citizen by descent
- At least 2 years in Australia, other than as an unlawful non-citizen, at any time before the application
Section 16(2)(b)(i) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007.
Requirements
- For citizenship by descent, birth outside Australia on or after 26 January 1949 with a parent who was an Australian citizen at the time of the birth
- Where that parent was a citizen by descent, two years of the parent's presence in Australia other than as an unlawful non-citizen, at any time before the application
- Good character where the applicant is 18 or over and is or has been a national or citizen of any country
- For a grandparent or more distant ancestor, nothing: there is no residence class and no citizenship provision
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«(2)A person born outside Australia on or after 26January 1949 is eligible to become an Australian citizen if: (a)a parent of the person was an Australian citizen at the time of the birth; and (b)if the parent was an Australian citizen under this Subdivisionor SubdivisionAA, or section10B, 10C or 11 of the old Act (about citizenship by descent), at the time of the birth: (i)the parent has been present in Australia (except as an unlawful non-citizen) for a total period of at least 2years at any time before the person made the application;»About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«You may be eligible to become an Australian citizen under this Subdivisionin 2 situations: •you were born outside Australia on or after 26January 1949 and a parent of yours was an Australian citizen at the time of your birth: see subsection16(2); or •you were born outside Australia or New Guinea before 26January 1949 and a parent of yours was an Australian citizen on 26January 1949: see subsection16(3).»Two situations, both about a parent. The outline is the Act's own statement that the Subdivision has no other limb.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The absence of a residence route by ancestry is recorded from Schedule 1 to the Migration Regulations 1994, volume 1 of compilation 288, which lists every class of visa and the way to apply for one.
Citizenship by descent is acquired by application and registration rather than automatically: section 16(1) requires an application and the Minister must approve or refuse it.
The provisions for a person born before 26 January 1949 and the refusal grounds in section 17 were not read in detail.
- consolidatesAustralian Citizenship Act 2007, compilation 37
Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Federal Register of Legislation · consolidated to 2026-06-04
About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesMigration Regulations 1994, compilation 288, volume 1 (Parts 1 to 5 and Schedule 1)
Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Federal Register of Legislation · consolidated to 2026-07-01
About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source