On 28 April 2026, the Department of Home Affairs switched off the legacy ImmiAccount lodgement system and migrated all onshore and offshore visa applications to a new platform called the Unified Digital Processing Environment (UDPE). For partner visa applicants who prepared their documents using guides written before April 2026, some of the practical upload details have changed.
This page is a plain relay of publicly available Department of Home Affairs information about UDPE file upload requirements.
What Is UDPE?
UDPE (Unified Digital Processing Environment) is the Department of Home Affairs' replacement for ImmiAccount. It is the online portal through which all new visa applications, including partner visa subclasses 820/801 and 309/100, are now lodged and managed.
The Department describes UDPE as a unified platform that consolidates application lodgement, document uploads, correspondence, and case tracking into a single interface. The fundamental process of lodging a partner visa application remains the same: applicants complete forms, attach supporting documents across the standard relationship categories, and pay the application charge online.
File Upload Size Limits in UDPE
The per-file size limit in UDPE is 5 megabytes (5MB). This matches the ceiling that was enforced in the legacy ImmiAccount system.
Files over 5MB are rejected at upload. The limit applies per individual file, not per application or per document category. If a document is too large, it must be compressed before being re-uploaded.
Accepted file formats
The Department's published guidance lists the following accepted formats for document attachments:
| Format | Common use |
|---|---|
| Multi-page documents, bank statements, lease agreements | |
| JPEG / JPG | Photos, scanned pages |
| PNG | Screenshots, digital documents |
Other formats (DOCX, HEIC, TIFF) are not reliably accepted and should be converted before upload.
What Changed for Applicants Moving from ImmiAccount to UDPE
For most partner visa applicants, the practical upload experience in UDPE is similar to ImmiAccount. The key changes are at the system and workflow level rather than the document specification level:
The request for further information (RFI) process has changed. Under UDPE, the informal safety net of receiving an RFI after lodgement — where a case officer would contact an applicant to request missing documents — has been significantly reduced. The Department's published guidance to migration agents notes that applications are expected to be decision-ready at the time of lodgement. Incomplete applications are more likely to be decided on the file as submitted.
This makes pre-lodgement document organisation more important than it was under the old system.
The document category structure remains the same. Partner visa applications are still assessed against the four official relationship categories: Financial Aspects, Nature of the Household, Social Aspects, and Nature of the Commitment. UDPE has not changed what evidence is required — only how it is processed after lodgement.
Account migration. Applicants who had a legacy ImmiAccount profile need to follow the Department's account migration process before they can access UDPE. Details are on the Department of Home Affairs website.
Why Files Still Need to Be Compressed Before Upload
The 5MB per-file ceiling was a constraint in ImmiAccount and remains a constraint in UDPE. Common partner visa documents frequently exceed this limit:
- Smartphone photos: 3 to 8MB per image at full resolution
- Multi-page bank statements scanned at 300 DPI: 4 to 12MB
- Lease agreements (10 to 20 pages): 5 to 15MB as a scanned PDF
Files must be compressed before upload. The compression target is under 4.5MB to give a small buffer below the ceiling while keeping documents fully legible for a case officer.
VisaPrep's free Immi-Optimizer compresses PDFs and images in-browser. Nothing is uploaded to a server — the file is processed locally on your device and downloaded back to you. The tool flags each file as compliant or over-limit before you download.
Open the free file compressor →
Organising Documents Before UDPE Lodgement
Given the reduced RFI safety net in UDPE, having documents structured correctly across the four relationship categories before lodgement is a practical clerical step.
VisaPrep's free document structure checklist maps all four official Department of Home Affairs relationship categories and tracks which standard folder slots you have documents ready for. It does not assess whether your evidence is legally sufficient — it is a formatting and organisation utility only.
Open the free document checklist →
Administrative Disclaimer: VisaPrep is a clerical file organisation and formatting software utility. It does not provide immigration assistance, legal advice, or eligibility assessments under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). All information on this page is a passive relay of publicly available third-party data sourced from the Department of Home Affairs. The UDPE platform specifications described reflect publicly available guidance at the time of publication. Users are entirely responsible for verifying current requirements and for the legal accuracy and sufficiency of their own applications.