Australia’s annual national Student Experience Survey found that 71 per cent of newly arrived international students reported the possibility of migration as one reason for them choosing to study in Australia in 2024.
Possibility is the best word to use in this context. Permanent residency has never been a guaranteed outcome for any student visa holder and Australia has long had a hard cap on the number of permanent migrants accepted each year. This is presently set at a modest 185,000 per annum.
All the current consternation in Australia is really about is the growing number of temporary visa holders, which approached a peak of nearly 3 million in the first quarter of 2026, a substantial number for a country of 28 million residents.
Student visa holders are one of the largest temporary visa categories and saw large increases in late 2022 and 2023, with many of those visas being granted to applicants who were already in the country. This prompted a raft of policy interventions which have (finally) brought about a minor reduction in student visa holder numbers in the first quarter of 2026 (609,678), relative to pre-COVID levels in 2019 (612,825).
However, over that same period holders of temporary graduate visas, commonly known as 485 visas, have more than tripled (from around 80,000 in 2019 to over 250,000 in 2026), prompting concerns that completed students are not leaving in the same proportions as they used to. Further evidence for this is the growth in bridging visas, temporary visas that are granted while an application for another visa is being processed. This category grew from nearly 200,000 in 2019 and now to over 430,000 in 2026, prompting the now-commonly-cited phrase of visa hopping.
So, this is the situation in Australia in 2026. Although stringent measures to reduce new student arrivals have been successful and overall numbers are now starting to decline, many completed students are still not leaving, with growing numbers choosing to remain on 485 visas and yet more cycling through other visa options.
All that said, it is worth considering how all this looks from an international student’s perspective. Although students are strongly dissuaded from thinking of studying in Australia as an opportunity for gainful employment, a legal framework exists for them to do exactly that, albeit up to a limit of 48 hours a fortnight during study terms. Similarly, a legal framework exists for students granted initial entry to the country to then seek to stay longer on other visas, including graduate visas, which allow them full-time work rights. So, despite frequent claims of integrity compromise and dodgy practices, most of the behaviours that international students are criticised for are fully sanctioned within legislation.
What might help here is more clarity on the actual success rate of international students who seek permanent residency, information which might have a more moderating effect on numbers growth than all the complex interventions currently in play. The 2025 International Students Pathways and Outcomes Study (page 44) reported that around 50 per cent of tracked cohorts of higher education and VET student visa holders gained permanent residency after persisting for 10 years, noting that opportunities to remain in Australia have been further restricted since that analysis was undertaken.
Given this is badged Australian Government data, it is worth considering what prospective international students are actually being told in advance of them arriving. The message should be that if you come to Australia with the intention of gaining permanent residency, be prepared to commit at least 10 years of your life to holding down insecure employment in a foreign country with high costs of living and where you ultimately have maybe a 1 in 2 chance of achieving your goal. If international students really do start with such an understanding, so be it. The question is whether they really do.
Dr Steve Nerlich is a data analyst and communicator with particular expertise in Australia’s international student data sources. He completed a PhD on international student mobility at the Australian National University in 2020.
