The Albanese government has doubled the application fee for Australia's most common post-study work visa, effective from 1 March, in a move that took much of the international education sector by surprise. The Temporary Graduate visa, known as the subclass 485, now costs $4,600 for primary applicants, up from $2,300, with no transition period offered to graduates already planning to lodge.
According to SBS News, the increase applies to two of the three streams within the 485 visa. For secondary applicants, including partners and children, fees have also doubled: adult dependants now pay $2,300, while those under 18 are charged $1,160. Graduates who choose to study and remain in regional Australia face smaller but still significant increases, with their fees rising by 50 per cent.
The Department of Home Affairs defended the change, saying in a statement that Australia offers "generous post-study work rights" for visa holders and their families. The department noted that Pacific Island and Timor-Leste passport holders remain exempt from the increase, in acknowledgment of Australia's ties with the region. From a fiscal standpoint, the numbers are not trivial: at the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook in December, the government estimated higher international student visa fees would generate around $185 million in additional revenue.
Those are exactly the kinds of figures a budget-conscious government needs to point to. The 485 visa has long been the main mechanism through which international graduates repay student debts taken on in their home countries, and many of those graduates go on to fill critical roles in fields including health, engineering, and technology. The fee was already raised twice in 2025, from $1,945 in February to $2,300 by July, before this week's 100 per cent jump. The increase has been described as one of the sharpest single-jump fee rises in recent Australian migration history.
Phil Honeywood, chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, has been blunt in his assessment. Speaking to SBS News, he said the sector is "very upset" and accused the Albanese government of treating international students as "a cash cow for no good reason". He pointed to the timing as particularly harsh: many graduates who completed their degrees in December 2025 face a 15 March deadline for their student visas to expire, meaning they were effectively promised the 485 option when they enrolled several years ago, only to now face double the expected cost.
Honeywood also raised the prospect of a skills shortage flowing from the change. Fields like allied health and STEM rely heavily on international graduates choosing to remain in Australia, and a sharply higher visa cost could nudge those students toward competitor destinations. Universities have already warned the increase dents Australia's competitiveness against Canada and the UK, where post-study permits still cost under $1,000. Honeywood has scheduled meetings with Education Minister Jason Clare and Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill to press the sector's case for a fee reduction.
The government's broader policy agenda around international education has also included several other changes this year. In January, providers were banned from paying agent commissions to recruit students already enrolled elsewhere. In February, the Attorney-General passed an amendment giving the Administrative Review Tribunal expanded powers to process student visa refusal appeals through written submissions rather than in-person hearings, a change Attorney-General Michelle Rowland described as reducing the time and resource intensity of oral hearings. A ban on visa-hopping, which prevents people on visitor visas or 485 visas from applying for student visas while onshore, is also in effect, and student visa application fees have risen from $1,600 to $2,000.
Taken together, these measures reflect a government that is clearly trying to reduce net overseas migration numbers while simultaneously shoring up budget revenues. Those are legitimate policy objectives, and there is genuine public concern about the pace of population growth and pressure on housing and infrastructure. The honest tension here is that the same graduates being priced out of the post-study pathway are often the doctors, engineers, and allied health workers that state governments are actively recruiting. The policy question is not whether visa fees can or should be raised, but whether a doubling in a single day, with no advance notice, represents sound and transparent management of a sector that contributes tens of billions of dollars to the Australian economy each year. Reasonable people will disagree on that, but the sector's frustration is not merely self-interested; the abruptness of this particular change is a legitimate governance concern worth the government addressing directly.