Australia: New rules now in force for accompanying dependants and onshore student visa applications

Short on time? Here are the highlights:

As of 2 October 2026, most new international students will not be permitted to bring accompanying family members to Australia
Most temporary visa holders, including those on visitor or working holiday visas, will now have to leave the country in order to apply for a student visa
New restrictions on onshore transfers between providers are now also in effect

The Australian government has announced that a series of additional restrictions on student visas (Subclass 500), first outlined on 17 September, has now come into effect as of 2 October 2026 and applies to any visa <a href="https://jiuniversity.com/call-for-applications-ughe-mastercard-foundation-scholars-program-2027/” title=”Call For Applications: UGHE Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program 2027 -“>applications lodged from that date

Here are the new rules:

Students will no longer be able to bring family members with them. In addition, students who have been granted visas cannot then apply to bring family members to join them, with no exceptions. However, the government says: Families already together in Australia will not be separated so eligible Student visa holders applying for a new onshore visa may include only family members already here.

Most temporary visa holders will no longer be able to lodge a student visa application while in Australia. Based on regulatory filings in the latter weeks of September, it appears the government has expanded the scope of this restriction between the original announcement on 17 September and the effective date of 2 October. The expanded list includes both visitor visas and working holiday visas, along with several other visa classes, and the end result is that anyone holding a visa in any of those categories must leave the country in order to lodge a student visa application.

As of 1 July 2027, any students already on course in Australia will have to apply through a new student transfer stream in order to change providers. From now until that point in mid-2027, non-school students are required to remain enrolled at their provider for 12 months (an increase on the previous six-month period). After new transfer stream comes into effect in July 2027, “[It] will prevent transfers to lower-level courses that bypass evidence requirements and disrupt the business models of providers targeting students with low-cost or lower-quality courses after they arrive in Australia.”

Further, students will only be allowed to transfer to courses at the same level or to a higher qualification. “Students will no longer be able to come to Australia to study Higher Education and transfer onshore to VET,” adds a government statement.

Other than the restriction on accompanying family members, the stated intent of the new rules is to reduce “visa hopping” – that is, to prevent students from extending their stay in Australia by moving from one visa class to another or from extending student visa status by moving to lower-level qualifications

“This is a sweeping package of reforms that gets the balance right to tighten integrity, manage numbers in a sensible way without trashing one of our nation’s largest and proudest export sectors as some loud, ill-informed voices seek to do,” said Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill. “Extending the transfer restriction to 12 months as an interim measure until the new student transfer visa comes in on 1 July 2027 delivers immediate action on unacceptably high onshore transfer activity, while preserving transfers for legitimate reasons.”

Commenting on onshore transfer patterns in particular, Professor Andrew Norton writes, “Onshore applicants for a student visa get a bridging visa while their application is processed. As of December 2025 the median processing time for an onshore student visa application was 134 days, delivering another 4 to 5 months living and working in Australia even if the visa application is unsuccessful…As of 31 December 2025, 107,449 people were on bridging visas while waiting for a student visa application to be resolved.”

He notes as well that: “Due to other policy changes, onshore student visa applications were already trending down prior to this announcement. In 2025, 135,979 onshore student visa applications were made, 30,000 below 2019 pre-COVID levels.”

The following cases are exempt from the new rules

Onshore student visa applications:PhD, DFAT, or Defence-sponsored students, foreign government scholarship recipients, and those applying for primary or secondary level studies can still apply for a student visa from inside Australia. So can students requiring another 12 months to complete their studies or students whose providers have not delivered or have stopped delivering their course

Dependants: PhD, DFAT, or Defence-sponsored students, foreign government scholarship recipients, and eligible students from Pacific and ASEAN countries may still apply to bring dependants

Course disruptions or provider closures: Students whose providers have not delivered or have stopped delivering their course can also apply for another visa onshore

For additional background, please see:

“Australia moves to reduce net migration with new restrictions on student family members and ‘visa hopping’”

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