Australia student visa approvals plunge as Indian grants crash 75%

Australia has sharply reduced student visa approvals, with Indian applicants among the hardest hit as the government tightens scrutiny of international student flows, according to a report by Times Higher Education citing fresh data from the Department of Home Affairs. Higher education visa grants fell 16% in 2025-26 from a year earlier, even as applications remained above pre-pandemic levels.

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According to the report, the number of offshore student visa applications declined 3% during the financial year. The fall was driven by a 26% drop in applications from China, Australia's largest source of international students, along with smaller declines from India, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.


Nepal and Bangladesh were the only major source markets to record higher demand, with applications rising 58% and 37%, respectively. However, visa approvals fell across all six of Australia's biggest student source countries, Times Higher Education reported.

The sharpest declines came in June 2026, when Australia granted less than half as many offshore higher education visas as it did in June 2025.

Visa grants to Indian applicants were down 75% year-on-year in June, while approvals for Bangladesh and Nepal fell 89% and 94%, respectively. The figures suggest authorities are slowing processing and rejecting a larger share of applications from South Asian countries.

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Approval rates also weakened significantly. In June, only 46% of higher education visa applications from India were approved, compared with 22% for Bangladesh and 14% for Nepal. Across all nationalities, 32% of offshore higher education visa applications were rejected.

Overall visa approvals have now returned to pre-pandemic levels despite application volumes remaining about 10% higher than in 2018-19, according to the report.

The slowdown could deepen after Australia increased its student visa application fee from A$2,000 to A$2,500 from July 1. The latest visa data does not reflect the impact of the higher fee.

The Association of Australian Education Representatives in India has urged the government to split the fee, with 60% payable only after a visa is granted.

Sydney-based education agent Ravi Lochan Singh said the proposal would allow the government to recover visa processing costs while reducing financial losses for unsuccessful applicants.

"It would provide greater fairness and help protect genuine students, particularly at a time when visa refusal rates remain high," Singh said, as quoted by Times Higher Education.

The report noted that the visa data was released after the Australian government announced indicative international student allocations for 2027. Public universities will retain the same allocation levels as in 2026, while some private colleges will receive slightly higher quotas.

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However, the allocations may have limited immediate impact on recruitment. According to Australia's education department, cited by Times Higher Education, only six of the country's 37 publicly funded universities had reached at least 80% of their 2026 international student allocation with five months of the year still remaining.