Immigration: The Current Situation

What the official numbers actually say, over four decades and by stream. This memo states no policy. It establishes the facts a policy has to be built on, including the ones that cut against the common argument in either direction.

1. The numbers

• Net overseas migration was 306,000 in 2024–25, down from 429,000 in 2023–24, and below the financial-year record of 538,000 in 2022–23.
• There were 568,000 migrant arrivals in 2024–25 and 263,000 departures.
• Almost two in three arrivals were on temporary visas — 363,000 people. Nearly half of those were international students, at 157,000.
• Arrivals in 2024–25 were 3 per cent above 2018–19. Departures were still 15 per cent below it.
• In 2020–21 Australia recorded a net loss of 85,000 people.
• Net overseas migration was about 80,000 in 1994–95 and 305,000 in 2024–25.
• Over the past 30 years, net overseas migration contributed 56 per cent of population growth and natural increase 44 per cent. Since 2005–06, migration has contributed more than births.
• Population growth was 2.5 per cent in 2022–23, 2.0 per cent in 2023–24 and 1.5 per cent in 2024–25, against a 30-year average of 1.4 per cent.
• The permanent Migration Program is 185,000 places in 2026–27, unchanged for a third year: 132,240 skilled, 52,460 family, 300 special eligibility.
• 129,590 of those places — about 70 per cent — go to people already in Australia on temporary visas.
• The Refugee and Humanitarian Program is 20,000 places, the level set in 2023–24 and the highest since 2012–13. About 16,000 are offshore resettlement and 4,000 onshore protection.
• Skilled migrants were 30 to 40 per cent of the permanent program two decades ago. They are now close to 70 per cent.
• New permanent residents wait four years for JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Austudy. Humanitarian entrants are exempt. Temporary visa holders are generally ineligible entirely.
• There were 2.97 million people in Australia on temporary visas at 31 March 2026 — about one person in nine, and more than fifteen times the annual permanent program.
• Of those: 732,210 international students, 432,300 on bridging visas, 258,974 working holiday makers, 255,821 temporary skilled workers and 237,015 on graduate visas.
• Active bridging visas rose from 191,235 in September 2023 to 432,300 in March 2026.
• Comparing December 2019 with January 2026, student visa holders rose about 4 per cent while graduate visa holders rose about 165 per cent.
• New South Wales Treasury estimates every additional 100,000 temporary residents generates demand for about 40,000 dwellings within a year.
• Between January 2014 and December 2023, 8,200 people had a visa cancelled on character grounds and were removed. A further 53,382 visas were cancelled under the general cancellation power.

2. Three numbers, three meanings

Most immigration arguments in Australia are conducted with mismatched figures. There are three, they measure different things, and all three are correct.

Net overseas migration is arrivals minus departures, counting anyone who is in Australia for twelve months out of sixteen. It includes students, temporary workers, working holidaymakers and returning Australians. It is the population number. It was 306,000 in 2024–25.

The permanent Migration Program is the annual cap on permanent visas — the number of people granted the right to stay indefinitely. It is 185,000 this year. It is not a measure of how many people arrived, because most of those places go to people already here.

The temporary visa stock is how many people are in Australia at any moment on a non-permanent visa. It is the largest number of the three and the least discussed.

A person quoting 185,000 and a person quoting 538,000 are not disagreeing about a fact. They are describing different things, and the argument between them cannot be resolved because neither is wrong.

3. Four decades

Two cautions apply to any long series, and both are the Bureau's own.

The definition changed in September 2006. Before then, a person had to be in or out of the country for twelve continuous months to count. Since then the test is twelve months out of sixteen, continuous or not — the "12/16 rule". Figures either side of 2006 are not strictly comparable, and any chart spanning the change must mark it. Data before the 1980s is patchy.

With that stated, the shape of the record is not in dispute.

The 1970s and 1980s. Net migration ran in the tens of thousands and swung hard year to year — 21,000 in 1975–76, 63,000 in 1977–78. Migration peaked in the late 1980s at what was then a post-war high, and the family stream reached a peak in that decade it has not returned to.

The 1990s. Lower and relatively stable: about 80,000 in 1994–95, 104,000 in 1995–96, 79,000 in 1997–98, 107,000 in 1999–2000. Natural increase, not migration, was the main driver of population growth for the whole decade.

2005 to 2008. Migration rose rapidly and peaked around the global financial crisis. From 2005–06 onward, migration contributed more to population growth than births did, and it has every year since apart from the pandemic.

2011 to 2019. It stabilised — but at a level substantially above anything between 1982 and 2005. This is the part most often missed. The post-2011 "normal" was already historically high before anything that happened in the 2020s.

2020 and 2021. The borders closed and the number went negative: a net loss of 85,000 in 2020–21, the first sustained outflow in the modern record.

2022 to 2025. The catch-up. Net migration reached 538,000 in 2022–23 — the highest financial-year figure ever recorded — then 429,000, then 306,000. The Budget states net overseas migration has fallen about 45 per cent from its peak and is forecast to keep falling to 2027–28.

Two observations follow, and they are the honest ones.

The 2022–23 figure was a genuine record, not a beat-up. It was also substantially a rebound from two years of closed borders, and departures are the reason it stayed high: arrivals in 2024–25 were only 3 per cent above 2018–19, while departures remained 15 per cent lower. Fewer people leaving raises the net figure exactly as much as more people arriving.

And the level has not returned to the pre-2005 pattern. It has returned toward the 2011 to 2019 pattern, which was itself well above everything before it.

4. The permanent program: skilled

Of 185,000 permanent places in 2026–27, 132,240 — about 71 per cent — are skilled.

The internal allocation shifted this year. Employer-sponsored places rose from 44,000 to 58,040. Skilled independent rose from 16,900 to 21,090. State and territory nominated rose from 33,000 to 35,500. Regional fell from 33,000 to 14,110, a cut of about 57 per cent.

The long-run composition change is larger than any single year. Two decades ago skilled migrants and their families were 30 to 40 per cent of the permanent program. They are now close to 70 per cent, and the family intake sits about 20 per cent below its late-1980s peak.

Australia already runs a predominantly skilled program. That is a fact worth stating plainly, because it is frequently argued about as though it were still an open question.

5. The permanent program: family

The family stream is 52,460 places, roughly 30 per cent of the program. Partner and child categories are demand-driven, with indicative planning levels rather than hard caps.

The stream covers partners, dependent children, parents and a small number of other relatives. Partner visas are the majority of it.

The 70:30 split between skilled and family has been maintained across successive governments and was maintained again in the 2026–27 program announced on 12 May 2026.

6. The humanitarian program

The Refugee and Humanitarian Program is 20,000 places in 2026–27, the same as the previous three years, and the highest level since 2012–13. The 2026–27 Budget allocated $910.9 million to it.

Of the 20,000, about 16,000 are offshore resettlement — the Refugee category and the Special Humanitarian Program — and about 4,000 are onshore protection grants to people who arrived on another visa and were subsequently found to be refugees.

Under the Special Humanitarian Program, the Australian proposer pays for the applicants' travel and provides initial accommodation and orientation. Community sponsorship became a permanent feature of the program from July 2026, supporting up to 200 people a year within the existing 20,000.

An additional 16,500 places for Afghan nationals were added as a four-year budget measure from 2022–23, ending with 2025–26.

The humanitarian program is 10.8 per cent of the size of the permanent Migration Program and about 6.5 per cent of net overseas migration in 2024–25.

7. The temporary system

This is the part of the immigration system that is largest, least discussed, and responsible for nearly all of the recent movement in the headline number. It is also the part that makes the permanent program figures misleading if read on their own.

There were 2.97 million people in Australia on temporary visas at 31 March 2026, near the record 2.98 million recorded at the end of December 2025. That is more than fifteen times the annual permanent program, and roughly one person in nine living in the country.

7.1 The categories

• International students (subclass 500) — 732,210. Up from a December dip of 709,437 and above the 720,692 of a year earlier, despite caps on commencements. The record was 736,306 in September 2025.
• Bridging visas — 432,300. A new high, up 13.8 per cent in a year from 379,804.
• Working holiday makers (subclasses 417 and 462) — 258,974. A record, up sharply from 225,901 three months earlier.
• Temporary skilled workers — 255,821. Rebounded from a seasonal low of 215,768 in December 2025.
• Graduate visas (subclass 485) — 237,015. Up from 225,751 in December and 224,015 a year earlier.
• Everything else — about 1.05 million. Principally New Zealand citizens, who are the largest single visa group in the country, and long-staying visitors.

7.2 Bridging visas: the number nobody planned

A bridging visa is not a migration decision. It is what a person holds while a decision is being made about them — an application lodged, a review pending, a departure being arranged.

At 30 September 2023 there were 191,235 active bridging visas. At 31 March 2026 there were 432,300. The number has more than doubled in two and a half years, and it is not the result of any policy choice about who should come to Australia. It is the accumulated backlog of onshore applications and processing delay, and every person in it is lawfully here while it lasts.

This matters for the debate because bridging visa holders appear in the population, in the rental market and in the labour market, and are entirely absent from any published migration target.

7.3 The funnel

The student and graduate numbers should be read together, because they are the same people at different stages.

Comparing December 2019 with January 2026, student visa holders rose about 4 per cent. Graduate visa holders rose about 165 per cent. Entry to the system has been controlled; the exit from it has not.

The graduate visa exists to let former international students work here after study, which is the policy's stated purpose rather than a misuse of it. What it also does is hold a large cohort in the country after their study ends, competing for permanent places that do not exist in anything like sufficient number. There is no arithmetic under which 237,015 graduate visa holders transition into a permanent program of 185,000 places that is already 70 per cent committed to other onshore applicants.

Two honest caveats. The Department does not publish a direct count of 485 holders — the figure is a monthly count of temporary migrants in Australia, which is the closest available measure. And the funnel comparison uses two different reference dates, so it shows a direction rather than a precise ratio.

7.4 Why this decides the population number

Three structural consequences follow, and they explain most of the confusion in the public argument.

• The permanent program is mostly a conversion mechanism. About 129,590 of the 185,000 places go to people already onshore.
• Capping the permanent program does not reduce the population. Someone refused a place does not necessarily leave the country.
• Net overseas migration is set by the temporary system, not the permanent one. Student, graduate, working holiday and departure settings determine the headline number.

A permanent visa is increasingly the last step of a journey that began years earlier on a student visa, not an arrival at the airport. A person refused one may hold a bridging, graduate or further temporary visa and remain in the count. And the 185,000 figure that dominates the public argument determines almost none of the population number.

The housing link is measurable rather than rhetorical: New South Wales Treasury estimates that every additional 100,000 temporary residents generates demand for about 40,000 additional dwellings within a year.

8. What migrants can and cannot claim

The Newly Arrived Resident's Waiting Period governs access to income support. The rules are specific, and they are not what the public argument usually assumes.

The four-year period was doubled from two years on 1 January 2019. Time spent outside Australia does not count toward serving it. The Department's stated basis is that new migrants should support themselves when they first settle permanently.

Temporary visa holders — students, temporary skilled workers, working holidaymakers — are generally not eligible for Centrelink payments at all, at any point, for the whole time they are here.

Humanitarian and refugee entrants are fully exempt from the waiting period. Holders of subclasses 200, 201, 202, 203, 204 and 866 can claim from the day the visa is granted. This is the deliberate design of the program: people resettled from refugee situations are not expected to arrive self-funded.

Other exemptions are narrow: survivors of family violence on partner visas, principal carers of Australian citizen children for family payments, orphan relative visas at a two-year cap, and Special Benefit in severe hardship, which requires liquid assets under $5,000 and a substantial change in circumstances beyond the person's control.

The accurate summary is that skilled and family migrants are locked out of income support for four years, temporary holders are locked out entirely, and the exemption is the refugee program.

9. Deportation and visa cancellation

Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 allows a visa to be refused or cancelled where a person fails the character test. The most common trigger is a substantial criminal record, defined as a sentence of twelve months or more, with concurrent and cumulative sentences summed toward the total.

Cancellation is mandatory, with no discretion, where a person has a substantial criminal record and is serving a custodial sentence. On cancellation the person becomes an unlawful non-citizen, must be detained, and is held until removed or granted another visa. Some spend months or years in detention while review, travel documents or a protection claim are resolved.

Discretionary decisions are governed by Direction 110, in force since 21 June 2024, which sets protection of the Australian community as a primary consideration. Merits review is available at the Administrative Review Tribunal unless the Minister made the decision personally, in which case only judicial review in the Federal Court is available.

The scale, from the Department's own figures: between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2023, 8,200 non-citizens had a visa cancelled under section 501 and were removed, of whom 888 were New Zealand citizens. Over the same period, 53,382 visas were cancelled under section 116, the general cancellation power covering matters such as breach of visa conditions, incorrect information and risk to the community.

One figure worth knowing because it is often assumed otherwise: in 2023–24, 27 of 244 character-based decisions — 11 per cent — related to child sex offences. The power is used across a much wider range of offending than the cases that reach the news.

10. What the data does not tell us

Stating what is not known is part of stating the facts.

• Departures are poorly understood. The recent net figures are driven as much by people not leaving as by people arriving, and there is no reliable forward measure of departure intention.
• Onshore transitions are not published as a pathway. How many of this year's permanent grants began as students five years ago is not a routinely published series.
• Welfare receipt by visa pathway is not published in a usable form. Waiting periods and eligibility rules are clear; actual receipt broken down by entry stream, over time, is not.
• Employment outcomes by visa subclass are thin, particularly for graduates converting from student visas.
• The 2006 series break makes long-run comparison approximate, and any figure quoted across it carries that caveat whether or not the person quoting it says so.

11. Summary

Net overseas migration was 306,000 in 2024–25, down from a record 538,000 in 2022–23 and forecast to keep falling. The record was real, and it was also a rebound from two years of closed borders, sustained as much by people not leaving as by people arriving. The current level has not returned to the pre-2005 pattern; it has returned toward the 2011 to 2019 pattern, which was already historically high.

There are 2.97 million people here on temporary visas — one in nine — including 732,210 students and 432,300 on bridging visas, a number that has more than doubled since 2023 and reflects processing backlog rather than any policy decision. The temporary system, not the permanent program, sets the population number.

The permanent program is 185,000 places, about 71 per cent skilled — up from 30 to 40 per cent skilled two decades ago — with 70 per cent of places going to people already in Australia. The humanitarian program is 20,000, about a tenth of the permanent program. Almost two thirds of arrivals are temporary, and half of those are students.

New permanent residents cannot claim JobSeeker for four years. Temporary holders cannot claim at all. Refugees are exempt by design.

Visa cancellation on character grounds is mandatory for a non-citizen serving a custodial sentence with a substantial criminal record, and 8,200 people were removed on that basis in the decade to 2023.

These are the facts. The policy comes next, and it will be built on them.

12. Sources

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Overseas Migration, 2024-25 financial year (released 19 December 2025), and the accompanying media release — net overseas migration of 306,000 in 2024-25, down from 429,000, against the financial-year record of 538,000 in 2022-23; 568,000 arrivals and 263,000 departures; 363,000 temporary-visa arrivals of which 157,000 were students; arrivals 3 per cent above and departures 15 per cent below 2018-19; the net loss of 85,000 in 2020-21 and the net gain of 171,000 in 2021-22; sections 1, 2, 3 and 7.
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics, methodology notes on net overseas migration — the September 2006 change to the "12/16 rule" and the resulting break in series, and the statement that data before and after is not strictly comparable; section 3.
3. Department of Home Affairs, Migration to Australia since federation: a guide to the statistics — the patchiness of pre-1980s data, permanent visa grants as the more consistent long series, and the composition of recent growth as predominantly temporary; sections 2 and 3.
4. Australian Population Research Institute background paper (November 2015), citing ABS series — net overseas migration by financial year including 21,239 in 1975-76, 57,897 in 1976-77, 62,715 in 1977-78, 104,137 in 1995-96, 79,162 in 1997-98 and 107,275 in 1999-2000; section 3.
5. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Profile of Australia's population (2026) — net overseas migration rising from about 80,000 in 1994-95 to 305,000 in 2024-25; migration contributing 56 per cent of population growth over 30 years against 44 per cent from natural increase; migration exceeding natural increase every year since 2005-06; population growth of 2.5, 2.0 and 1.5 per cent in the three years to 2024-25 against a 30-year average of 1.4 per cent; sections 1 and 3.
6. Centre for Population, Components of Australia's population since 1982 — migration low through the 1990s and early 2000s, rising rapidly from 2005 to a 2008 peak, stabilising from 2011 at a level well above 1982 to 2005, turning negative in 2020; section 3.
7. Treasury, Shaping a Nation: Population growth and immigration over time — migration peaking as a share of population during the global financial crisis; skilled migrants and their families rising from 30 to 40 per cent of the permanent program two decades ago to close to 70 per cent; the family intake remaining about 20 per cent below its late-1980s peak; sections 3, 4 and 5.
8. Department of Home Affairs, Permanent Migration Program planning levels (updated 15 May 2026), and the 2026-27 Budget announcement of 12 May 2026 — 185,000 places for a third year; Skill 132,240, Family 52,460, Special Eligibility 300; the approximate 70:30 split; 129,590 onshore and 55,110 offshore places; employer-sponsored 44,000 to 58,040, skilled independent 16,900 to 21,090, state and territory nominated 33,000 to 35,500, regional 33,000 to 14,110; the forecast decline in net overseas migration of about 45 per cent from its peak; sections 1, 4, 5 and 7.
9. Department of Home Affairs, Australia's Humanitarian Program 2026-27 discussion paper, and Refugee Council of Australia budget analysis (13 May 2026) — the program set at 20,000 places, the level since 2023-24 and the highest since 2012-13; $910.9 million allocated; approximately 16,000 offshore resettlement and 4,000 onshore protection places; Special Humanitarian Program proposer obligations for travel, accommodation and orientation; community sponsorship made permanent from July 2026 for up to 200 people a year within the program; the 16,500 additional Afghan places as a four-year measure ending in 2025-26; section 6.
10. Department of Home Affairs temporary visa holder data, as published quarterly and analysed at 31 March 2026, 31 December 2025, 30 September 2025 and 30 September 2023 — 2.97 million temporary visa holders at 31 March 2026 against 2.98 million at 31 December 2025; students (500) 732,210 against a record 736,306 in September 2025; bridging visas 432,300, up 13.8 per cent year on year and up from 191,235 at 30 September 2023; working holiday makers (417 and 462) 258,974; temporary skilled 255,821; graduate visas (485) 237,015; New Zealand citizens as the largest single visa group; sections 1 and 7.
11. Andrew Norton, Temporary graduate visas — trends in applications, grants and populations — the Department not publishing a direct count of 485 visa holders, the monthly in-country count as the closest available stock figure, the stated purpose of the graduate visa as labour market access rather than misuse, and the arithmetic that 485 holders cannot all transition into a permanent program of 185,000 places; section 7.
12. Comparative analysis of Home Affairs temporary visa categories, December 2019 against January 2026 — student visa holders rising about 4 per cent while graduate visa holders rose about 165 per cent; section 7.
13. New South Wales Treasury estimate, as reported — every additional 100,000 temporary residents generating demand for approximately 40,000 additional dwellings within a year; section 7.
14. Services Australia, Newly arrived resident's waiting period, and the Department of Social Services Social Security Guide 3.1.2.40 — the 208-week waiting period for most income support payments for permanent visas granted on or after 1 January 2019, doubled from two years on that date; two years for Parental Leave Pay and one year for Family Tax Benefit and Child Care Subsidy; time overseas not counting; full exemption for subclasses 200, 201, 202, 203, 204 and 866; the narrow further exemptions for family violence, principal carers of Australian citizen children, orphan relative visas and Special Benefit in severe hardship; the general ineligibility of temporary visa holders; section 8.
15. Migration Act 1958 (Cth), sections 501, 501(3A), 116 and 198, and Ministerial Direction 110 (effective 21 June 2024) — the character test; the definition of a substantial criminal record as a sentence of twelve months or more including cumulative sentences; mandatory cancellation for a person serving a custodial sentence; detention and removal of unlawful non-citizens; protection of the Australian community as a primary consideration; and review rights at the Administrative Review Tribunal or by judicial review where the Minister decides personally; section 9.
16. Department of Home Affairs, FOI release FA 24/03/00379 — 8,200 non-citizens with visas cancelled under section 501 and removed under section 198 between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2023, including 888 New Zealand citizens, and 53,382 cancellations under section 116 over the same period; section 9.
17. Human Rights Law Centre, Prison to Deportation Pipeline (2025), citing Department of Home Affairs character and general cancellation statistics — 27 of 244 character-based decisions in 2023-24 relating to child sex offences; section 9.