On 1 July 2026 the Department of Home Affairs raised most visa fees by about 25% in a single step, roughly eight times the usual 3% July rise. A tourist visa went from AUD $200 to AUD $250. A partner visa went from AUD $9,365 to AUD $11,710. A handful of categories rose far more, and the ETA and eVisitor were left untouched.
A 25% jump, not the usual 3%. Most visa fees rise by CPI on 1 July, normally 2-5%. This year the across-the-board rise was about 25%
A few categories rose far more: Bridging Visa B +203%, Resident Return (155) +201%, NZ Citizen Family (461) +199%, and repeat Working Holiday visas +49%
The main student visa was not spared: it rose the full 25% to AUD $2,500. Only the cheaper English-language (ELICOS) and non-award course fees were held near flat at AUD $2,050
The fee is non-refundable. A refusal now wastes a bigger charge than ever, so getting the application right the first time matters more
Two reasons drove it: raising budget revenue, and using fees as a lever to push net migration down
The cheapest ways to visit are unchanged: the eVisitor (651) is still free and the ETA (601) still costs about AUD $20
If you have been waiting to apply, you may have just watched the price jump while you read the news. On 1 July 2026, the Department of Home Affairs raised most Australian visa fees by about 25% in one step. That is not the increase anyone planned for. Visa fees rise every 1 July, but the rise is normally tied to inflation: 2-5%, a few hundred dollars at most on the expensive visas. This year applicants got roughly eight times that.
This post does two things. First, it shows you exactly how much every visa went up, with a clear old-versus-new table you can scan. Second, it explains, with the actual budget and policy reasons on the record, why the government did it. We report the politics here; we do not take sides. All the figures below are the official Department of Home Affairs charges as they stand at 1 July 2026. For the full picture of what an Australian visa costs once you add health exams, police checks, and translations, see our companion guide on how much an Australian visa costs.
How much did Australian visa fees go up on 1 July 2026?
Most Australian visa fees rose by about 25% on 1 July 2026. The Visa Application Charge (VAC), the government fee you pay to submit an application, went up across nearly every category. A standard tourist visa rose from AUD $200 to AUD $250. A partner visa rose from AUD $9,365 to AUD $11,710. A skilled visa rose from AUD $4,910 to AUD $6,135.
To put that in context: in a normal year, the 1 July increase is CPI indexation of 2-5%. On a partner visa, that is roughly $200-400. This year the same visa rose by about $2,345. The step-change is the story, because it is far larger than the routine annual adjustment that applicants are used to budgeting for.
The table below shows the headline visas, the ones most people search for and the ones we help with at Tern.
These are the base charges for the primary applicant. If you include a partner or children on the same application, each person adds more, and on the expensive visas that can run into thousands. The student figure above is the new fee for the main sectors (higher education, vocational, and schools); the cheaper English-language (ELICOS) and non-award streams rose only to AUD $2,050. For how additional-applicant fees stack up across a whole family application, see our visa cost breakdown.
Which visas had the biggest increases?
Most visas rose by about 25%, but a small group rose far more, and a few barely moved. The pattern is not random. The biggest rises landed on visas the government wants people to use less often: repeat stays, onshore extensions, and re-entry after long absences.
The standout super-hikes:
Bridging Visa B (020): AUD $190 to AUD $575, up about 203%. This is the visa that lets someone on a bridging visa travel overseas and return while their substantive application is processing. For background on how bridging visas work, see our bridging visa guide
Resident Return Visa (155): AUD $490 to AUD $1,475, up about 201%. This is what permanent residents use to re-enter Australia after their five-year travel facility expires
NZ Citizen Family Relationship (461): AUD $445 to AUD $1,330, up about 199%
Repeat Working Holiday visas (second and third year): AUD $670 to AUD $1,000, up about 49%. The first-year Working Holiday visa rose the standard 25% to AUD $840, but the second and third-year visas, which reward regional work, rose nearly twice as much. If you are planning a second year, our second and third-year Working Holiday guide walks through the requirements
Read together, these are the government making repeat and onshore "churn" more expensive while raising revenue everywhere else.
A few fees were held back, but fewer than you might expect:
The ETA (601) and eVisitor (651) did not change at all. The eVisitor is still free and the ETA still costs about AUD $20. The Subclass 771 transit visa is also still free
Only the cheaper student streams were spared. The English-language (ELICOS) and non-award course fees rose just 2.5%, from AUD $2,000 to AUD $2,050. But that is the exception, not the rule for students. The main student visa, covering higher education, vocational, and schools, rose the full 25% to AUD $2,500, and the Student Guardian visa (590) did too. Students have now been hit in three consecutive rounds: the fee rose from $1,600 to $2,000 in July 2025, the graduate visa (485) was doubled in March 2026, and most student fees rose again on 1 July 2026
The cheapest ways to visit Australia were untouched. If you hold a passport eligible for the eVisitor (651) or ETA (601), the 25% rise does not affect you. Check our guide on whether you need a visa for Australia to find which option fits your passport.
The full list: every Australian visa fee from 1 July 2026
Below is a category-by-category snapshot of the Visa Application Charge for the primary applicant, as at 1 July 2026. These figures are sourced from the Department of Home Affairs current visa pricing. Family members, second instalments, and surcharges are extra.
Visitor visas
Working Holiday
Student and graduate
Family and partner
Parent and other family
Skilled
Employer-sponsored
Business and investor
Bridging and returning resident
A note on the visas that are not here: the Distinguished Talent (124), Business Owner (890), and Investor (891) subclasses are closed to new applicants, so they carry no current charge. Most bridging visas other than the Bridging Visa B (the A, C, D, and E classes) remain free.
Why did the Australian government raise visa fees so much?
The 1 July 2026 increase comes down to two connected goals: raising revenue, and using fees as a lever to push net overseas migration down. Both are on the public record in the federal budget and in the government's stated migration targets. Here is what each one means, reported as fact and attributed to its source.
Revenue: visa fees are a politically painless tax
Visa fees raise money from people who cannot vote and mostly do not live in Australia, which makes them one of the least politically costly ways for any government to lift revenue. The Department processes millions of applications a year, so a 25% across-the-board rise adds a substantial sum to the budget bottom line without touching a domestic tax.
The clearest recent example is the graduate visa (485). It was doubled from $2,300 to $4,600 in March 2026, a change the government projected would raise about $1.2 billion over five years from that one subclass alone. From 1 July 2026 the 485 rose again to $5,750. Phil Honeywood, who heads the International Education Association of Australia, publicly described international students as a "cash cow" used to "help their budget bottom line". That is his characterisation, and it captures why fees on non-resident applicants are an attractive lever for any treasurer.
Cutting net overseas migration
Higher fees are also a tool to bring migration numbers down. The 2026-27 federal budget, handed down on 12 May 2026, forecasts Net Overseas Migration (NOM) falling to 245,000 in 2026-27 and 225,000 in 2027-28. That is down roughly 45% from the 2022-23 peak of about 518,000.
Fees help hit that target in two ways. They price out marginal applicants who were on the fence, and they discourage visa "churn", the cycle of repeat and onshore extensions that keeps people in the system longer. That is why the biggest rises landed where they did: the second and third-year Working Holiday visas (+49%), the Bridging Visa B (+203%), and the Resident Return Visa (+201%). Each of those is about staying longer or coming back, not arriving for the first time.
Notably, the government did this without cutting the headline permanent program, which was held at 185,000 places with more than 70% allocated to skilled migration. The squeeze is on temporary and repeat flows, not on the permanent intake.
The politics: migration is now a top-tier issue
Migration has become one of Australia's leading political issues, tied closely to housing and rental affordability. Migrants make up roughly 30% of capital-city renters, which puts migration policy directly into the national conversation about rents and housing supply.
Even after the Labor government's decisive win in the May 2025 federal election, it has faced sustained pressure to bring migration down from across the political spectrum. One Nation has proposed a net migration cap of 130,000 and explicitly linked migration to housing pressure. The Coalition has signalled a target "well under 200,000". Think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs have argued for lower intakes. These are the stated positions of those parties and groups; we report them, we do not endorse or contest them. In that environment, a visible fee rise does double duty: it raises money and signals that the government is tightening migration.
Part of a pattern, not a one-off
The 25% rise is the latest step in a sequence, not a surprise on its own:
July 2025: the student visa rose from $1,600 to $2,000
March 2026: the graduate visa (485) was doubled from $2,300 to $4,600
July 2026: most fees rose about 25% across the board
The squeeze rotates through cohorts, but it does not spare them next time. Students absorbed the earlier rounds and were hit again here: the main student fee rose the full 25% on 1 July 2026, on top of the 2025 increase and the 2026 graduate-visa doubling. Only the cheaper English-language and non-award student streams were held back this round.
Australia already had some of the world's most expensive visas
Australia already charged the highest partner and student visa fees in the developed world, and the 1 July 2026 rise widened that gap. The partner visa now costs AUD $11,710, up from $9,365, which is roughly three to five times the UK and US equivalents and nearly ten times Canada's. The student visa, too, remains the most expensive of any major study destination.
We will not re-run all the international comparisons here, because our cost pillar already does it in detail. For the full global breakdown of how Australian fees compare to the UK, US, and Canada, see how much an Australian visa costs. The short version: Australia was already at the top of the table, and this rise stretched the lead.
What does the increase mean if you are about to apply?
The increase has already landed, so there is no "apply before 1 July" window left to beat. The new fees took effect on 1 July 2026 and apply to every application submitted from that date. If you were hoping to lock in the old pricing, that option closed at the start of the financial year. The next scheduled indexation is 1 July 2027, which will likely be a normal CPI adjustment rather than another step-change, though the government has not committed to that.
The more important point is what the higher fee does to the cost of getting it wrong. The Visa Application Charge is non-refundable. If your visa is refused, the Department keeps the fee. That was already true, but the stakes just went up. A refused partner visa now means losing AUD $11,710 with no refund, and paying the full charge again if you reapply. On an AUD $11,710 fee, a preventable refusal is a five-figure mistake.
That changes the maths on preparation. When the fee was lower, a thin or rushed application was a smaller gamble. Now, the cost of a refusal you could have avoided is higher than ever, so the value of getting the application right the first time has gone up with the price.
Tern Tip
If you are unsure whether your case is strong enough to submit, that is exactly the moment to get a second look before you pay a now-larger fee. A consultation before you lodge can surface problems while they are still fixable, rather than after a refusal has cost you the full VAC.
This is the gap Tern is built to close. We prepare and lodge your application end to end, cross-checking your documents for consistency before a case officer ever sees them, so simple, preventable errors do not turn into a wasted fee. For partner, employer-sponsored, and skilled visas, every application is reviewed by an immigration lawyer before submission. For visitor, Working Holiday, and student visas, applications are reviewed for errors before submission, and complex cases are escalated for lawyer review. Tern's lower price is a consequence of a modern, automated workflow doing the repetitive administrative work, not a cut-rate service. The government fee is the same wherever you apply; what you can control is whether the application is strong enough to be granted the first time.
Frequently asked questions
The 1 July 2026 increase is real, it is large, and there is no lodging-early trick left to dodge it. What you can still control is everything that decides whether your now-more-expensive fee buys an actual grant: a complete, consistent, well-evidenced application that gives a case officer no reason to refuse.
You cannot change the government fee. But the single biggest waste of money in this whole process is a refusal you could have avoided, and that is now a more expensive mistake than it was a week ago.
If you are ready to start, explore Tern's partner visa service or use our processing time tool to see how long your visa is likely to take. And if you want to make sure your application is as strong as it can be before you pay the new fee, that is exactly what a consultation with Tern is built to help with.
