The Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) lets a recent graduate of an Australian course stay and work in Australia for two to three years, with no employer restriction and no cap on hours. Almost everything it asks for is a yes or no fact: your age, your qualification, your English score, your dates. You have to be in Australia to apply, and you get six months from finishing your course.
Age: 35 or under on the day you apply. The exception for a masters by research, a doctorate, or a Hong Kong or British National (Overseas) passport is under 50, not 50 or under
Where you have to be: in Australia when you apply, in or outside Australia when the decision is made
The six-month window: your course has to have been completed in the six months before the application, and at least the day before it. Applying on your completion date is a refusal
The study requirement: at least 92 weeks of CRICOS-registered course duration, over at least 16 calendar months of study while you were physically in Australia
English: a test in the last 12 months, meeting an overall score and a minimum in each of the four bands. Exempt if you are a citizen of the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand or Ireland holding that country's valid passport
Police check timing: you must have applied for an Australian Federal Police check no later than the day before the visa application. Same day is fatal
Cost: AUD $5,750, and it is not refunded if the application is refused
Graduate certificates stopped counting on 14 December 2024. A graduate diploma still counts, but only in narrow circumstances
The 485 is not a hard visa. Most of the criteria are binary: you are 35 or you are not, your English test was 11 months ago or 13. The one people get wrong is the police check. Applying for it the day before your visa application is fine. Applying for it the same day is a refusal.
What it is, is unforgiving. There is almost no discretion in it, the government charge of AUD $5,750 is not refunded when an application is refused, and the mistakes that cause refusals are mostly date errors made in the last 48 hours before applying. One day out on a police check is the same outcome as having a criminal record.
What is the Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485)?
The Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) is a temporary work visa for people who have just finished an eligible Australian qualification. It gives you between two and three years in Australia with full work rights: no cap on your hours, no restriction on your employer, and no requirement that your job relate to what you studied. Home Affairs puts the trade-off plainly: "You must find your own employment while on this visa."
It is not a points-tested skilled visa, and in the stream most graduates use there is no occupation list and no skills assessment. And it cannot be renewed: "We cannot extend this visa." When it ends you need a different visa, or you leave.
One condition is always attached: 8501, which requires you to keep adequate health insurance the whole time you hold the visa.
Which 485 stream am I in?
The stream decides the criteria, the length of stay and, in some cases, the charge. You nominate it in the application and cannot swap afterwards, so get it right before anything else.
A fourth stream, the Replacement stream, exists for a small group who previously held a graduate visa. It is narrow and outside the scope of this guide.
This guide covers the Post-Higher Education Work stream, the one most graduates use. If you finished a bachelor degree, an honours year, a masters or a doctorate at a CRICOS-registered Australian provider, that is your stream, whatever the subject. The vocational stream cares what your qualification is for, and it carries an external skills assessment with its own fees and months of waiting.
How long does a 485 last?
Between two and three years in the Post-Higher Education Work stream, set by your qualification. None of these periods is written into the Migration Regulations, which say only that the visa runs "until a date specified by the Minister". The table below is the Department's published position rather than the law.
Indian passport holders have their own figures, under side letters exchanged alongside the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement in April 2022. It is not a blanket uplift. An ordinary Indian bachelor graduate gets exactly what everyone else gets, and so does an Indian research-masters graduate.
The side letters say nothing about graduate diplomas. Nobody has published a figure, so do not assume it is two years.
Hong Kong and British National (Overseas) passport holders get up to 5 years, whatever the qualification.
The clock starts on the grant date, not the day you finish your degree.
Who is eligible for a 485 in 2026?
To get a Post-Higher Education Work stream 485 you need to be 35 or under, be in Australia on a Student visa or one held in the last six months, have finished an eligible degree in that window, and meet the study, English, insurance and police-check requirements. In the order these tend to knock people out:
Age: 35 or under on the day you apply. Being exactly 35 is fine. The exception, for people relying on a masters by research or a doctoral degree and for Hong Kong or British National (Overseas) passport holders, is under 50. Not 50 or under. A 50-year-old PhD graduate does not qualify.
You must be in Australia when you apply, and not standing at the border in immigration clearance. Once the application is in, you can be in or outside Australia when it is decided.
You have to hold an eligible visa. One of these:
You currently hold an eligible Student visa, or
You held one in the last six months and now hold a Bridging Visa A or B granted on a valid application, or
You held one in the last six months and now hold another substantive visa (a substantive visa is any visa other than a bridging visa)
A trap sits inside the words "eligible Student visa". It does not include a Student visa you held as somebody else's family member. If you studied here on your spouse's Student visa as a secondary applicant, this pathway is closed no matter how good your degree is.
Then:
Your course completed in the last six months, and at least the day before you apply
An eligible qualification meeting the study requirement: 92 weeks of registered course duration over at least 16 calendar months in Australia
English: a test in the last 12 months hitting an overall score and four band minimums, unless you hold an exempt passport
Health insurance for every person on the application, evidenced when you apply and kept running without a gap
An Australian Federal Police check applied for by you and everyone aged 16 or over, no later than the day before
The standard requirements: health, character, the Australian values statement if you are 18 or over, and no debt to the Commonwealth
One more thing stops people before any of the above. If your current visa carries condition 8503 or 8534, "No further stay", you cannot apply for a 485 through the normal online process at all. Home Affairs directs people in that position to an ImmiAccount technical support form. Get advice before you do anything else.
Have you already used your one shot?
If you have previously held a 485 or a 476 (Skilled Recognised Graduate) visa as the main applicant, you generally cannot be granted another one as the main applicant. For most people it is a once-per-lifetime visa.
The flat "never again" version is not quite right, in two ways:
Holding one as a secondary applicant does not bar you. If you were on a partner's 485 as their dependant, you can still apply in your own right. The rule is written around people who satisfied the primary criteria.
The bar is not absolute. There is an express exception for the regional second visa, the Second Post-Higher Education Work stream, with caps on how many graduate visas one person can hold in total.
For a first-time applicant coming off a Student visa, the simple version holds.
What is the Australian study requirement?
The study requirement is the rule that your study has to add up to at least 92 weeks of CRICOS-registered course duration, completed over at least 16 calendar months while you were physically in Australia. Both numbers have to be met. They are not alternatives.
This is the most-failed criterion, and the one where public information is worst. Across 26 months of public questions from 485 applicants, about 4,500 posts, the study requirement is the worst-answered topic: two in five of those questions get no reply at all, because the answer is arithmetic on a transcript only the person asking can see.
Four rules cause most of the damage.
The 92 weeks is registered duration, not elapsed time. Home Affairs is explicit: "if you take 92 weeks to successfully complete a course that CRICOS says should take 78 weeks, you will only receive credit for 78 weeks." Dragging a degree out over four years buys you nothing.
Credit can sink you, and where it came from decides everything. Credit for study in another CRICOS-registered Australian course counts toward both numbers. Credit for study done overseas, or in a non-CRICOS Australian course, counts toward neither. The same eight units of credit, which your transcript may call advanced standing, can be harmless or fatal depending purely on where the original study happened.
Failed subjects do not count. Only study you passed.
The 16 months catches high achievers. It runs from the start of lectures, not orientation, to the date you met all academic requirements. Finish a two-year masters in 14 months by overloading and taking credit, and you can hold a perfectly good degree and still fail the 485.
Masters by coursework is the level most likely to fall short on its own. On our own read of the CRICOS register, about one in four live coursework masters courses is registered for less than 92 weeks. Someone in that position can still get there by combining qualifications or relying on earlier Australian study, but a 78-week masters does not do it alone.
If credit has pushed you under, Home Affairs publishes three remedies, and all three take a semester. Those, the worked arithmetic and what to do about a course transfer are in our companion guide: the Australian study requirement, actually explained. If you took any credit, exemptions or recognition of prior learning, or you changed courses, start there. The operative rule is clause 485.231(1B) of the Migration Regulations 1994.
Which qualifications count for a 485?
An eligible qualification for the Post-Higher Education Work stream is a bachelor degree, a bachelor honours degree, a masters by coursework, extended masters or masters by research, a doctoral degree (research or professional), a higher doctorate, or, conditionally, a graduate diploma. It must be awarded by a CRICOS-registered Australian provider that offers courses at bachelor level or above.
Graduate certificates stopped counting on 14 December 2024. They were removed from the list, and the definition of "degree" in the regulations changed at the same time, so they are excluded at two levels at once.
There was no grandfathering, and the change keys off the date the application is made, not the date you finished studying. Somebody who completed a graduate certificate on 1 December 2024 and applied on 15 December 2024 was caught. Somebody who applied two days earlier was not.
Graduate diplomas still count, but only in two circumstances at once. The diploma has to relate to a preceding bachelor, masters or doctoral degree, and it has to have started in the same academic year that degree was completed, or the next one. A graduate diploma taken three years after your bachelor, in an unrelated field, is not eligible.
English-language courses and enabling or foundation programs never count.
When does the six-month window open and close?
Your application has to be made within six months of your course completion date, and your course has to have been completed at least the day before you apply. Home Affairs: "You must have completed your course at least the day before you submit your application." So the window has a floor as well as a ceiling, and applying too early fails for the same reason applying too late does.
The completion date is the day you met the academic requirements for your award. Not your graduation ceremony, and not the day your degree was formally conferred. It is also often not the date printed most prominently on your completion letter, which regularly carries three or four dates meaning different things. Getting it wrong is the most expensive single error available in a 485, and our full treatment is here: your 485 completion date is not your graduation date.
The three deadlines nobody puts on one page
The six-month window is the deadline everyone talks about. It is not the one that catches people. There are three, and the binding one is usually the first.
Your Student visa expiry. You have to hold an eligible visa when you apply. If your student visa runs out before your results are finalised, the six-month window is irrelevant, because you have nothing to apply from. This is the failure that turns into unlawful status, and it happens to people who are otherwise completely ready.
Completion date plus one day. The earliest you can apply.
Completion date plus six months. The latest.
If your results are going to land close to your student visa expiry, solve that first, and get advice rather than a checklist. Going unlawful for even a day creates problems that outlast the 485.
Tern Tip
Write all three dates down on the same piece of paper, today, before you do anything else. Most people who end up in real trouble were tracking one of them carefully and had simply not looked at the other two.
What is the English requirement for a 485?
Unless you hold an exempt passport, you need a test result from the last 12 months that meets both an overall score and a minimum in each of the four bands. The overall alone is not enough.
You are exempt if you are a citizen of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand or Ireland and hold that country's valid passport. Both halves matter: a citizen passport, valid when you apply.
Hong Kong and British National (Overseas) passport holders have a lower set of scores across every test, IELTS 6.0 overall with 5.0 in each band, for example.
Four more things to check:
C1 Advanced is not accepted for the 485, even though it is accepted for the "competent English" standard used by some other Australian visas. Same-sounding requirement, opposite answer.
There is no single-sitting requirement any more. That rule was dropped for tests taken from 7 August 2025, which is why IELTS One Skill Retake and MET Single Section Retake results are accepted. Both have to be finished before the application goes in.
OET has an overall-score trap. The four component minimums add up to 1110, but the required overall is 1310. You can clear every component and still fail. OET does not print an overall score on the report, so you have to contact OET for it.
Secondary applicants sit no English test at all. A partner or child included on your application has no English requirement.
The 12-month rule runs to the day before the application, the same way the police check does. A test sat 12 months and one day earlier is worth nothing.
When do I need my police check for a 485?
You must have applied for an Australian Federal Police check in the 12 months ending the day before your visa application. Not received it. Applied for it. And not on the same day.
Home Affairs states both edges: "you must not apply for the AFP check on the same day as your visa application" and "you must apply for the AFP check no earlier than 12 months before and no later than the day before your visa application date."
This is the cheapest, most avoidable refusal in the whole visa. It costs one day of patience, and it cannot be fixed afterwards, because the criterion asks what was true when the application was made.
A graduate applied for his police check after the visa application instead of before, produced a clean record two months later, and the refusal still stood.
A companion decision handed down the same day acknowledged that "the online form itself has some ambiguity on this issue", and held that the wording of the criterion governs regardless of how the online application summarises it.
The check has to be the right one
Getting the timing right and the certificate wrong lands in the same place.
It has to be an Australian Federal Police National Police Check, applied for through the AFP's online National Police Check portal. Home Affairs does not accept certificates from state or territory police, or from any other organisation.
It has to be a complete disclosure certificate, which comes from the purpose code you pick rather than a separate tickbox. Home Affairs is explicit: select Code 33, Immigration/Citizenship, for supply to the Department of Home Affairs. A standard-disclosure certificate obtained under an employment code is rejected like a state one.
Code 35 is the trap. It reads as "Overseas Visa", which sounds plausible when you are applying for a visa. Wrong code.
Everyone on the application aged 16 or over needs their own, on the same clock. A 16-year-old dependant's same-day application sinks the whole thing.
The receipt is enough. The certificate itself can arrive later. Home Affairs says the AFP system can take up to 24 hours to generate a receipt, and that "the AFP application submission confirmation page can be saved and used as evidence of the date you applied".
Do I need a police check from my home country?
Not to apply. An overseas police certificate sits in the "if requested" category for a 485, covering countries you have lived in for 12 months or more in the last 10 years since turning 16.
That matters because the panic version ("I cannot get a certificate from home, so I cannot apply") is wrong, and the fix people reach for is worse than the problem. Flying home to collect a document nobody has asked for risks the requirement that you be in Australia when you apply, and if the application is already in, a Bridging Visa A will not let you back in.
Why does health insurance matter more than you think?
Health insurance is not a box you tick once. It is tested at three separate moments, and the middle one catches people.
At application. Evidence of adequate cover for every applicant has to be attached when you apply.
Continuously, from application until the decision. This is a criterion, not a condition. A gap in cover while you are waiting is a ground for refusal, a much worse outcome than a condition breach.
For the life of the visa, under condition 8501, and under the same condition attached to your bridging visa while you wait.
So "I have interim Medicare now, can I cancel my overseas visitor cover?" has an uncomfortable answer while the visa is still pending. Cancelling before grant puts you at risk under the continuous-cover criterion.
For most graduates the practical version is a switch from student cover (OSHC) to visitor cover (OVHC) as the student visa ends. Start the new policy on or before the day you apply, with no gap, and keep the paperwork. Home Affairs accepts a signed letter from your insurer, a Medicare card, or proof of Medicare enrolment.
What does a 485 cost in 2026?
The government charge for a first Post-Higher Education Work stream 485 is AUD $5,750. An additional applicant aged 18 or over costs AUD $2,875, and one under 18 costs AUD $1,450. There is no second instalment.
Three facts complete the picture:
It is not refunded if the application is refused. Home Affairs: "We will not refund the Visa Application Charge if we refuse your application." The refund grounds in the regulations cover departmental error, an unnecessary application, or the death of the applicant. A refusal is not on the list.
There is no paid fast-track. The priority-processing fee that exists for some visas does not reach the 485. You cannot buy your way up the queue.
The charge has moved three times in fourteen months, and has more than doubled. It is set by regulation, and the enabling Act sets only a ceiling, far above the current figure. Treat future rises as possible rather than surprising.
Citizens holding a valid passport from one of 13 Pacific-regional countries pay a substantially lower charge, and it follows the primary applicant's passport for the whole family rather than each person's own.
If you spot a mistake before a decision is made, withdrawing the application in writing preserves a discretionary refund path. Letting it run through to a refusal does not. That is not a promise of a refund, but it is a door that shuts the moment the decision lands.
For the wider cost picture, including police checks, English tests and translations, see our guide to Australian visa costs.
Can my partner and children come with me?
Yes, but that decision is made on the day the application goes in, and it is close to irreversible.
They have to be in Australia to be included. A partner who is overseas cannot go on your application, however straightforward the relationship.
A partner cannot be added after you apply. Not by form, not by fee, not by request. There is no provision for it.
Children can be added until a decision is made, if they are in Australia and the extra charge is paid. A baby born while the application is being processed joins automatically and free, wherever they are born.
Joining later costs a full charge again. A family member who follows you after the grant, a subsequent entrant, pays the base charge of AUD $5,750, not the additional-applicant rate of AUD $2,875.
De facto partners need 12 months, unless the relationship is on a state or territory register.
Your family's health and character decide your visa as well as theirs. If someone on your application fails, you are refused with them.
The full treatment, including the child age ladder, what happens if a relationship ends, and the misleading tickbox on the general "add an applicant" form, is in our companion guide: adding your partner or children to a 485 application.
What documents do I need for a 485?
Four things are mandatory at the time you apply, and missing any is a criterion failure rather than a request for more information:
Evidence you completed your course. A certified copy of your provider's completion letter, showing the course start and end dates, the completion date, the campus, full-time or part-time, the language of instruction, and whether any of it was distance learning, plus certified copies of your transcripts. If you are relying on credit, the letter has to say so.
Your English test result, or your exempt passport.
Evidence you applied for an AFP check, for you and everyone on the application aged 16 or over.
Evidence of health insurance for every applicant.
A first 485 also requires Form 80 (personal particulars for character assessment) and Form 1221 (additional personal particulars). These are often assumed to be request-only. On a first 485 they are not: Home Affairs says "you must complete and provide" both. Form 80 wants a 10-year address history in chronological order with no gaps, plus a 10-year travel history. Start it early.
Then the obvious ones: passport, national identity card for some nationalities, a change-of-name document if your names differ across your paperwork, and identity and character documents for anyone included with you. Anything not in English needs a translation, from a NAATI-accredited translator if done in Australia.
What happens after you apply?
If you held a substantive visa when you applied, a Bridging Visa A is granted as part of the application and keeps you lawful while you wait. It does not activate until your current visa ends.
Your bridging visa dies the moment you leave Australia. A Bridging Visa A lets you remain in Australia. It does not let you re-enter. If you leave while it is in effect, it ceases, and you can be stuck outside the country with a pending application and no way back. The fix is a Bridging Visa B, applied for and granted before you go, with its own fee, and it is not automatic: the Department has to be satisfied your reasons for travelling are substantial. See our guide to bridging visas.
Grants are sometimes very fast and sometimes not. Published times move and differ by stream, so check our visa processing times tool or read how Australian visa processing times work. If an employer is waiting on a start date, a bridging visa with work rights is often enough for onboarding, but ask them.
Keep your health cover running and your contact details current. The continuous-cover criterion runs until the decision, not until the application.
Why do 485 visas get refused?
485 refusals are rarely judgement calls. They cluster in four places, all factual, all checkable before you apply.
The completion date. Applying on the day you completed, applying before you completed, or counting six months from the wrong date on a letter that carries several.
The study requirement. Short of 92 registered weeks after credit, or short of 16 calendar months in Australia, usually without knowing it.
The police check date. Applied for on the same day as the visa, not applied for beforehand at all, or the wrong certificate type.
The English test. Expired past 12 months, one band below the minimum while the overall score passes, or a test that is not accepted for this visa.
Behind all four sits a fifth: choosing the wrong stream, which cannot be changed once the application is made.
The uncomfortable part is what a refusal costs. The AUD $5,750 is gone. Your six-month window has usually run out by the time the refusal arrives, so there is often no second application to make. And a refusal stays on your immigration record permanently, which every future visa application will ask you about. That is the honest case for slowing down in the last week: not because the visa is difficult, but because it is unusually final.
Tern Tip
If your case has a genuine complication, a credit position that might have dropped you under 16 months, a prior refusal or cancellation, a No Further Stay condition, or a completion date you cannot pin down, that is a question for a professional rather than a checklist. Those situations turn on judgement, and getting them wrong is expensive.
Frequently asked questions
Can I apply for a 485 from outside Australia?
What if I have already held a 485?
Do I need a police certificate from my home country?
Can I travel overseas while my 485 is being processed?
Can I cancel my health insurance once I have Medicare?
What happens if my student visa expires before my results come out?
Does my partner need to sit an English test?
Where to start
The 485 rewards preparation earlier than most people give it, because the checks that matter are the ones you cannot do in the last week.
Six months out, or as soon as you take credit or change courses, work out your CRICOS-registered weeks and your months in Australia. If you are short, every remedy involves enrolling in something, which takes a semester.
Two months out, sit your English test. Leave room to resit a band.
The week your results are finalised, find your true completion date, then work backwards: police check applied for at least a day before, health insurance running, Form 80 and Form 1221 done.
Then wait one day, and apply.
Nobody talks a case officer into a 485. The outcome is settled by facts that already exist on the day you apply, which is frustrating and also freeing. There is no persuading to do, only checking.
Tern's Temporary Graduate service is not open yet. We are building it to run those checks against your own course and your own dates before anything is paid, and to submit the application only when it is ready. If you want to hear when it opens, join the waitlist.
