Labor's Visa-Hopping Crackdown: New Rules for Students and Agents
On 2 October 2026 the Labor government announced a crackdown on international students accused of visa hopping and on migration agents and lawyers accused of gaming the system. The Guardian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the new rules to end student visa hopping started that day.
The student part centres on changing courses. Students will soon need a separate visa to transfer to a different course. From 1 July 2027, a student visa will not be extended for a course transfer. Until then, a student cannot change courses within 12 months of starting.
That adds to the existing ban on moving down the Australian Qualifications Framework, the national ranking of qualifications. Students already cannot switch from a higher qualification, such as a bachelor or masters degree, to a lower one such as a vocational course.
Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill pitched the package to the Migration Institute of Australia as a fix for entrenched temporariness. He said it would stop the rise of permanently temporary migration. Burke put it more bluntly. In the government's words: the hopping stops now.
The adviser part is still only a proposal. The government wants to ban migration agents from helping with an application they know, or reasonably should know, has no reasonable factual or legal basis. Home Affairs will consult on how to hold migration lawyers to account for baseless visa claims. No draft legal instrument has been released. For now it is intent, not law.
The government is using regulation, which means changing migration rules without passing a new law. It says it is doing this because it does not have the support of the Coalition or the Greens. It cannot legislate it.
The government says its target is net overseas migration, arrivals minus departures, of 225,000 by 2028, down from almost 300,000 a year. It also points to more than 400,000 people in Australia on bridging visas, which are temporary visas that let people stay while they wait for a decision on another visa.
The department has been working on onshore applications since mid-2024. More than 36,000 visitor-to-student visa applications were lodged from 1 July 2023 to the end of May 2024, according to the Home Affairs release titled "Ending 'visa hopping' in the migration system" issued under Clare O'Neil. Home Affairs The student visa fee was raised from $710 to $1,600 from 1 July 2024. Hill later told ABC RN Breakfast that most visa-hopping restrictions started on 1 July.
In December 2023 the government said tighter visa rules for international students and low-skilled workers could halve the migrant intake. In March 2024 it started tougher English and genuineness tests as migration hit a record high. In August 2024 it said it would cap new international student enrolments at 270,000 for 2025. Reuters In September 2026 it acted on private colleges suspended from registering new courses for international students, on overstayers including students and backpackers, and on dependants, saying it would stop foreign students bringing partners and children with them while they study. ABC Burke also made the case at the National Press Club on 17 September 2026.
The broader context here is Labor wants fewer onshore extensions, fewer bridging visa holders moving between courses and tribunals, and fewer low-merit applications keeping that cycle going. A separate transfer visa plus a 12-month lock-in and then a hard stop on extensions from July 2027 is designed to force the decision offshore. Apply again, pay again, and risk refusal. Those two figures on net migration and bridging visas do most of the explaining in Canberra, and reaching for the rule book is what Home Affairs ministers tend to do when Senate numbers fail.
In my view the test will not be the student rules. Those are administratively straightforward, however harsh providers find them. The test is the adviser proposal. A reasonable-basis test for agents is easy to announce and hard to police, and any move on lawyers raises questions about professional privilege, merits review rights and where Home Affairs draws the line between hopeless and merely weak. Consultation will bring that out quickly. The bridging visa stock explains why the government is prepared to try anyway.
