Can you apply for your student visa from inside Australia?
New rules effective from 2 October 2026 require many applicants to apply from offshore. Complete the questions below to evaluate your visa application eligibility.
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Your Situation
General information only, not immigration advice. This check is based on the Migration Regulations 1994 and the Home Affairs changes that started on 2 October 2026. Your full circumstances, such as visa conditions or past refusals, can change the answer. Speak to a registered migration agent before you apply, leave Australia or change your study plans. Applications lodged before 2 October 2026 stay under the old rules.
The new rules explained
Who must apply from outside Australia
- Anyone in Australia holding one of the 17 listed visas (LIN 26/102). Applies to 500 and 590.
- Anyone in Australia without a substantive visa, apart from the narrow item 1222(4A) and (4B) exceptions.
- A Student visa holder applying again as the main student, unless an exception applies.
- A Student visa dependant who now wants to be the main student. No exceptions.
Student visa holders who can still apply in Australia
- Defence or DFAT sponsored students, and school students.
- Enrolled in a doctoral course when they apply.
- Provider default: enrolled on the default day, within 12 months of it, first application for that default.
- Completion: principal course started (or alternative principal course, same provider), finishing within 12 months of the CoE end date.
- Progression: principal course completed, one further course at a higher AQF level. Higher education must move to higher education at a higher education provider. After a non-AQF course the next must have an AQF level, unless the earlier study was school.
Including your partner and children
- Included only if the student is Defence or DFAT sponsored, holds a Pacific or ASEAN passport, is enrolled in a doctoral course, or every course is fully funded by a foreign government.
- Family already on a Student visa on 2 October 2026, and children born in Australia after it, can be included only in an onshore application.
- Everyone lodges together, same time, same place. No subsequent entrants.
When your visa is decided
- A 500 applicant required to lodge offshore must also be offshore at grant (cl 500.411(1)). No bridging visa to wait onshore.
- The reform adds no offshore-at-grant rule for the 590.
Pacific regional countries: Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. ASEAN (item 1222(5A)): Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. Confirm against reg 1.03.
