Student visa applications from 2 October 2026 - who can no longer apply onshore

Updated 2 October 2026: an earlier version of this article said that, apart from Defence, Foreign Affairs and school students, every Student visa holder applying for a new Student visa had to apply from outside Australia. That was incomplete. A second instrument in force from the same day, LIN 26/087 (F2026L01349), adds four more exempt groups - doctoral students, students affected by provider default, students finishing their course and students going up to a higher-level course - and four groups of family members. We have corrected the sections on exemptions and dependants below.

Two separate changes commenced on 2 October 2026, and they are often reported as one. They are not. One closes the door to people on other temporary visas. The other closes it to people who already hold a Student visa. If you only read about the first, you will miss the one that affects far more people already in Australia.

The instruments

All three commenced on 2 October 2026. LIN 26/102 also repeals the earlier instrument registered a week before, which listed only nine visas - so if you were working from that list, it is gone.

Change 1: seventeen visa types cannot apply onshore

If you hold one of the visas below, you cannot make a valid Student visa application while you are in Australia. The application must be made offshore.

Three things in that table that get reported wrongly

• Subclass 403 is not blanket. Only the Domestic Worker (Diplomatic or Consular) stream is listed. Every other 403 stream is unaffected by this instrument.
• Subclass 995 is conditional. It only bites where the visa was granted having satisfied the Division 995.2 criteria - not every 995 holder.
• Subclass 482 appears twice because the two naming conventions, Skills in Demand and the older Temporary Skill Shortage, are listed as separate items. Both are caught, so the practical answer is simply that a 482 is on the list.

Counted as subclasses rather than as table items, that is sixteen - which is why you will see both numbers quoted.

Change 2: Student visa holders must apply from outside Australia unless exempt

This is the one that catches people already studying here. Where you hold a Subclass 500 and you are applying for another Subclass 500 as the main student (against the primary criteria), you must be outside Australia to make the application - unless you fall into one of the exempt classes below.

Three exempt classes are written into the Regulations themselves:

• Defence students
• Foreign Affairs students
• School students, as defined in clause 500.111 of Schedule 2

Four more are specified in LIN 26/087, sections 16 to 19, also in force from 2 October 2026:

• Doctoral students - at the time you apply, you are enrolled in a course leading to a doctoral degree.
• Provider default - you could not complete a registered course because your provider defaulted, you were enrolled in it on the default day, you need a further visa for an alternative course, you apply within 12 months after the default day, and you have not already applied because of the same default.
• Finishing your course - you hold a Subclass 500, have started the principal course your visa was granted for (or an alternative principal course with the same provider that is consistent with your visa), have not finished it, and will complete it within 12 months of the end date on its Confirmation of Enrolment.
• Going up a course - you hold a Subclass 500, have completed your principal course, and are enrolled in no more than one further course at a higher AQF level. If the course you completed was a higher education course, the next one must also be a higher education course with a higher education provider.

Two groups get no exemption at all. If you hold your Student visa as a partner or child and now want your own Student visa as the main student, you must apply from outside Australia - the exempt classes only help people who hold their visa as the main student. And if you fit none of the classes above - for example, you have finished your course and want to enrol in another course at the same or a lower AQF level - the application now has to be lodged while you are offshore. Our guide to who can still apply for a student visa walks through each exemption.

Dependants are restricted separately

A person applying against the secondary criteria - a partner or child - may now only apply where one of a specific set of circumstances applies. In outline, that is where the primary applicant is a Defence or Foreign Affairs student or holds a passport from a Pacific-regional country or one of the ten specified South-East Asian countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam); or where the dependant is already in Australia and their position is continuous with an earlier Student visa held or applied for before these changes commenced; or where the child was born in Australia after commencement to a parent who held or had applied for a Student visa.

LIN 26/087 (sections 20 to 23) adds four more groups: family members of a student whose course or courses are fully funded by a foreign government; family members of a doctoral student; and, where the family member already holds a Student visa as a member of that student’s family, family members of a student affected by provider default or of a student finishing their course within the 12-month window. The drafting is detailed and the dates matter, so this is one to check against the provision itself rather than from any summary, including this one.

The narrow door for a cancelled visa set aside on review

The general 28-day window that let a former Student visa holder without a substantive visa apply in Australia has been repealed, so that group now applies from outside Australia.

The Regulations also insert a limited pathway for an applicant who holds no substantive visa, where their last substantive visa was a student visa that was cancelled, the ART set the cancellation aside after the visa had already ceased, and the application is made within 28 days of notification of that decision. It is available only if the applicant has not previously been granted a visa on an application made while holding no substantive visa. If this describes you, those 28 days are the whole of it - see our guide to student visa refusal review at the ART.

What this means in practice

• The lodgement date decides. These rules apply to applications made on or after 2 October 2026. An application already validly lodged is not retrospectively invalidated by them.
• Offshore means when you apply. The requirement is about where you are at the moment the application is made.
• Leaving and returning is not a workaround to improvise. Departing Australia has consequences for your current visa, any bridging visa, and your course enrolment. Get advice before you book anything.
• This is separate from the section 48 bar. A refusal or cancellation in Australia brings its own restriction, which these changes do not displace - see our guide to the section 48 bar.
• Condition 8503 still applies on top. If your visa carries a no further stay condition, it binds you regardless of any of the above - see condition 8503 and how a waiver works.

If you are affected

The two questions worth answering before anything else are what visa you hold today, and whether you fall inside one of the exempt classes. Your grant notice answers the first; your Confirmation of Enrolment and course history usually answer the second. If you are on a 417, 462, 485, 600 or a 482 and were planning to move onto a Student visa without leaving the country, that plan has changed, and it changed on 2 October.

We can look at your grant notice, tell you which of these two rules catches you, and set out what is actually open - including whether the genuine student requirement is likely to be a problem on a fresh application. Our guide to the genuine student requirement covers the ground that most often decides a student application.

Sources

• Migration Amendment (Student Visa Reform) Regulations 2026 (F2026L01347), made 1 October 2026, commenced 2 October 2026 - Schedule 1, items 7, 9, 11, 13 and 14.
• Migration (Student Visa Applications to Be Made from outside Australia) Instrument 2026 (LIN 26/102) (F2026L01348), made 1 October 2026, commenced 2 October 2026.
• Migration (LIN 20/158: Class of Persons for Student (Temporary) (Class TU) Visa Applications) Amendment Instrument 2026 (LIN 26/087) (F2026L01349), made 1 October 2026, commenced 2 October 2026 - sections 16 to 23.
• Migration Regulations 1994 - Schedule 1, item 1222, including subregulation 1222(5A).
• Department of Home Affairs, Changes to Student visa application rules (subclasses 500 and 590).