Can you apply for your student visa from inside Australia?
New rules mean many people now have to apply from outside Australia. Answer a few quick questions to see where you can apply from, where you need to be when your visa is decided, and whether your partner or children can be included.
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.