Australia’s graduate visa is dearer, shorter and harder to reach, and Indian graduates are counting the cost

A visa hundreds of thousands rely on

About 214,714 people held a subclass 485 visa in late February 2025, and Indians are comfortably the biggest national cohort among them, according to analysis by the higher education policy expert Andrew Norton. South Asian nationals made up around 60 per cent of all 485 holders while accounting for only 37 per cent of international students, a sign of how heavily Indian graduates in particular lean on this visa to turn an Australian degree into Australian work experience.

The 485 lets graduates stay and work temporarily after study. Since 1 July 2024 it has run in two streams, both renamed that day. The old Post-Study Work stream became the Post-Higher Education Work stream, for people with a bachelor degree or higher. The old Graduate Work stream became the Post-Vocational Education Work stream, for those with a diploma or trade qualification. The rename was the gentlest of the changes. The rest have been harder.

The fee that keeps climbing

The cost is the change graduates feel first. Until March 2026 the main application charge was A$2,300 for the primary applicant. On 1 March 2026 it doubled to A$4,600. From 1 July 2026 it rose again, to A$5,750. That is two and a half times the old price in the space of four months.

For a graduate who has already paid tuition, rent and a student visa charge, staying on now begins with a bill approaching six thousand dollars before a single form is lodged.

The age wall

For older graduates, money is not even the first hurdle. From 1 July 2024 the maximum age for most 485 applicants dropped from 50 to 35. The cut does not fall on everyone. The government kept the age 50 threshold for graduates of a masters by research or a PhD, and for Hong Kong and British National (Overseas) passport holders. Yet for the large majority, those with a bachelor degree or a coursework masters, 35 is now the ceiling.

Shorter stays, narrower paths

The time on offer has shrunk too. Under the current rules the Post-Higher Education Work stream runs for two years for a bachelor or coursework masters graduate and three years for a research masters or doctoral graduate, while the Post-Vocational Education Work stream lasts up to 18 months. The extra two years once granted to graduates of select degrees in shortage areas was scrapped, which cut the maximum stay for doctoral graduates from six years to three. From 1 July 2024 the government also stopped people already holding a 485 or a visitor visa from applying for a student visa onshore, closing a route many had used to buy more time.

So does Australia still pay off?

The honest answer is that the sum has become tighter and less forgiving. A higher upfront cost, a shorter runway and an age line at 35 all narrow the odds that the visa converts into permanent residence, which was always the real prize.

And yet the pull has not vanished. Australian wages are high, the largest 485 cohort in the country is still Indian, and for a young graduate with a first class STEM degree the numbers can still add up. What has changed is who the visa rewards. It now favours the young, the highly qualified and the financially prepared, and it is quietly unkind to the older career changer, the vocational graduate and anyone who assumed the rules that applied on arrival would still apply at graduation. For hundreds of thousands of Indians weighing an Australian degree, the visa at the end is no longer a safe assumption. It is a calculation, and the price of getting it wrong has gone up.