Your 482 visa is national but your children’s school fees are not

Two engineers arrive in Australia on the same visa, in the same month, sponsored by the same employer. One takes the Melbourne role and one takes the Canberra role. Each enrols a child in Year 3 at the local government school.

The Melbourne family pays nothing. The Canberra family pays $11,100 a year.

Nothing about the visa differs. Nothing about the child differs. The only variable is which state or territory the job was in, and every one of the eight has written its own rule.

What each jurisdiction charges in 2026

Victoria charges nothing. The Department of Education’s international student visa fee table classes subclass 482, along with 457 and 494, under skilled employees, with fees payable marked no, and records that these families are not required to enrol in the international student program at all. This is the single most misreported fee in the country. Commercial pages routinely quote Victorian dependant rates of $13,600 for primary and higher for secondary. Those rates are real, but they apply to fee-liable dependants, chiefly of certain student visa holders. They do not apply to a 482 family.

Tasmania charges nothing either, for 482 and 457 holders. Its schedule marks the tuition fee for both subclasses as no. Subclass 494 is treated differently and pays half the temporary residents program fee, where the base rate is $7,600 from Prep to Year 12. So in Tasmania the regional provisional visa costs a family thousands while the skilled visa costs nothing.

New South Wales charges $6,400 per student per year for primary and for Years 7 to 10, rising to $7,600 for Years 11 and 12, plus a $150 application fee. The scheme is the Temporary Residents Program. Since October 2024 there has been a full exemption for 482 holders living in listed regional postcodes, and families outside that can appeal to an exemption review panel on low income grounds.

South Australia charges $6,700 for primary and $7,900 for secondary per student, and then waives it comprehensively at the lower end. There is no fee where household income is at or below $75,000, with a sliding scale extending to $101,000, $120,000 and $139,000 depending on the number of children. A 10 per cent sibling discount applies, and country schools on a published list are exempt.

Western Australia charges $4,000 per family, not per student. A family with one child and a family with four pay the same amount. There is no fee where the oldest child is in Kindergarten, and a full or partial waiver applies where family income is at or below $75,000. For a large family, Western Australia is by a wide margin the cheapest jurisdiction that charges at all.

The Northern Territory charges $7,196 for primary, $8,208 for Years 7 to 9 and $8,954 for Years 10 to 12, per student, plus a one-off $240 application fee. No exemption or waiver appears on its published fee material.

Queensland charges by the week. The rate is $314 a week for primary, $322 for Years 7 to 9, $340 for Year 10, $385 for Year 11 and $396 for Year 12, per student, with a $305 application fee including GST. Roughly one term is required upfront. Across a forty week school year that is about $12,560 for a primary student, though that annual figure is a calculation rather than a published departmental number, because the department publishes weekly rates only. Relief is limited to significant financial hardship at the Director-General’s discretion.

The Australian Capital Territory charges the most, at $11,100 for primary, $14,500 for Years 7 to 10 and $16,200 for Years 11 and 12, per student, plus a $265 application fee. It also offers something no other jurisdiction does: an occupation-based exemption. A 482 holder whose occupation is on the Core Skills Occupation List, working and living in the Territory, may apply to have the fee waived.

What that adds up to for one family

Take a 482 family with two children, one in Year 4 and one in Year 8, on a household income above every waiver threshold.

In Victoria and Tasmania they pay nothing. In Western Australia they pay $4,000, because the charge is per family. In New South Wales they pay $12,800. In South Australia they pay $14,600 before the sibling discount, and $14,110 after it. In the Northern Territory they pay $15,404. In the Australian Capital Territory they pay $25,600. In Queensland, on the weekly rates across a forty week year, the figure lands near $25,400.

The same visa, the same two children, and a spread from zero to more than $25,000.

The three variables that decide your bill

Beyond the headline rate, three structural differences move real money.

The unit of charging is the first. Western Australia charges per family. Everyone else that charges does so per student. For a family with three or four school-aged children, that single design choice is worth more than any rate difference.

The income test is the second, and it is where South Australia and Western Australia diverge sharply from the eastern states. Both use $75,000 as the threshold at which a family pays nothing, and South Australia extends relief well beyond it on a sliding scale. New South Wales has an appeal route rather than a published threshold. Queensland has hardship discretion. The Northern Territory publishes nothing.

The geography test is the third. New South Wales exempts 482 holders in listed regional postcodes entirely. South Australia exempts a published list of country schools. Neither Queensland nor the Australian Capital Territory has a regional test, though the Territory’s occupation-based exemption is a different route to the same place for a family whose occupation qualifies.

What the legacy and regional visas do differently

Subclass 457 holders are treated identically to 482 holders in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania, and Queensland folds 457 into the same row as 482.

Subclass 494, the skilled employer sponsored regional visa, is where the pattern breaks. Tasmania charges 494 families half the temporary residents program fee while charging 482 families nothing. Queensland treats 494 the same as 482, meaning fees are payable. The Australian Capital Territory offers 494 holders an exemption pathway that requires a Territory nomination letter.

A family holding a regional visa specifically designed to send skilled workers outside the major cities can therefore end up paying more for school than a family on the metropolitan visa, depending on which state they land in.

Student visa dependants are a different question again

Dependants of subclass 500 student visa holders are generally treated less favourably, and the rules vary by what the parent is studying.

New South Wales charges them the same temporary residents program fees. In Victoria, dependants of higher education sector students are fee liable, while dependants of postgraduate research students are exempt. Queensland exempts only the dependants of PhD and masters by research students, and only for the duration of the parent’s course. Western Australia waives fees during masters by research or doctoral study, with the waiver not applying before or after the study period, and has flagged that masters by coursework waivers granted before 30 November 2026 will continue while later ones will not. Tasmania follows the sponsoring student’s subclass, with schools sector students paying full international fees.

For an Indian family weighing a masters by coursework against a masters by research, the difference in school fees for two children can exceed the difference in tuition.

What New South Wales said when it created its exemption

The regional exemption is the one significant reform in this area in recent years, and the reasoning behind it applies to every jurisdiction.

Prue Car, the NSW Minister for Education and Early Learning, framed it in October 2024 as making it easier for skilled regional visa holders to enrol their children in their local public school.

Steve Whan, the Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, was blunter about the purpose: “These changes will help make NSW a more attractive destination for those skilled workers we need to plug critical skills shortages.”

The department stated the exemption would benefit more than 3,500 students and their families, waiving up to $7,400 per year. That per year figure reflects rates in force at the time and does not match the current published schedule of $6,400 and $7,600, so it should be quoted with its date attached.

The logic is worth sitting with. New South Wales concluded that charging skilled workers thousands of dollars a year to send their children to the local school was a deterrent to attracting them. Victoria and Tasmania reached that conclusion for the whole state. Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory have not.

What nobody can tell you

[Unverified] No state or territory publishes the number of temporary visa dependants enrolled in its government schools. There is no national figure and no by-state table. The only public number found in this research is the New South Wales estimate of more than 3,500 students benefiting from the regional exemption, which covers one exemption in one state.

That means there is no way to say how many children are affected by this patchwork, or what it collects in total. Answering it would require a freedom of information request to each of eight departments.

[Unverified] No named 482 family, parents’ group or academic could be found on the public record speaking about these fees. The commentary in this area is almost entirely produced by migration agents with a commercial interest, which is why none of it is cited here.

Before you accept the job

Ask the fee question before you sign, not after you arrive. It is the single largest predictable cost difference between two otherwise identical offers, and it is invisible in any salary comparison.

Check the exemption you might already qualify for. If you are moving to regional New South Wales, check the postcode list. If you are moving to the Australian Capital Territory, check whether your occupation is on the Core Skills Occupation List, because the Territory’s exemption is occupation-based and it converts the most expensive jurisdiction in the country into a free one. If your household income is at or below $75,000, check South Australia and Western Australia’s waivers.

Verify with the department, not with a migration agent’s blog. The single most common error in circulation is the claim that Victoria charges 482 dependants, and it is wrong. Departmental pages are the authority, and every figure in this article comes from one.

And if you have more than two children, the Western Australian model is worth understanding, because it is the only one in the country that does not multiply the bill by the size of your family.

Sources

Every date, figure and quotation in this article is drawn from the sources below. They are listed so you can check the record yourself.

• Victorian Department of Education, "International student visa fee table"
• Study Melbourne, Victorian Government, "School fees for international students"
• NSW Department of Education, "Temporary residents program, fees"
• NSW Department of Education, "Workers filling regional skills gaps given access to free public education"
• Queensland Department of Education, "DE International schedule of visa subclasses and enrolment conditions"
• Education Queensland International, "School fees and charges"
• Western Australian Department of Education, "Fees for temporary resident visa holders"
• South Australian Department for Education, "Temporary residents school fees"
• Tasmanian Department for Education, Children and Young People, "International student visa subclasses and fees"
• ACT Education Directorate, "International student fees"
• Northern Territory Department of Education and Training, "International student fees"
• Department of Home Affairs, "Skills in Demand visa, subclass 482"
• Department of Home Affairs, "Core Skills Occupation List"
• Department of Home Affairs, "Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa, subclass 494"