$2.45 Billion Paid in Visa Fees in One Year
$2.45 Billion Paid in Visa Fees in One Year
A category-by-category breakdown of what Home Affairs collected in application charges in 2024–25, and why the numbers matter for every agent, provider, and sponsor in the system.
Every visa application in Australia carries a fee. None of those fees are refundable if the visa is refused. In 2024–25, across just six visa categories, that added up to approximately $2.45 billion.
Home Affairs received over 9.48 million temporary and permanent visa applications in 2024–25. The refusal rate sat around 7.3 per cent across the program. For student visas alone, it was 18.1 per cent.
Every refused application was a fee paid. Every withdrawn application was a fee paid. Every successful application was also a fee paid. The fee flows to government regardless of outcome.
This piece breaks down what that looks like across the six categories that carry the heaviest fee load: Student, Partner, Visitor, Employer Sponsorship, Temporary Graduate, and Administrative Review Tribunal reviews.
Six Categories · 2024–25
01 · Student visa
The program that made $683 million, with $123 million of it from refusals.
427,131 student visa applications were lodged in 2024–25. That is down 26.4 per cent on the prior year, reflecting the Migration Strategy’s tightening of the student visa program.
At a base application charge of $1,600 (the fee that applied from 1 July 2024 after the 125 per cent increase from $710), the revenue calculation is straightforward. 427,131 applications × $1,600 = $683.4 million.
Refusal Revenue
At an 18.1 per cent refusal rate, around 77,000 applicants paid $1,600 for a refusal.
Revenue from refused student visa applications alone: approximately $123 million.
The fee has since moved again, to $2,000 from 1 July 2025. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecast that increase alone would generate an additional $185 million per year.
02 · Partner visa
The quieter heavyweight: $619 million from one-seventh the volume.
68,105 Partner visa applications were lodged in 2024–25, across both the onshore (820/801) and offshore (309/100) pathways. The base application charge is $9,095.
68,105 × $9,095 = approximately $619 million. That is nearly as much as the student visa program generates on 16 per cent of the volume, because the partner visa fee is 5.7 times higher than the student visa fee.
International comparison · family reunion visa fees
Australia: AUD $9,095
United Kingdom: approximately AUD $3,550
New Zealand: approximately AUD $3,060
Canada: approximately AUD $1,500
Australia charges three to six times the comparable rate in other Western countries for exactly the same visa purpose: living with your spouse. The $619 million figure also excludes secondary applicants. Each dependent adult is another $4,550. Each child under 18 is $2,280. A partner visa application with two children costs $13,655 in fees alone.
03 · Visitor program
5.4 million applications. At least $470 million in fees.
The visitor program is the highest-volume category in the Australian visa system. In 2024–25, 5,435,553 applications were lodged across the three visitor subclasses.
The fee calculation is more complex because the visitor program spans three distinct charging structures. The Subclass 600 Tourist, Business and Sponsored streams, representing 2,225,431 applications, attract a base charge of $190 offshore or $490 onshore. The Electronic Travel Authority (subclass 601) carries a $20 service charge. The eVisitor (subclass 651), available to European passport holders, is free.
At a conservative $190 blended rate for the Subclass 600 streams, plus ETA revenue, the visitor program generated approximately $470 million in 2024–25. The true number is higher because Frequent Traveller stream visas carry a $1,680 fee and are not captured in the conservative base calculation.
04 · Employer sponsorship
The $415 million that sponsors pay, most of it non-refundable.
The employer sponsorship system is a three-layer fee structure. Sponsors pay the Standard Business Sponsorship application fee at the start. Nominations attract a fee plus the Skilling Australians Fund levy. Visa applications carry their own charge.
In 2024–25, 68,194 TSS and Skills in Demand nominations were lodged, up 30.9 per cent on the prior year. 86,235 primary visa applications were lodged, up 34.5 per cent.
Employer sponsorship revenue breakdown
Nomination fees: 68,194 × $330 = ~$22.5 million
SAF levy: 68,194 × $2,600 average (2 years × $1,300/yr blended) = ~$177 million
Visa application charges: 86,235 × $2,500 blended = ~$215 million
Total employer sponsorship revenue: approximately $415 million
The SAF levy alone generates $177 million annually. This is money paid by businesses to fund training for Australian workers, specifically the workers the Department has already determined could not be found to fill the role. The levy is non-refundable in almost all circumstances. If the nomination is refused, the employer pays anyway.
05 · Temporary Graduate visa
The visa that doubled in price, twice.
Subclass 485 lodgements fell 30.6 per cent in 2024–25 compared with 2023–24, reflecting the major reforms introduced on 1 July 2024: shorter visa duration, age cap reduced to 35, English requirement lifted to IELTS 6.5, and removal of the two-year extension for skills shortage fields.
The fee moved twice during the year, from $1,895 to $2,235 on 1 February 2025, then from $2,235 to $2,300 on 1 July 2025. Blended across the year, the average fee was approximately $2,000. Revenue estimate: $150 to $170 million.
The fee then doubled again, to $4,600, on 1 March 2026. At the new rate, the same volume would generate over $350 million annually.
06 · Administrative Review Tribunal
The refusal tax: $3,496 per migration review.
The Administrative Review Tribunal commenced on 14 October 2024, replacing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Migration review fees sit at $3,496 per application. Protection visa reviews are $2,151, payable on unsuccessful outcomes.
Full-year lodgement numbers are fragmented by the mid-year transition, but sector reporting indicates around 50,000 combined migration and refugee review lodgements across 2024–25. Student visa appeals alone represented approximately 70 per cent of migration review lodgements in the early months of ART operation.
Conservative revenue estimate across migration and refugee reviews: well north of $100 million.
The Argument
At what point does a visa application charge stop being cost recovery?
Visa application charges are formally described as cost recovery: a fee to process the application. The Department receives the fee, the Department processes the application, the Department decides.
But cost recovery does not increase 125 per cent in a single year. Cost recovery does not double, twice, in eighteen months. Cost recovery does not generate $683 million from a single visa program and $177 million from a levy that funds a separate department.
What 2024–25 shows is that visa fees have become a revenue instrument. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook’s $185 million forecast from the student visa increase was not framed as cost recovery. It was framed as revenue.
Three data points worth holding together:
1. The student visa charge has moved from $710 to $2,000 in eighteen months.
2. The 485 visa charge doubled to $4,600 on 1 March 2026.
3. Six visa categories alone generated approximately $2.45 billion in fees in 2024–25.
Why this matters for agents, providers, and sponsors.
For agents, every refused visa is both a client outcome and a direct cost to the client. The $683 million from student visas includes $123 million from refusals. The job is not just to lodge the application. The job is to lodge the right application, with the right evidence, the first time, because the fee is gone either way.
For providers, the cost of a student visa refusal now sits at $2,000 per applicant. When refusal rates lift, as they did with the India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan Level 3 reclassification, the total cost to the pipeline compounds quickly. A 32.5 per cent refusal rate on 1,000 applicants is $650,000 in lost fees before a single enrolment is counted.
For sponsors, the SAF levy and nomination fees now represent a meaningful line item in every sponsorship decision. A small business sponsoring one worker for two years on a Skills in Demand visa pays approximately $3,450 in government fees before professional services are counted.
Decision-ready applications are the only defence. When the fee is gone either way, the quality of the submission is the only variable the applicant and their representative control.
Sources
Department of Home Affairs, The Administration of the Immigration and Citizenship Programs (15th Edition, October 2025)
Department of Home Affairs, BR0112 Visitor Visa Program Report (30 June 2025)
Department of Home Affairs, published Visa Application Charges effective 1 July 2024, 1 February 2025, and 1 July 2025
Administrative Review Tribunal fee schedule (2024–25)
Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Skilling Australians Fund levy rates
About the author
Jan Karel Bejcek is the founder of Educli, a compliance and workflow operating system for MARA-registered migration agents and CRICOS-registered education providers in Australia. He has over 20 years of experience across agent, provider, and compliance roles in the international education and migration sectors.