Australia’s Working Holiday Program Is Structurally Lopsided, and the 2024-25 Numbers Prove It
Published 3 August 2026 | Jan Karel Bejcek, MARN 0965239
The Working Holiday Maker program had a record year. Total grants across subclass 417 and subclass 462 reached 321,116 in 2024-25, up 36.9 per cent on the year before and above the previous peak set in 2012-13. Onshore holders at 30 June 2025 reached 210,971, up 21.8 per cent.
Behind that headline sits a program built on two very different sets of rules, and the final 2024-25 data shows exactly how uneven the outcome is.
One Country Outweighs the Whole Capped System
Subclass 417 covers 19 mostly European and East Asian passports. There is no annual cap, no ballot, and no functional English requirement. Subclass 462 covers 30 other countries, most of which carry an annual cap on first grants, several use a ballot, and a functional English requirement applies.
In 2024-25, subclass 417 delivered 254,905 grants, up 31.4 per cent. Subclass 462 delivered 66,211 grants, up 62.9 per cent, growing more than twice as fast in percentage terms but starting from a much smaller base. The United Kingdom alone accounted for 79,412 first 417 grants, up 68.1 per cent and still the single largest driver of the 417 total.
UK 417 grants alone, at 79,412, exceed the entire subclass 462 total of 66,211 across all 30 eligible countries combined.
Subclass 417 made up 79.4 per cent of total WHM grants for the year. Subclass 462 made up 20.6 per cent. One uncapped subclass, drawing from a narrower group of passports, outweighs a capped subclass spread across thirty countries by a factor of roughly four to one.
Two Different Reasons for the Same Pause Status
Brazil offers the clearest contrast. Its 500 place cap for the 2025-26 program year was confirmed closed as of 19 May 2026, with all places exhausted after 464 first applications were lodged in just the first half of the prior program year. That is demand running hot enough to close a cap outright, well before the program year ends.
As at 29 July 2026, the Department of Home Affairs country cap status page shows the majority of subclass 462 caps as paused, including Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Spain and Thailand among others. Only Ecuador, Peru, San Marino and Turkiye show as open, with China, India and Vietnam managed separately through the pre-application ballot process.
A single status label, paused, is being used to describe two very different situations. For a country like Austria, trending toward its ceiling, a pause plausibly reflects genuine cap pressure. For a country like Slovakia, sitting well under 15 per cent of a cap that has not historically come close to filling, the same label offers no explanation at all. The department’s own guidance states that pauses may be used either to manage lodgement flow or to monitor a cap nearing its limit, but the country cap status page does not disclose which reason applies to which country, or how close any paused country actually sits to its ceiling.
What This Means for Applicants and Agents
Applicants and agents working the 462 pathway are left checking a status indicator rather than a number. Open, paused or closed tells you the current state but not the trajectory, and not how far a country sits from its cap. Given the scale of year on year growth seen across the CEE bloc, and the possibility that a country such as Slovakia could accelerate in the same way Austria did the year before, that gap in visibility carries real planning risk for anyone advising clients on timing.
The broader program is not secretive so much as structurally uneven. A small number of mostly European and English speaking passports move through subclass 417 with no cap and no functional English requirement, carrying almost four fifths of total WHM volume. A larger and more diverse group of thirty countries compete for capped subclass 462 places, under conditions and real time fill data the department does not publish.
Sources: Department of Home Affairs, Administration of the Immigration and Citizenship Programs, 15th Edition (October 2025); DHA report BR0110, Working Holiday Maker visa program, 30 June 2025; DHA Status of Country Caps page, updated 29 July 2026.
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