Welcome back to Built to RUN.

In Issue 1, we covered the new Migration Agent Regulations that commenced 1 April 2026 — including the CPD changes, registration requirements, and what the transitional provisions actually mean for your renewal. If you missed it, the full breakdown is on the Educli blog: April 2026 legislative changes — full analysis →

This issue: the data that’s shaping your pipeline right now, what the GS and evidence level framework means for your daily practice, and two things on the horizon worth knowing about.

That headline holder number looks healthy. It isn’t a reliable leading indicator.

The stock of onshore students reflects enrolments from two and three years ago — a cohort that entered under a very different application environment. The grants data tells a different story.

Two consecutive years of double-digit contraction in new applications means the pool of future graduates, future 485 applicants, and future permanent residency candidates is already smaller than it was. For agents whose practices focus on graduate and skilled visas downstream — the pipeline feeding your caseload is thinning.

The grant rate improved to 83.1%, up from 77.8%. But a higher grant rate on a shrinking application pool means fewer visas issued in absolute numbers. The headline rate improvement doesn’t offset the volume decline.

Full analysis with country-level grant rate data →

There are 225,751 Temporary Graduate visa holders in Australia as at December 2025. That’s up from 89,000 in 2019 — a 154% increase over six years. The 485 population grew because student visa grants grew. Now those two trends are moving in opposite directions.

The practical implication for agents: clients who would have lodged 485 applications without much hesitation are now doing that calculation more carefully. The fee is real money. Eligibility has tightened. And the post-study PR pathways those visas feed into have also become more competitive.

The 485 isn’t disappearing — 225,000 holders confirms it remains a major pathway. But the economics have shifted and client expectations need to be calibrated accordingly.

Full 485 data analysis with historical trend →

The Genuine Student (GS) requirement replaced GTE in 2024. If you work with student visa applications, you’re already familiar with the four questions in ImmiAccount. But the GS assessment doesn’t operate in isolation — it runs against an evidence level framework that determines the documentation threshold for every application.

Two practical points for agents:

Evidence level and grant rate are not the same metric — and can move in opposite directions. Bangladesh’s grant rate is around 30%, but the evidence level reflects a pattern of integrity concerns, not just refusal volume. Understanding the distinction matters for how you advise clients and set expectations.

The GS statement is the most consequential document in a student visa application from a high-risk market. A templated or generic GS response isn’t just a weak application — it’s a refusal risk that reflects on the agent and on the provider. Individualised, specific, consistent with the supporting documents.

Genuine Student requirement — full cluster on the Educli blog →

One of the consistent themes in conversations I have with migration agents is isolation. Not professionally — most agents are connected to MARA, to CPD providers, to the usual industry channels. But operationally. When something goes wrong in a case, when a policy changes overnight, when you’re trying to figure out whether a decision you’ve made is the right one — there’s often nowhere to go.

I’m in the early stages of building a practitioners’ network for migration agents. Small, closed, invitation-only. The working name is the RUN Network.

The intention is not a forum or a Facebook group. It’s a small, curated community — agents with serious practices who want to think about the profession differently. Case discussions, operational frameworks, shared intelligence on policy shifts, and the kind of peer conversation that the standard industry channels don’t provide.

If this is something you’d want to be part of — reply to this edition and tell me. I’m gauging genuine interest before I build the structure around it.

AI tools are everywhere in the conversation about migration practice right now. Here’s my honest read rather than a pitch.

The agents most affected by AI in the next three years won’t be the ones using it imperfectly. They’ll be the ones not using it at all, while their peers compress non-billable time and redeploy it into client capacity.