Australian Temporary Visa Holder Statistics December 31, 2024

Matt Paff Australian Visas

The Australian Department of Home Affairs publishes data via the Australian Bureau of Statistics on temporary visa holders in Australia. The most recent data comes from December 31, 2024. The highlights include:

  • There were 2.88m visa holders in Australia as at the end of December (up from 2.76m same time last year);
  • With the summer / Christmas / New Year semester break, Students (500) visa holders are down to 522,183 in Australia as at December 31, off from the peak of more than 674,000 in September and 547,000 at the end of 2023. 2025 will be interesting to see how new rules on CoEs and caps on international student numbers impacts the numbers;
  • Working Holiday Makers (417 and 462 visas) remain strong at 206,000, up from 170,000 same time last year and up from a low of 23,000 in December 2021;
  • The 485 Graduate Visa Program has continued to be well received, with an uplift from 89,000, 485 visa holders pre-COVID (December 2019) to 195,000 as at December 31 2024 (cf 180,000 at the end to 2023);

Visas and the Australian workforce

Australia’s unemployment rate sits at 4% in December and remains low, highlighting resillence despite the so called “cost of living crisis” and Australia’s dependence on temporary non-citizen labour.

Visitor Visas In Australia

Visitor visas, for whom do not have work rights, were at the seasonal peak with 629,000 as at New Year’s Eve 2025. This is up from the mid-winter 2024 total of 341,00 as well as 601,000 December 31 2023.

Working Holiday Visas Australia

Looking at 417 and 462 working holiday visas, which peaked at 141,000 as at December 31, 2019 and bottomed at 19,324 2 years later – we had 206,187 active working holiday visas in Australia as at 31 December 2024 (up from 170,437 on the same day in the previous year).

Assessing the quarterly trend, we can see a consistent upward trend, seemingly disproportionally driven by the changes to working holiday rules for UK citizens under the Free Trade Agreement with Brits making up close to 25% of all working holiday visas:

Student Visas

Student visas are down, but this is a seasonal trend to be expected. The Students sticking around for New Year’s 2025 was just over 522,000 (down from the mid winter peak of 654,870 July 31 2023).

2025 Student visa numbers remain uncertain given there have been a host of recent caps and changes to Student Visas which should prevent Australia from returning to the peaks of 2024.

Bridging Visas

After a dramatic decrease in the post election final quarter of 2022 (which saw a massive 44% drop in just 1 quarter as Home Affairs powered through the visa application backlog), Bridging Visas numbers have again been increasing as we head to the end of another election cycle with over 342,000 active in Australia as at the end of 2024. This is up significantly on 2023, when there were just 176,965 active bridging visas as at July 31 that year.

Skilled employment visas

Then there’s the temporary resident, skilled employment visas, they dropped from 143,000 as at June 30 2019, to 94,500 over the subsequent 3 years, zapping another 50,000 workers from out labour market! This has recovered to around 184,000 at September 2024’s end and settled with the normal seasonal trend. back to 167,000 at the year’s end (as visa holders return home for Christmas/Summer break).

Where Australian Temporary Visa Numbers Have Landed

As you can see from the above, active temporary visa holder are still on an upward trend in Australia as we near 3m! Working Holiday Makers are here in big numbers. Skilled visas are well and truly recovering. Bridging visas have again trended well up! Let’s see what comes of the student visa changes and the impacts over the next 12 months.

Data source data.gov.au