Australia's Migration Program: planned versus delivered, 2015-16 to 2024-25

The headline: two completely different eras

Across the ten completed program years to 2024-25, the relationship between the announced number and the delivered number splits cleanly in two.

From 2015-16 to 2021-22, the program routinely came in under. The worst years were 2017-18 (162,417 delivered against 190,000, a shortfall of 27,583) and 2018-19 (160,323 against 190,000, short by 29,677 — 15.6%). Even 2021-22, with a lower level of 160,000, delivered 143,556, a shortfall of 16,444.

From 2022-23 the pattern reverses completely. That year delivered 195,004 places against 195,000. The following year delivered exactly 190,000 against 190,000. The year after, 185,001 against 185,000. Three consecutive years landing within four places of target on a program of roughly 185,000 people.

The department is explicit about this. Its 2024-25 report states that "almost all visa categories were delivered to their exact planning level". That precision is not accidental, and the mechanism is documented — see the section on how the topline is balanced below.

The caveat that changes how you should read the shortfalls

Before treating the pre-2022 gaps as failures, one thing has to be said clearly, because most coverage of these numbers omits it.

From 2015, the planning level was treated as a ceiling rather than a target. The Parliamentary Library's guide to the Migration Program records this directly: "since 2015, the government has considered the Migration Program planning level as a 'ceiling' rather than a 'target'." Under a ceiling regime, delivering fewer places than announced is compliance, not underperformance.

The department's own language confirms the shift. Reports up to 2021-22 describe outcomes as falling "within the planning ceiling" of 190,000 or 160,000 places. From 2022-23 the word "ceiling" disappears from the reports entirely, replaced by "planning level" and language about delivering to it.

So the correct reading is not "the government missed its target by 15% in 2018-19". It is that the number meant something different then. Part of the apparent transformation after 2022 is an operational change in how the program is run, and part of it is a change in what the published number is for. Anyone charting this series without noting the distinction is charting two different measures as though they were one.

Where the misses actually came from

Topline shortfalls were not spread evenly. The Home Affairs consultation paper for the 2024-25 program contains the only official document that sets planned against delivered category by category, covering 2020-21 to 2022-23, and it locates the gaps precisely.

The single largest miss in the period was Partner visas in 2021-22: 62,300 places planned, 46,288 delivered — 16,012 short. That one category accounts for almost the entire 16,444-place program shortfall that year.

The Global Talent category missed badly two years running. In 2020-21 it planned 15,000 places and delivered 9,584, a 36% shortfall. In 2021-22 it planned 10,000 and delivered 8,776. Business Innovation and Investment also fell short both years, delivering 11,198 against 13,500 and then 10,496 against 13,500.

Meanwhile the employer-sponsored and state-nominated categories consistently over-delivered against their allocations — Employer Sponsored delivered 23,503 against 22,000 in 2020-21 and 26,103 against 24,000 in 2021-22. The pattern is consistent: demand-driven categories tied to an actual employer or an actual relationship filled up, while discretionary and investor categories did not.

How a 185,000 target lands on 185,001

The near-perfect topline figures of recent years are managed, and the department says so.

Its 2024-25 report explains one such adjustment in detail: 353 Special Eligibility places were used against 300 planned, because the Assistant Minister made greater use of the Former Resident visa in ministerial intervention decisions. The report continues that "the additional places needed in this program were drawn from the Regional Skilled category, leading to a commensurate under-delivery against the original planning level in that category."

That is how the arithmetic works. Categories that run hot are funded by categories that run cold, and the topline is brought back to the announced figure. The precision at the program level is real, but it conceals movement underneath it — which is why the category-level table matters more than the headline number for anyone trying to understand what actually happened in a given year.

2020-21: the only year family migration outnumbered skilled

One year in the series stands apart. In 2020-21, with borders closed, the Family stream delivered 77,372 places and the Child stream a further 3,006, against a Skill stream of 79,620. Counting Child within Family, as the program does today, family migration exceeded skilled migration for the only time in the ten-year series.

This was deliberate rather than accidental: the Partner planning level for that year was set at 72,300 places, against 40,500 in recent years. With offshore skilled migration largely impossible, the program was redirected toward applicants already in Australia. Skilled migration fell to 79,620, its lowest point in the series and barely more than half its 2015-16 level of 128,550.

2026-27: the largest cut in the program is the one nobody explained

The 2026-27 planning levels, announced on 12 May 2026, hold the program at 185,000 for a third consecutive year. Underneath that flat total, the composition moved sharply.

Employer-Sponsored rises from 44,000 to 58,040 places, an increase of 31.9%. Skilled Independent rises from 16,900 to 21,090, up 24.8%. State and Territory Nominated rises from 33,000 to 35,500.

Paying for all of it is the Regional category, cut from 33,000 places to 14,110 — a reduction of 57.2%, and by a wide margin the largest single reallocation in the program.

Here is what makes that notable. The Home Affairs planning-levels page gives an explicit rationale for every other significant change. Skilled Independent rises because the visa has a "strong record of highly skilled employment and positive fiscal outcomes". Talent and Innovation falls to "focus on applicants with an internationally recognised record of exceptional achievement". Employer-Sponsored rises to support "timely transitions to permanent residence for temporary migrants meeting skills gaps".

For the Regional cut, no reason is given. The page states the mechanical fact — that places move from the subclass 491 Skilled Work Regional visa into the subclass 190 Skilled Nominated visa — and then offers reassurance that "the government recognises the role of migration in supporting the skills and population needs of regional communities". It does not say why.

Several migration firms have reported that the cut reflects internal departmental analysis of regional retention rates. We could not locate any primary source for those figures in Home Affairs publications, ministerial releases, Budget papers or Parliamentary sources, and we are not reproducing them. The verifiable fact is the absence: the largest reallocation in the 2026-27 program is the only major change the department declined to explain.

The onshore shift, in the government's own words

The other structural change in 2026-27 is a formal split of the program by where the applicant already is. Of 185,000 places, 129,590 are allocated to people already living in Australia and 55,110 to offshore applicants, with 300 for Special Eligibility.

Home Affairs frames this against net overseas migration: "NOM has fallen more than 40 per cent from its peak in 2023. The Migration Program has not been a key driver of NOM in recent years, because the majority of permanent visas have been granted to migrants already living and working in Australia. In 2024-25, 61 per cent of permanent skilled visas and 39 per cent of permanent family visas were issued to people already onshore."

This is the single most practically important fact in the 2026-27 settings for anyone planning an application. The permanent program is increasingly a mechanism for converting people already in Australia on temporary visas into permanent residents, rather than a route for people applying from overseas. Seven in ten places now carry an onshore preference.

Methodology, limits, and how to cite this

Planning levels and delivered outcomes are taken from the Department of Home Affairs Migration Program Reports for each year, and from the Home Affairs migration program planning levels page for 2025-26 and 2026-27. Category-level planned-versus-delivered figures come from Attachment B of the 2024-25 permanent Migration Program discussion paper, which is the only official publication that presents both side by side. No figure has been interpolated or estimated.

Four limits should travel with any use of this data.

First, the ceiling-versus-target distinction described above. Pre-2022 and post-2022 numbers are not the same kind of measure.

Second, the Child stream moved twice. It sat outside the managed program but inside the overall ceiling from 2015-16, then moved into the Family stream in 2022-23. The zeros in the Child column from 2022-23 are a reclassification, not a collapse, and Family-stream totals are not like-for-like across that boundary.

Third, the 2022-23 planning level was changed mid-year, lifted from 160,000 to 195,000 in September 2022. That year had two announced figures.

Fourth, delivery of the Partner and Child categories is demand driven, with what Home Affairs calls indicative planning levels only. Planned-versus-delivered is not a meaningful test for those lines.

The outcome for 2025-26 is not included because it has not been published. The program year ended on 30 June 2026 and the report had not appeared as at 2 August 2026. Any 2025-26 outcome figure currently in circulation is an estimate.

The full dataset is available as a CSV, along with the category-level comparison, the 2026-27 planning levels, and a definitions and sources file. Journalists and researchers are welcome to republish the tables with a linked attribution.

What is Australia's Migration Program planning level?

It is the number of permanent Migration Program places the government makes available in a financial year. For 2026-27 it is 185,000, unchanged from 2025-26 and 2024-25. It is not a forecast of arrivals and it does not include temporary visas such as student, visitor or working holiday, which are uncapped.

Does Australia actually deliver the number of places it announces?

Now, almost exactly. The last three completed program years delivered 195,004, 190,000 and 185,001 places against levels of 195,000, 190,000 and 185,000. Earlier years fell well short — 2018-19 delivered 160,323 against 190,000, a gap of 29,677 places.

Why did the Migration Program miss its numbers before 2022?

Partly because the number was treated as a ceiling rather than a target, so under-delivery was compliant. Partly because specific categories could not be filled: Partner visas fell 16,012 places short in 2021-22, and Global Talent delivered 9,584 places against 15,000 in 2020-21.

How much was the regional visa allocation cut in 2026-27?

The Regional category was cut from 33,000 places to 14,110, a reduction of 57.2% and the largest single change in the 2026-27 program. Home Affairs published no rationale for the cut, in contrast to every other major category change.

How many 2026-27 places go to people already in Australia?

129,590 of 185,000 places are allocated to onshore applicants, with 55,110 for offshore applicants and 300 for Special Eligibility. Home Affairs notes that in 2024-25, 61% of permanent skilled visas and 39% of permanent family visas went to people already in Australia.

Can I republish these figures?

Yes. The tables may be republished with a linked attribution to this study. The underlying CSVs are downloadable, and every figure traces to a Department of Home Affairs publication cited in the methodology section.