Australian Immigration Statistics: 11 Years of Official Data, Explained

Eleven years of Home Affairs and ABS data on Australian immigration — skilled visa grants, student visa records, net overseas migration, and where permanent migrants come from. Every figure traces to an official source. Figures as at September 2026.

Read the full guide, with official sources →

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Chapters

  1. 0:00 2020-21: Australia lost 84,940 people.
  2. 0:19 Skilled visas: COVID low 79,620
  3. 0:37 Family visas normally: about 52,500
  4. 0:51 Humanitarian visas: 5,947 low
  5. 1:03 Student visas peaked at
  6. 1:23 Visitor visas: 5,686,318 → 167,576
  7. 1:46 Working holiday visas:
  8. 2:04 India: 48,326 permanent grants
  9. 2:19 5,489 registered migration agents
  10. 2:39 Victoria: 1,244 agents
  11. 2:53 NOM cooling since the record:
  12. 3:17 Every figure traces to

Transcript

In 2020-21, net overseas migration went negative for the only time in the eleven-year series — a net loss of 84,940 people. In 2022-23, it hit a record 538,340.

Skilled visa grants collapsed to a COVID low of 79,620 in 2020-21, rebounded to a record 142,344 in 2022-23, then eased to 132,148 in 2024-25.

Family stream grants normally run around 52,500 a year. In 2020-21, with borders closed, they jumped to 80,378 — the biggest family-stream year in the whole series.

Humanitarian grants collapsed to just 5,947 in 2020-21, then recovered to 20,000 in both 2023-24 and 2024-25.

Student visas fell to a COVID floor of 232,750 in 2020-21, then surged to a record 577,295 in 2022-23. By 2024-25, grants were back to 371,564.

Visitor visas show the sharpest COVID shock of any category: from 5,686,318 grants in 2018-19 to just 167,576 in 2020-21 — a fall of more than 97%. By 2024-25, grants had recovered to 4,915,854.

Working holiday visas fell to just 39,586 in 2020-21, then climbed to 321,116 by 2024-25 — the highest figure in the eleven-year series, well above the roughly 210,000-a-year pre-COVID norm.

India has been Australia's largest source of permanent migrants every year since 2019-20 — 48,326 grants in 2024-25, more than double second-placed China on 20,405.

Behind these visa numbers sits an industry of 5,489 registered migration agents. New registrations collapsed about 85% after 2018 entry-requirement changes — from 417 that year to just 62 in 2020 — before recovering to a decade-high 457 in 2025.

Victoria hosts more registered agents than any other state — 1,244, against 1,087 in New South Wales. The median agent has held registration for 10 years.

Net migration has fallen every year since that 2022-23 record of 538,340 — 429,160 in 2023-24, 305,570 in 2024-25 — but it's still above the pre-COVID range of 184,030 to 263,350 a year.

Every figure here traces to Home Affairs or the ABS. Where an official number isn't published, it's left out rather than estimated.

The full guide, with the official sources, is on migratio.com.au. The link is in the description.

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