Stay longer

To continue studying in Australia, you must apply for a new Student visa.

If your Student visa will expire before your graduation you might be eligible for a Visitor visa (subclass 600). You will need a letter from your education provider with the date of your graduation.

If you hold or held a student visa and completed specific qualifications in Australia in the last six months, you might be eligible for a Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485).

If you are a recent engineering graduate of a recognized institution you might be eligible for the Skilled Recognition Graduate visa (subclass 476).

If you want to stay longer for other reasons, you must apply for a new visa that suits your circumstances. Explore your visa options.

Include family

You can include family members when you lodge your visa application. For student visas, your family member is:

your partner, or
your or your partner’s dependent child who is unmarried and has not turned 18 years of age.
We cannot grant a student visa to your child if they have turned 18 years at the time your visa is finalised. They need to apply for their own visa.

You must declare your family members in your student visa application even if they do not plan to travel with you to Australia. If you do not do this, your family members will not be eligible for a student visa to join you in Australia.

Your family members can also apply as a subsequent entrant (at a later time, separate from your application) in ImmiAccount.

Family members who apply for the visa must meet our requirements for health and character.

Check the annual school costs you will need to pay for any dependent children to go to either public or private schools in Australia.

For more information see ‘Evidence you have enough money for your stay’ section under Gather documents.

Cost

The visa costs from AUD620 for the main applicant, unless they are exempt.

There is also a charge for each family member who applies for the visa.

You might also have to pay other costs for health checks, police certificates and biometrics.

To work out what your visa will cost use the Visa Pricing Estimator. The estimator does not take into account the other costs.

Apply from

You can be in or outside Australia when you apply for the visa and when we decide on your application.

Packaged courses

You will need to give us Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE) for each course. The last course you take as part of the course package is your main course of study. We use your main course of study to work out what financial and English language skills evidence you must give us.

If your visa application includes a package of courses, course gaps must be less than two calendar months, unless the first course finishes at the end of the standard academic year and the next course commences at the beginning of the standard academic year.

For example, the academic year generally ends in November and starts again in February the following year, three to four months is an acceptable gap between courses.

Standard visa grant periods apply to packaged courses.

Processing times

We process:

Foreign Affairs or Defence Sector
75% of applications in 16 days
90% of applications in 33 days
Postgraduate Research Sector
75% of applications in 46 days
90% of applications in 75 days
Non-Award Sector
75% of applications in 2 days
90% of applications in 9 days
Schools Sector
75% of applications in 23 days
90% of applications in 49 days
Independent ELICOS Sector
75% of applications in 25 days
90% of applications in 42 days
Vocational Education and Training Sector
75% of applications in 48 days
90% of applications in 68 days
Higher Education Sector
75% of applications in 19 days
90% of applications in 44 days
Your application can take longer to process if:

you do not fill it in correctly
you do not include all the documents we need or we need more information from you
it takes us time to verify your information
We can’t process your application if you do not pay the correct visa application charge. We will notify you if this is the case.

See more information on Global visa and citizenship processing times

Your obligationsTravel

You can travel outside Australia and return as many times as you want while the visa is valid.

The time you spend outside Australia does not extend the visa.

Visa label

We will digitally link your visa to your passport. You will not get a label in your passport.