From 1 July 2026, almost every visa subclass processed by Australia’s Department of Home Affairs becomes more expensive – and, for many temporary residents, considerably riskier to hold. An SBS Nepali interview with Melbourne-based migration agent Keshav Kandel confirmed that the 2026-27 indexation round will lift Visa Application Charges (VACs) by between 2 per cent and 5 per cent for most categories, while some student- and visitor-visa fees will rise by more than 20 per cent.
![New Financial Year Brings Higher Visa Fees and Tighter Compliance Rules for Migrants]()
Navigating these changes can feel daunting, but services such as VisaHQ offer a useful shortcut. Through its Australia portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/), the company aggregates the latest fee tables, eligibility criteria and document checklists, letting applicants and HR teams compare options and lodge forms online without missing a deadline. That extra layer of guidance could save both money and stress as the new rules bed in.
Just as important as the price hikes are a suite of policy tweaks designed to raise compliance. A new ‘good standing’ algorithm will automatically flag student-visa holders who fall below 70 per cent attendance, miss tuition-fee instalments or fail more than half of their enrolled subjects. Those red flags will now feed directly into the Genuine Student (GS) integrity test that underpins applications to extend study or switch to graduate visas, making the casual ‘visa-hopping’ of the past much harder. Visitor-visa rules are also tightening. From 1 July, travellers who apply onshore to extend a Subclass 600 visa must show an extra AUD 1,000 in living-cost funds for every additional month requested and supply health-insurance evidence upfront rather than at the time of decision. Permanent-residency pathways are not immune either: the English-language concession for primary applicants nominated by regional employers will drop from IELTS 5.5 to 5.0, but only if the sponsoring business can show audited training-spend compliance. Kandel warned businesses that sponsor workers to “budget not only for higher government fees but also for the downstream administrative burden,” noting that digital monitoring of work-rights hours and salary payments will expand to all ABNs by December 2026. For migrants, he advised triple-checking visa conditions during the transition. “A missed payslip or late course-enrolment can now trigger an automated Notice of Intention to Consider Cancellation. That’s a very different landscape to the one many arrivals faced only two years ago.” For multinationals rotating staff into Australia, the message is clear: factor higher compliance costs into assignment budgets and build in lead time for extra paperwork, especially around health cover, English testing and funds evidence. Given the government’s appetite for visa-integrity measures, few migration agents expect the trend to reverse in the foreseeable future.
Navigating these changes can feel daunting, but services such as VisaHQ offer a useful shortcut. Through its Australia portal (https://www.visahq.com/australia/), the company aggregates the latest fee tables, eligibility criteria and document checklists, letting applicants and HR teams compare options and lodge forms online without missing a deadline. That extra layer of guidance could save both money and stress as the new rules bed in.
Just as important as the price hikes are a suite of policy tweaks designed to raise compliance. A new ‘good standing’ algorithm will automatically flag student-visa holders who fall below 70 per cent attendance, miss tuition-fee instalments or fail more than half of their enrolled subjects. Those red flags will now feed directly into the Genuine Student (GS) integrity test that underpins applications to extend study or switch to graduate visas, making the casual ‘visa-hopping’ of the past much harder. Visitor-visa rules are also tightening. From 1 July, travellers who apply onshore to extend a Subclass 600 visa must show an extra AUD 1,000 in living-cost funds for every additional month requested and supply health-insurance evidence upfront rather than at the time of decision. Permanent-residency pathways are not immune either: the English-language concession for primary applicants nominated by regional employers will drop from IELTS 5.5 to 5.0, but only if the sponsoring business can show audited training-spend compliance. Kandel warned businesses that sponsor workers to “budget not only for higher government fees but also for the downstream administrative burden,” noting that digital monitoring of work-rights hours and salary payments will expand to all ABNs by December 2026. For migrants, he advised triple-checking visa conditions during the transition. “A missed payslip or late course-enrolment can now trigger an automated Notice of Intention to Consider Cancellation. That’s a very different landscape to the one many arrivals faced only two years ago.” For multinationals rotating staff into Australia, the message is clear: factor higher compliance costs into assignment budgets and build in lead time for extra paperwork, especially around health cover, English testing and funds evidence. Given the government’s appetite for visa-integrity measures, few migration agents expect the trend to reverse in the foreseeable future.
