A record-breaking surge in student visa refusals is swamping Australia’s migration tribunal, with no relief in sight until late 2025 or beyond, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.
THE ONSHORE STUDENT refusal backlog at the Administrative Review Tribunal (A.R.T.) increased from 29,508 at end March 2025 to a new record of 34,470 at end May 2025. (The A.R.T. did not publish data for April, but I have asked if they will provide it to me.)
Prior to COVID, the onshore student refusal backlog was less than 10,000 and relatively steady. This backlog will take years and an enormous amount of money to address. Ministers will be getting sick of supplementing the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the A.R.T. to address visa application backlogs.

Given the large primary onshore student backlog at DHA (over 100,000 when data on this was last published), the high onshore refusal rate based largely on subjective criteria (around 75 per cent) and the lack of A.R.T. resources to deal with this surge in applications, the student backlog at the A.R.T. will continue to rise until the Government both makes policy changes to address the surge and provides the A.R.T. with significant additional resources to clear the backlog.
The earliest that any regulatory change might be made would be November 2025, and that would not affect applications already lodged (both the backlog at DHA and at the A.R.T.). It would also take 6-9 months for any additional resources the A.R.T. might be provided to recruit and train additional staff and A.R.T. members, and for this to start having an impact on processing rates.
That will mean the backlog will continue to grow for the rest of 2025, most likely at a rate of around 2,000 per month, subject to DHA onshore student processing rates. This will slow the rate at which net migration will fall as forecast by Treasury. That will make ministers even angrier.
Other student-related aspects of the migration (non-asylum) backlog at the A.R.T. that have grown strongly include appeals against:
- temporary graduate refusals which have grown from 797 at end June 2023 to 1,904 at end May 2025; and
- student visa cancellations, which have grown from 138 at end June 2022 (when immigration compliance resources were at a long-time low, having been steadily cut back under the Dutton regime and students had unrestricted work rights) to 966 at end May 2025.
The overall migration (non-asylum) backlog at the A.R.T. grew from 46,371 at end March 2025 to 53,036 at end May 2025. The migration (non-asylum) backlog was 15,325 at end June 2023. Together with the asylum backlog at the A.R.T. of around 43,000, the total migration/asylum backlog at the A.R.T. will likely hit 100,000 well before the end of 2025.
This is one of the inevitable outcomes of a net migration boom driven by the students. Moreover, as the Government seeks to process applications faster and to tighten policy, pressures will increase further in other parts of the visa system, including in terms of onshore application backlogs for permanent migration (note, the Government has still not announced its permanent migration program for 2025-26) and asylum.
The flow-on consequences of a net migration boom driven by students (or other temporary visas) take many years to address and are costly both in financial terms and in terms of public confidence in the administration of immigration.
The Government will need to act quickly if it is to get this under control ahead of the 2028 Federal Election.
Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.

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