The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Visa grant rates are dropping for Bhutan
According to a report by The Australian newspaper, the Australian government is considering major new restrictions on student visas that could hit Bhutanese students hard.
International students may face heavy limitations on bringing family members or partners to Australia as dependents like wives or husbands and even children. The possible exceptions maybe for students doing Masters by Research, PhD candidates, government-sponsored students and students from Pacific nations and Timor-Leste.
This would hit Bhutanese students and aspirants hard as around 50 percent or even more of those moving from Bhutan to Australia are going as dependents.
This mirrors policy shifts introduced by the UK, restricting dependants for standard undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses since January 2024.
Another major change is that the government is also considering blocking students from moving from higher education into the vocational education and training (VET) sector.
This is designed to eliminate ‘course hopping,’ where students use university acceptance to secure entry and then drop down to cheaper vocational institutions to maintain work rights.
Students may face tighter restrictions on changing their course after arriving in Australia, particularly where the change appears to be a pathway to migration rather than genuine study.
This may again affect Bhutanese students who in the past had a tendency to apply for one college or university and then go for vocational courses once there.
A third measure that will primarily affect Bhutanese students already in Australia is proposed strict new restrictions to prevent individuals from lodging student visa applications while inside Australia.
The goal is to shut down onshore migration loops where individuals extend their stay indefinitely by continuously applying for new visas locally.
This is also aimed at stopping people from repeatedly switching between visitor, student and other temporary visas which the government calls ‘visa hopping’.
This again affects Bhutanese students in Australia as an increasing number not coming back filed for student visas while in Australia.
The student visa restrictions could be fast-tracked and brought into effect as early as September 2026 and also unveil a wider immigration overhaul package.
Why the changes ?
The question is, why is the Australian government looking at bringing in so many drastic changes for student visas?
There are a variety of reasons, but two key ones stand out. The strongest is growing political pressure from Opposition parties on migration and federal elections coming up in 2027-2028 to decide the government.
Before that there are elections in 2027 in the Senate and House of Representatives.
The main opposition is a group of Centre-Right parties who come together as the ‘Coalition’ and vote as one. They have been critical of the increased migration numbers to Australia, especially after COVID and have offered lowered migration numbers, if elected.
However, what has set the cat among the pigeons is a Trump-like figure in Pauline Hanson of the right-wing and nationalist ‘One Nation’ party that believes in sharply slashing migration, and has put pressure on both the ruling Labour party and the main Opposition, the Coalition, to get tougher on migration and mainly on student visas.
The ruling Labour party has promised to reduce net overseas migration from the high of 538,000 in 2022-23 to 225,000 by 2027-28 financial year (FY). It is forecasted to be 295,000 in 2025-2026 FY and the target in 2026-27 FY is 245,000.
Given this sharp political competition and impending elections over the next two years, expect things to only get tougher for student visas unless the important and big higher education sector can lobby and blunt harsh measures.
The ‘Australian Greens’ are the largest minor party in Australia, and unlike the above, they frequently criticize both Labor and the Coalition for using international students as scapegoats for the national housing crisis.
The political parties against migration are tapping into public frustration over housing shortages, and here, migrants are the main target with students being blamed for jacking up rents and prices.
However, this is only one of the factors for the housing shortage, as the main reasons are land use restrictions discouraging high density housing, red tape and slow approvals, tax laws that encourage rich people and companies to buy up housing in bulk and speculate on it, construction sector issues like high material costs and skilled worker shortages, and smaller household sizes meaning a need for more homes.
Another reason for the tougher move is a growing realization in Australia that it may not be getting genuine students but rather migrants under the guise of students, and not necessarily the most skilled ones. It wants to be more selective and allow skilled workers and students who could fill the skill gap.
Higher rejection rate
Palden Tshering, the head of the Association of Bhutanese Educational Consultancies (ABEC), said that the changes are only proposed and not yet finalized, and so we have to wait and see what happens.
He said that, so far, there has been little change in student visa rules, but documents and submissions are now being scrutinised much more closely, resulting in a higher rejection rate.
Palden said there are 67 education consultancies in Bhutan, and out of them, 43 deal with Australia, and he said they have voluntarily agreed to certain common standards among themselves to improve the quality of applications, change the mindset of students, and hence ensure a higher acceptance rate for Australia. He said these standards will be announced soon.
Palden said that the Australian government has been compiling data, and now, they have data for students moving between courses and other behaviour of the students. He said it does not help that around 56 percent of Bhutanese students change courses in Australia, and the change is usually a downgrade.
He said Australia had increased the visa fees and carried out other measures, but they have not seen enough of a reduction and so are going for additional measures.
Palden said the actions of Bhutanese students already in Australia are also hurting the prospects of future students in Bhutan.
Palden said the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane has said that they are pausing applications by Bhutanese students.
He said that while the overall visa grant rate for Bhutanese students was high in the 2025-26 FY, the numbers are coming down sharply in the last few months. He said that the coming financial year would be a rough one.
The Bhutanese looked at the official data and found that for the month of July 2026, only 265 Bhutanese students and dependents got visas to Australia and this is even lower than the 382 that got visas in 2019-20 FY. Of the 265 only 153 left from Bhutan with the rest 112 applying onshore from Australia.
The overall visa grant rate for Bhutanese student visas in 2025-26 FY was a healthy 80 percent, but there has been a sharp drop in July 2026 with the grant rate at 46.7 percent. The drop in grant rates for July 2026 is the worst ever on record since available records of all July months since 2006-07 FY.
The visa grant rates of Bhutanese students started dropping from May 2026 when it was 58.1 percent and 40.1 percent in June 2026. The drops in May and June have also been the worst ever recorded since available records of May and June months from 2006-07 FY.
Palden said that Bhutanese are resilient and will adapt, and when asked about New Zealand, he said there are only blue-collar opportunities there, and in fact many New Zealanders are moving to Australia.
