Student Migration

For various reasons, you may wish to continue to study your course in Australia and extend your student visa in Australia.

In this case, you will need to apply for another student 500 visa whilst in Australia.

The student visa allows you to stay in Australia to study full-time in a CRICOS registered course.

You may also wish to use this visa to study in a primary or high school program.

There are certain key requirements to be met to qualify for the Student Visa in Australia:

Genuine Temporary Entrant

As an international student, you will need to show that you are a genuine overseas student in Australia who intends to complete their studies, comply with all the student visa conditions and in general return home after the completion of your studies.

Overall Risk Assessment – Applicants’ Country of Passport and Australian Education Provider

Depending on the combination of your country of passport and the Australian education provider, you will need to meet either the Regular requirements

1) English Language score.

2) Finances or Streamlined requirements.

There are different risk ratings that apply to applicants from different countries of passport and different Australian education providers.

English Score

You will need to provide evidence of English Language test score.
If you are completing ELICOS (English language) studies as part of a packaged course, the English score requirement can generally be lower.
You may be exempt from English language testing for example if you hold a passport form certain countries.

Financial Requirement

You will need to provide evidence to meet the financial requirement to undertake studies in Australia. This could be either of the following:

• Evidence of funds to cover your tuition fees and living expenses for the first 12 months of your stay in Australia; or
• Evidence of taxable income of your parents or spouse for the past 12 months

You can be overseas or in Australia when you apply for the student visa extension or a new student visa.
If onshore, you will generally need to hold a substantive visa which is not subject to a "no further stay" condition.

Note: For student visa holders, there may be a one-off ‘grace period of up to 28 days from the expiry date of your previous student visa’, to be able to extend your visa. This ‘grace period’ can only be availed once by a student visa holder.

The student visa extension application is generally lodged online, although paper application may be possible in certain circumstances.

Health Insurance

To obtain a student visa extension, you must provide evidence of adequate health insurance arrangements (OSHC) from one of the relevant providers and this is also an ongoing visa condition.