Federal Budget Highlights for Immigration

• Around 70 percent of places in the 2023‑24 permanent Migration program will be allocated to skilled migrants, bringing long‑term fiscal and economic benefits and addressing persistent skill shortages. 
• An extra 2 years of post‑study work rights have been provided to Temporary Graduate visa holders with select degrees, to improve the pipeline of skilled labor in key sectors. 
• The Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold has been increased to $70,000 to ensure skilled migration settings are better targeted. 
• International students working in the aged care sector have been exempted from the capped fortnightly work hour limit until 31 December 2023. 
• Additional training places have been provided for Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme workers in priority sectors for the Pacific and Timor‑Leste and where there are job shortages in Australia. 
• The Government will increase Visa Application Charges (VACs) from 1 July 2023. In addition to the regular CPI indexation, VACs will increase by 6 percentage points for visa applications, an additional 15 percentage points for select visitor and temporary visa subclasses, and an additional 40 percentage points for business innovation and investment visas. 
• For the 2023–24 permanent Migration Program, the Government will return the planning level to the longer-term level of 190,000 places and will allocate 137,100 places (around 70 percent) to the Skill stream, helping address Australia’s longer-term skill needs. 
• The Government will improve pathways to permanency for Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) (subclass 482) visa holders. Restrictions will be removed to enable TSS visa holders on the short-term stream access to permanent residence pathways through the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) visa. The limit of one onshore renewal for the short-term stream TSS visa will also be removed. 
• The Government will grant an extra two years of post-study work rights to international higher education graduates of Australian institutions with eligible qualifications to strengthen the pipeline of skilled labour. This measure will apply from 1 July 2023. The work hour cap for international student visa holders will be reinstated from 1 July 2023, following its removal during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be increased by 8 hours from pre-pandemic levels to 48 hours per fortnight. 
  International students working in the aged care sector will be exempt from the 48-hour per fortnight work limit until 31 December 2023. 
• These changes are in line with recommendations made in the report to the Government by the Post Study Work Rights Working Group in October 2022. 
  The increase to post-study work rights is estimated to increase receipts by $800.0 million and payments by $185.6 million, including a $185.0 million increase in GST payments to the states and territories over the 5 years from 2022–23. Bringing back the work hours cap for international students is estimated to result in an unquantifiable increase in receipts over the 5 years from 2022–23.