Tuesday’s net permanent and long-term arrivals data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggested that immigration is surging, with a record 245,890 net arrivals recorded over the first five months of 2025.
It appears that the surge in arrivals has been driven, at least in part, by international students, with the ABS reporting 39,210 student arrivals to Australia in May— an increase of 1,200 students compared with the corresponding month of the previous year.
May 2025 saw a 14.4% increase in student arrivals compared to the pre-COVID levels in May 2019.
Separate Department of Education data suggests that the purported “crackdown” on international student numbers has not come to fruition, with record enrolments recorded in the year to April 2025:
There were a record 794,113 international students enrolled in the first four months of 2025, around 27,000 more than the previous record figure recorded in 2024.
That said, the student pipeline appears to be slowing, with commencements declining to 219,791 over the first four months of 2025.
As illustrated in the next chart from the Department of Education, commencements are tracking below the same periods in 2024, 2023, and 2019.
Finally, monthly visa data from the ABS suggests that net student visa arrivals have returned to pre-pandemic levels:
The above data suggests that rather than a “crackdown”, the Albanese government has moderated student inflows.
Even so, overall enrolment numbers remain at record levels.
