Australia Student Visa (Subclass 500) for Indian Students

The test most Indian applicants are still being coached for was abolished on 23 March 2024. Until that date an Australia student visa turned on the Genuine Temporary Entrant test, which asked you to prove you intended to leave. Since that date it turns on the Genuine Student requirement, which asks whether study is genuinely the reason you are coming, and which states plainly that wanting permanent residence later does not count against you.

That is not a change of wording. It reverses what a strong answer looks like, and it explains why so much advice circulating in India still argues against the applicant instead of for them.

Everything else about the Subclass 500 is arithmetic, and this page does that arithmetic in rupees. The charge after the 1 July 2026 increase, the funds figures written into the legislative instrument, the document pack with who issues each item, the English scores for your test date, and the conditions you will live under once the visa is granted.

What is the Genuine Student requirement, and how is it different from GTE?

The Genuine Student requirement, usually shortened to GS, is the criterion a case officer uses to decide whether you are a real student. It applies to every Student visa application lodged on or after 23 March 2024, and anything lodged before that date is still assessed under the older Genuine Temporary Entrant test. That is why both terms are still in circulation.

The Department of Home Affairs states the difference itself.

The GS requirement recognises that genuine students may develop skills Australia needs and may later choose to apply for permanent residence. Future intentions of this kind do not count against an applicant under GS.

Department of Home Affairs, Genuine Student requirement

The format changed as much as the question. You answer GS inside the online application form, not in an attached essay, and there is a limit of 150 words for each response, in English. There are four standard questions, plus a fifth if you have held a Student visa before or are applying in Australia from a non student visa.

1. Your current circumstances, including ties to family, community and employment, and your economic circumstances.
2. Why you want to study this course in Australia with this particular provider, and what you understand about the course and about living and studying in Australia.
3. How completing the course will benefit you.
4. Any other relevant information you want to include.

Two things follow from that word limit. Home Affairs says it gives more weight to statements supported by evidence, so attachments carry the argument. And a 1,200 word statement of purpose written for a university admissions office is the wrong document for this form, which is why the Genuine Student answers and the SOP behind them are worth building in the order the form asks for.

One small confirmation that the change is recent. The Department’s old genuine-temporary-entrant address now redirects to a page called genuine-student-requirement, and the Subclass 500 page still links to the retired path under a Genuine Student label. The assessment is governed by Ministerial Direction No. 106.

How much does the Australia student visa cost in 2026?

The base visa application charge for a Subclass 500 is AUD 2,500, and it increased on 1 July 2026. There is no separate embassy fee for Indian applicants. The only Australian government charge is the visa application charge you pay inside ImmiAccount when you submit, and it is published in the current visa pricing table.

The rupee column uses the Reserve Bank of Australia daily rate for 23 July 2026, which was INR 67.71 to one Australian dollar. Your bank applies its own telegraphic transfer rate plus a markup, so treat the rupee figures as planning numbers. The surcharge is 1.90 per cent on UnionPay and 1.01 per cent on PayPal.

Several groups pay nothing. The exemption list covers Commonwealth Government scholarship holders, students supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or the Department of Defence, secondary exchange students, students affected by an education provider default who lodge again within 12 months, and family members of a student enrolled in a postgraduate research course. That last one is worth real money, because a PhD applicant’s spouse and children are not charged the additional applicant fee at all.

Note. If your application is refused, the charge is not refunded.

How much money do you have to show for an Australia student visa?

You must show AUD 29,710 in living costs for twelve months, plus your first year of course fees minus anything already paid, plus travel costs. That figure is not a departmental guideline. It is written into a legislative instrument, LIN 19/198, made under the Migration Regulations 1994, and the instrument carries the family figures as well.

Funds to show = travel costs + first 12 months of course fees, minus fees already paid + AUD 29,710 for you + AUD 10,394 per partner + AUD 4,449 per child + AUD 13,502 per school age child

Worked through for a single applicant on a two year master’s degree costing AUD 38,000 a year, with an AUD 5,000 deposit already paid. Travel is AUD 2,000, the guide amount Home Affairs gives for applying from anywhere outside Australia other than Africa. First year fees are AUD 38,000 less the AUD 5,000 receipt, so AUD 33,000. Living costs are AUD 29,710. The total to evidence is AUD 64,710, roughly INR 43.8 lakh at the same 23 July 2026 rate.

For a stay under twelve months the instrument sets a pro rata calculation, so divide the annual amount by 365 and multiply by the days you intend to stay.

The income route is the alternative most Indian families overlook. Instead of a savings figure you can show that a parent or partner earned at least AUD 87,856 in the 12 months before you apply, or AUD 102,500 if family come with you, and both parents’ income can be combined. It needs official government documents such as a tax assessment less than 12 months old, and the Department will not accept bank statements or a letter from an employer here.

Only four forms of evidence are specified for the savings route, and they are a money deposit with a financial institution, a loan with a financial institution, a government loan, and a scholarship or financial support. Property valuations, gold and informal family lending are not on that list.

Showing the money is not the same as showing you can reach it, and Home Affairs is blunt about the document Indian applicants most often rely on.

Providing a bank balance certificate across a single day does not show us how you increased your funds.

Department of Home Affairs, Student visa (subclass 500), gather your documents

What it wants instead is transaction history showing how the balance was built, salary credits or other growth patterns, and, where someone else is funding you, evidence of your relationship to them, their identity documents and any support they have given before. For an education loan the Department names disbursement evidence as the best proof of access, so a sanction letter alone is weaker than a sanction letter with a first disbursement against it.

AUD 29,710 is a visa minimum, not a budget. Home Affairs says actual living costs vary across Australia and may be much higher, which is why the real cost of studying and living in Australia is worth planning separately from the number the form asks for.

What documents does the Subclass 500 application need?

Ten kinds of document, and only one of them can end the application before it starts. If you do not attach a Confirmation of Enrolment when you lodge, Home Affairs treats the application as invalid and cannot process it, so no amount of good paperwork afterwards rescues it.

Home Affairs runs a Document Checklist Tool that builds your list from your country of passport and your chosen provider, and the list genuinely differs between providers. It is refreshed on 31 March and 30 September each year, so open it again just before you submit rather than working from a copy an agent gave you months ago.

Four mechanical rules save a lot of grief. Scan or photograph everything in colour, and save a multi page document as one file. You can attach a maximum of 60 documents. Nothing needs certification or notarisation. And a translator in India does not have to be accredited, but must give their full name, address, phone number and qualifications in the language, written in English. NAATI accreditation applies only to translators inside Australia.

What IELTS or PTE score do you need for an Australian student visa?

IELTS Academic 6.0 overall, or PTE Academic 47, for a test taken on or after 7 August 2025. The bar drops if your main course is packaged behind English study, and it drops further with a longer English course in front of it.

A test taken on or before 6 August 2025 is read against the older scale, where IELTS was the same 6.0 but TOEFL iBT was 64, PTE Academic was 50 and OET was graded B in each component.

Four rules decide whether a valid score is still usable.

• The test must have been taken within two years before you lodged, or within two years before the decision if you are at streamlined evidence level and the Department asks for it.
• Fully online tests are not accepted. Home Affairs names IELTS Online, LANGUAGECERT Academic Online, OET@Home, CELPIP Online, MET Digital taken at home and the TOEFL iBT Home Edition.
• From 21 January 2026 you must select Taking TOEFL for Australia when you register, and TOEFL iBT tests sat between 26 July 2023 and 4 May 2024 are not accepted for any Australian visa purpose.
• LANGUAGECERT Academic results need both the certificate and the report attached, or processing is delayed.

Some applicants need no test at all, and the exemptions include a standalone ELICOS course, a principal course delivered in a language other than English, and a registered postgraduate research course. Even then the Department can ask for English evidence at any point while it processes you, so sit a test anyway if you are close to the line. Test choice sits on the PTE and IELTS scores for Australia page.

What medical tests and biometrics does Australia ask an Indian applicant for?

India is not on the Department’s published list of countries with a low risk of tuberculosis, so it is treated as high risk. An Indian applicant staying six months or more is normally asked for a medical examination, a chest x-ray from age 11, and a serum creatinine or eGFR test from age 15.

A HAP ID is the Health Assessment Portal identifier printed on the medical referral letter Home Affairs puts into your ImmiAccount. The clinic books your examination against it, and you need it again to change or cancel that appointment. Outside Australia the examination must be done by one of the Department’s approved panel physicians or clinics, not by your family doctor.

You can get ahead of this. The My Health Declarations service lets you complete health examinations before you lodge, and results are generally valid for 12 months, which takes the medical off your critical path when a course start date is tight.

Extra tests apply if you intend to study or train as a doctor, dentist, nurse or paramedic, namely an HIV test and hepatitis B and C tests. Anyone from a high tuberculosis risk country studying to work in health care, aged care or disability care also gets latent tuberculosis screening, so applicants heading into nursing, medicine and allied health courses in Australia should budget for the longer panel.

Biometrics are less predictable. Home Affairs says it might ask for them, and if it does you get 14 days to attend and must provide them before you travel. Its published list of Australian Biometrics Collection Centres, run by VFS Global, includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka but has no location in India, and the Department adds that you may need to travel to another country to attend one. Some applicants are instead told they can use the Australian Immi App. The centres charge a collection service fee that Home Affairs does not publish, so no honest page can quote you that number in advance.

In what order do the steps have to happen?

Seven steps, and the first four are yours to control. The application itself is entirely online, and there is no paper route for a Subclass 500.

1. Accept an offer and pay your deposit and OSHC, so the provider can issue your CoE. Nothing immigration related starts before this.
2. Sit your English test if you need one, inside the two year validity window.
3. Build the funds evidence, or the parent income documents, and start the medical through My Health Declarations if your timeline is tight.
4. Run the Document Checklist Tool again with your final provider, then complete the ImmiAccount form including the Genuine Student answers.
5. Attach every document and pay the charge. The application is not valid until the charge is paid and a CoE is attached, and Home Affairs warns that applications lodged without the relevant documentation may be refused or delayed rather than followed up.
6. Respond to any request quickly. Biometrics carry a 14 day window, and health instructions arrive with a HAP ID in ImmiAccount.
7. Wait for the written decision, which gives your grant number, expiry date and conditions. The visa is linked digitally to your passport, so there is no label or sticker.

How long that wait runs is not decided by your file. Applications lodged outside Australia on or after 14 November 2025 are ordered under Ministerial Direction 115, which sorts you into one of three priorities by how far the provider on your main CoE has gone through its New Overseas Student Commencements allocation. Postgraduate research applicants sit in Priority 1 regardless. The Department aims to begin work on Priority 1 within 1 to 4 weeks, Priority 2 within 5 to 8 weeks and Priority 3 within 9 to 12 weeks, while onshore applications are worked in lodgement order instead. Working out where your own provider sits belongs on the Australia student visa processing time page.

What conditions will the Subclass 500 put on you?

Up to sixteen conditions can attach to a Student visa, and the grant letter tells you which ones apply to you. These are the ones that shape daily life.

The work limit breaks more students than any other condition, because of how the fortnight is counted. A fortnight is a rolling period of 14 days beginning on a Monday, so a roster that looks compliant week by week can still breach. Home Affairs gives its own example of 15 hours, then 30, then 30, then 10 across four weeks. Weeks one and two total 45 hours and weeks three and four total 40, both fine, but weeks two and three total 60 hours, which is a breach.

Two further details are easy to get wrong. Work experience counts toward the 48 hours whether paid or unpaid, unless it is a mandatory component registered on CRICOS for your course. And you may hold more than one job, as long as the combined hours stay inside the limit.

Family members follow different rules under condition 8104. They also get 48 hours a fortnight in most cases, but the family of a student doing a masters by research or a doctorate has no cap at all, and neither does the family of a student doing a masters by coursework or a masters (Extended), even though that student is still capped at 48.

How long does the student visa last, and is there an age limit?

Up to six years, set by your course rather than by a fixed term, and there is no maximum age for a Subclass 500. The only ages written into the criteria are a minimum of 6 years and a set of school year caps, so a 34 year old applying for a master’s degree faces no age criterion at all.

Act on one point before you buy insurance. Your visa period is capped by your OSHC expiry date, and Home Affairs says plainly that your visa end date cannot be changed once granted. Buying cover only to the last day of your course, instead of to the end of the grant period you expect, quietly shortens the visa, so getting the OSHC duration right before you lodge is cheaper than fixing it afterwards.

There is also no such thing as extending this visa. To keep studying you apply for a new Student visa, and if your current one expires before your graduation ceremony a Visitor visa is the usual answer, supported by a letter from your provider stating the graduation date. If you have finished a qualifying Australian course in the last six months, the Subclass 485 post study work visa is what people actually mean when they say extension.

Applying from inside Australia has its own restriction. You need an eligible substantive visa, and several are excluded, including a Subclass 485, a Visitor visa, an Electronic Travel Authority and a Transit visa. Holding no substantive visa leaves a 28 day window after a Student, Special Purpose or dependent Diplomatic visa.

Can you bring a partner or children on an Australia student visa?

Yes, but the definition is narrow. A family member for Student visa purposes is your partner, or your or your partner’s dependent child who is unmarried and has not turned 18. A child who turns 18 before the visa is finalised cannot be granted one and has to apply in their own right.

The rule that costs people most is a declaration rule, not a money rule. You must declare every family member in your application even if they have no plan to travel with you. Leave them off and they are not eligible to join you later as a subsequent entrant, and fixing it means lodging a fresh Student visa application that includes them and explaining the omission.

Four more points decide whether a family application works.

• A de facto partner needs evidence of at least 12 months of relationship before you lodge, or a relationship registered with a participating Australian state or territory.
• Every subsequent entrant must attach financial evidence themselves, because the Document Checklist Tool does not apply to them.
• A dependant aged 5 to 17 needs evidence of school enrolment, and you must budget the AUD 13,502 annual school cost per child unless you are a doctoral student or a Commonwealth scholarship holder with a fee waiver at a government school.
• Siblings joining a parent with no parent in their application must each lodge separately and each pay the base charge.

Family members must also meet the health and character requirements and satisfy the genuine student dependent criterion, which is the GS test applied to them.

Who can lawfully help you with the application?

Only three kinds of people may give immigration assistance under Australian law, and they are a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner, or an exempt person. Home Affairs is specific that inside Australia only registered agents and legal practitioners can lawfully charge you for it.

A registered migration agent is registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, usually shortened to OMARA, and holds a migration agent registration number. The Register of Migration Agents is public, searchable by name, location or that number, and includes agents working outside Australia. If somebody in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad or anywhere else is charging you to prepare a Subclass 500, look them up before you pay.

Two practical markers of a legitimate arrangement. An appointed agent must notify Home Affairs using Form 956, which you sign, and must give you the OMARA Consumer guide. An education counsellor who helps you choose and apply to a university is doing something different and entirely legitimate, but that is admissions work rather than immigration assistance, and the two should not be billed as one thing.

Sources

• Department of Home Affairs, Student visa (subclass 500) (AUD 2,500 charge from 1 July 2026, eligibility criteria, gather documents, English score tables, funds figures and worked examples, genuine access to funds, VAC exemptions, OSHC and packaged course rules, 60 document limit, family rules; page last updated 1 July 2026)
• Department of Home Affairs, Genuine Student requirement (GS applies from 23 March 2024, GTE before it, the four questions plus the fifth, 150 word limit, later permanent residence intention not held against the applicant, Ministerial Direction No. 106)
• Federal Register of Legislation, Migration (LIN 19/198: Evidence of financial capacity, Subclass 500 Visa and Subclass 590 Visa) Instrument 2019 (AUD 29,710, AUD 10,394, AUD 4,449, AUD 13,502, AUD 87,856 and AUD 102,500; the four specified forms of evidence; the pro rata rule; Compilation No. 2, compilation date 10 May 2024)
• Department of Home Affairs, current visa pricing table (base charge, additional applicant charges of AUD 1,530 and AUD 500, ELICOS and Non-Award sector charges, subsequent temporary application charge, postgraduate research sector rows)
• Department of Home Affairs, payment surcharges (1.40 per cent on Visa and MasterCard including debit, 1.90 per cent UnionPay, 1.01 per cent PayPal)
• Department of Home Affairs, visa conditions list (8104, 8105 with the Department’s own four week worked example, 8202, 8203, 8204, 8208, 8501, 8516, 8517, 8533, 8534 and 8535)
• Department of Home Affairs, length of stay for Student visas (grant period table, the 6 year maximum, the extra 6 months for postgraduate research, and the OSHC expiry cap on the visa end date)
• Department of Home Affairs, what health examinations you need (temporary applicant table by tuberculosis risk and length of stay, additional tests for health care study, and the list of low risk countries which does not include India)
• Department of Home Affairs, when to have health examinations (My Health Declarations before lodgement, results generally valid 12 months)
• Department of Home Affairs, biometrics (Australian Biometrics Collection Centre country list with no Indian location, the Australian Immi App alternative, and the unpublished collection service fee)
• Department of Home Affairs, Student visa processing priorities (Ministerial Direction 115 from 14 November 2025, the three priorities, the postgraduate research carve out, and the 1 to 4, 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 week allocation targets)
• Department of Home Affairs, using a migration agent (OMARA registration, the Register of Migration Agents, MARN search, Form 956 and the Consumer guide)
• Reserve Bank of Australia, daily exchange rates (INR 67.71 per Australian dollar on 23 July 2026, used for every rupee figure on this page)
• IELTS, getting your results (7 days for paper based results in India, 1 to 2 days for IELTS on computer)
• Pearson, PTE Academic results (usually available within two days, up to five working days)

Related reading. Start with the guide to studying in Australia for Indian students, work out where your offer sits in the queue with the Australia student visa processing time and priority tiers, and get the paperwork behind your offer straight with CRICOS, the CoE and your Australian offer letter.