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The Albanese government has quietly paused working holidaymaker visa applications from 24 countries as it seeks to wrest control of the migration system while a political stoush brews over whether to curtail the number of backpackers who come to Australia.
Migration and travel agents have told the tourism industry they have been detecting delays in processing times for countries with uncapped backpacker places since the beginning of July, while the pause on applications from countries with caps was introduced without notice in the last month.
Backpacker and Youth Tourism Advisory Panel chair Peta Zietsch said this would have a knock-on effect for tourism operators and regional employers who relied on backpackers for seasonal work, and who would usually expect young Europeans to arrive in Australia soon for the summer period.
Zietsch said it also risked deterring backpackers when combined with the recent rise in visa fees, which increased from $670 to $840 for first visas and $1000 for second- and third-year visas last month.
“Rather than placing barriers in the way of the working holidaymaker program, we should be looking at ways to attract more young international travellers here,” she said.
Working holidaymakers, who have surged in number since the pandemic, were drawn into the political debate over immigration this week as both Labor and the Coalition fine-tune their plans for lowering Australia’s migrant intake.
Labor’s May budget papers had already flagged that the government wanted to expand the use of ballots, or lotteries, to deal with demand for the popular visas and to better control numbers. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was expected to use his delayed National Press Club address to outline how this would inform his plan to meet a 225,000 net migration target within two years.
Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg also named working holidaymakers as one part of the migration system that could be targeted to reduce overall migration to about 180,000, during a wide-ranging speech on Wednesday that raised eyebrows among his colleagues.
But Nationals leader Matt Canavan quickly knocked back the idea, saying on Friday: “They’re just not the problem, so that won’t be targeted.”
Canavan told Radio National: “It’s not been the cause of the migration crisis we’re seeing in Australia since the end of COVID. So, what we clearly need to do is look at those programs that have blown out and are causing so much stress on the infrastructure and services and housing of this country.”
Data, however, shows that working holidaymakers have been a key driver of higher migration since 2022. They made up 17.5 per cent of the net migration figure in 2024-25.
This masthead reported in 2024 and 2025 that working backpacker numbers had reached new highs, driven by Morrison government changes that expanded eligibility for workers, particularly British nationals who no longer had to complete regional work to stay longer in the country.
Latest government data from June 30 shows this trend has continued: there were 225,648 working holidaymakers in the country at the end of the financial year, which is the highest June data on record. It compares with 210,971 in June 2025, and 173,216 in June 2024 – all of which were also June records at the time.
There are two working holidaymaker visas. The first visa stream is uncapped and has 19 partner countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – meaning places are demand-driven.
The second visa stream is capped. It applies to a further 29 countries, which are allocated between 100 and 5000 places a year. They include Argentina, Indonesia, Austria and Israel.
Three of the countries in the capped category – China, India and Vietnam – have a lottery system regulating who can apply at what time of year. The remaining countries have all been put on pause, except for Turkey and San Marino, which have just 100 places each.
The Department of Home Affairs website says applications could be paused when the cap is nearly filled, or to spread applications throughout the year.
“Lodgements may also be paused to support the government’s migration settings while ensuring the program operates sustainably,” it says.
The department did not respond to questions about why the majority of applications had been paused, given the annual caps reset just six weeks ago.
Immigration expert Abul Rizvi said pausing so many countries at once was highly unusual.
“Where we are with working holidaymaker numbers now is higher than anything before COVID by a long way,” he said. “I suspect it’s a temporary pause to work out how to manage the demand, or to organise the lottery for other countries.”
The government has indicated it could expand the lottery system to other countries to manage arrivals. And while the first year visa is capped, the second and third years are not.
Capping those visas, or removing the third-year visa that was introduced during the pandemic, would be another option for the government to reduce net migration by making more people leave the country earlier.
Rizvi said removing the third visa could bring down net migration by between 5000 and 10,000 people in a full year. “It would get Matt Canavan and Pauline Hanson cross, as well as farmers and regional tourism businesses,” he said.
The contest over working holidaymaker visas demonstrates the challenges for the Coalition as it seeks to drive down migrant numbers without affecting regional areas that rely on labour migration.
One Nation would also hit a snag in its efforts to retain working holidaymaker visas for regional workforces while at the same time promising to only issue 130,000 visas a year across the entire migration system.
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Natassia Chrysanthos is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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