400,000+ bridging visa holders highlight a system in deep trouble

A record surge in bridging visas exposes years of neglect, poor policy design and migration mismanagement, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in our history, the number of bridging visa holders exceeds 400,000.

That is an astonishing number of temporary entrants in Australia whose application for a further substantive visa sits in a processing backlog, requiring them to be granted a bridging visa while they wait for a decision.

It reflects a combination of inadequate visa processing resources, poor visa design and the consequences of a huge blowout in net migration driven by students and working holidaymakers.

Chart 1 highlights that the problem took off around 2015-16 when former Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and his Secretary, Mike Pezzullo, were asleep to the challenge of managing a complex visa system. They thought immigration policy was just about boat arrivals. Cutting back on resources for visa processing and immigration compliance added to the problems of poor visa design and a lack of attention to a massive labour trafficking scam, as well as illegal restrictions of partner visa places.

The size of the problem grew faster during COVID with the closure of international borders and subsequently with Coalition Government policy changes designed to both retain temporary entrants in Australia to address labour shortages and to turbocharge students and working holiday makers.

The new Labor Government responded in 2023 by putting more resources into clearing the huge backlog of onshore student and other visa applications that were sitting in the bridging visa backlog. The bridging visa backlog in 2023 fell to around 191,000. But simply approving those applications was never a long-term solution.

With onshore student as well as other temporary and permanent applications again surging, including the Labor Government’s own illegal limit on partner visas, the bridging visa backlog grew rapidly in 2024 and in the first half of 2025.

Student visa backlog blows out as Tribunal struggles to cope

A record-breaking surge in student visa refusals is swamping Australia’s migration tribunal, with no relief in sight until late 2025 or beyond.

In August 2025, there was another surge in:

onshore student applications (a new August record was set for onshore higher education applications); and
temporary graduate applications (August 2025 set a new record of 23,639, breaking the previous August record of 16,391 in August 2021).

It is likely there were also large increases in onshore applications for the skilled temporary visa, but data for that is not yet publicly available. In addition, we know there are large onshore backlogs for partner and permanent employer-sponsored visas, as well as a record migration (non-asylum) backlog at the Administrative Review Tribunal (A.R.T.) of almost 60,000, plus over 40,000 in the asylum backlog at the A.R.T. These would also be holding bridging visas.

The Government has introduced legislation to enable the A.R.T. to process more applications “on the papers” and without requiring a hearing. But this is only a partial solution. The Government needs a holistic long-term plan to manage the consequences of the blowout in net migration.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.