Breaking Down the Key New Rules Fast-Tracking ART Student Visa Appeals
Today let’s talk about some ART updates. As you may know, each year after the federal Budget the Senate invites the heads of the various departments to attend hearings — to answer questions, report on their work and outline their plans for the future. The day before yesterday, the head of ART appeared at one of these hearings, so let’s take a close look — particularly at the review and appeals issues affecting student visas and migration-related visas.
ART’s Overall Caseload and Student Visa Appeal Backlog
If you’re currently in any of the following situations — waiting on an ART decision for your student visa, preparing to lodge an ART appeal, or planning to use ART to extend your lawful stay in Australia — you need to pay close attention! In short, ART student visa appeals are very likely about to speed up and enter an era of fast-tracked processing.
At present ART has a total backlog of 130,000 cases across all categories (including migration and others). Of these, migration accounts for nearly 80,000, while student visas alone make up 52,000 — already close to 70% of the backlog (see lead image). The President of ART also stated clearly that student visas are ART’s single largest backlog. Over the past few years the Department processed mostly refugee visas, but now student visas make up the bulk.
Because the student visa backlog is so large, the entire hearing essentially revolved around student visas. It was made clear that ART has not yet formally begun the process of deciding cases on the papers alone, but this is expected very soon — all of the tribunal’s systems are ready, training for members has been completed, and they are simply waiting for the Department to grant formal authorisation. When asked at the hearing for a specific go-live date, the word used was “imminent” — in other words, right around the corner — with implementation expected to begin around early June this year (see lead image).
If Decisions Are Made on the Papers Alone, Just How Fast Could It Be?
A decision could be processed and handed down in as little as a single day.
Every member, regardless of role, will have at least 10% of their caseload allocated to student visas. For full-time staff, at least 20% of the caseload will be allocated to student visas (see Image 2).
The new rules will significantly affect how student visas are reviewed and lift efficiency — which means faster processing!
However, ART receives around 90,000 cases each year, while its budget only allows it to process roughly 60,000 applications. This year even 60,000 may not be achievable, due to staff shortages — they also complained about issues such as insufficient office space (see Image 3).
Progress on Student Visa Appeals Currently Under Review
But with the focus now on student visas, ART will put its full effort into clearing the backlog. So especially for those hoping to use a student visa ART appeal to buy time, you need to be mentally prepared: once processing speeds up, a decision could come within days. It’s worth looking at what other options you have and planning ahead. On top of that, the opportunity to lodge additional supporting material will most likely come only once, so the quality of that submission matters a great deal — if the member isn’t satisfied, they will simply reaffirm the visa refusal decision!
Recently the student visa cases being heard are still mainly 2024 student visa appeals, mostly from the second half of 2024. A handful from 2025 have also received notifications.
I’m confident that processing will continue to speed up from here. Especially where there is no hearing, your written materials — the appeal letter and the chain of evidence — become extremely important, so be sure to prepare in advance and dig deep into your supporting material. For those with cases in progress, don’t keep relying on ART to buy time — be sure to look at other visa options and start planning early!
PS: The next couple of days will feature the Department’s sessions. We expect the full details may be updated tomorrow, and if there’s more news we’ll chat about it on tomorrow’s livestream.
