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Why one number, NOM, could shape your Australian visa plans from the UK

News · 2026-08-26 · 4 min read

Whether you are thinking about a working holiday, a course or a skilled job, there is one figure behind almost every Australian argument about visas. It is NOM, short for net overseas migration. Every party quotes it, and few define it the same way. Knowing what it measures will help you read the visa changes that may be coming.

How the figure is worked out

In simple terms, NOM is the number of people who arrive and stay for at least a year, minus the number who leave to settle somewhere else. The detail is a bit more involved.

Australia uses a 12/16-month rule. You do not need an unbroken stay: anyone who lives in Australia for 12 months within any 16-month window is counted, even if the time is split across several visits. A student who goes home for a month and comes back still counts once their total time adds up.

It is not only about visa holders

NOM includes Australian citizens and permanent residents coming home, plus New Zealanders moving across the Tasman. Both groups travel largely without visas, so visa policy has little grip on them. Diplomats and their families are left out altogether. Workers on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, which brings farm workers from the Pacific for stints as short as a few months, may or may not be counted, depending only on how long they stay.

Who made up the total in 2024–25

Two of the larger groups, returning Australians and New Zealanders, sit almost entirely outside visa control. That matters, because it means any cut has to fall mostly on the visas people like you would use.

Targets that keep being missed

The latest figure puts NOM at roughly 301,000 for the year to December 2025. That is well down on the post-pandemic high of around 556,000 in 2023, but still above the government's own projections. Treasury expects 225,000 by the 2027–28 financial year, yet its forecasts have regularly come in under the real number, which is part of why NOM has become such a political flashpoint.

What each side is proposing

• One Nation has publicly committed to a target of 130,000, despite some mixed messages from within the party. It has pointed at graduate visas, international student numbers and a tighter skilled list.
• The Coalition has not set a firm figure. It would link a cap to housing construction, possibly somewhere under 200,000. A figure of 180,000 aimed at working holiday, student and some skilled visas was floated by one senator, but others in the party distanced themselves from it, partly because so many regional employers rely on working holiday-makers at harvest.
• The government has in effect taken Treasury's projection of 225,000 by 2028 as its target, leaning on enforcement rather than broad cuts: making sure temporary visa holders leave when their visas end, and slowing processing on working holiday and skilled applications in the meantime.

Reading the debate from the UK

The headline number matters less than which visas are being singled out. Student, graduate and working holiday visas, along with parts of the skilled list, are all under scrutiny, so processing times, eligibility and caps in those streams are more likely to move soon than family or humanitarian intake. UK citizens looking at a working holiday, up to the age limit, should keep that in mind.

Given how far actual numbers have strayed from forecasts in the past, treat any announced target as a direction of travel, not a promise, and follow the policy detail as it comes out rather than the speeches around it. The Home Affairs visa listing is where confirmed changes appear.

For more context, read what the Coalition's proposed cap could mean and the working holiday visa shake-up, or look through jobs in Australia for UK citizens.

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