The federal government has paused new applications for the capped Work and Holiday visa (subclass 462) from 24 of the 29 partner countries, including Indonesia, Spain, Argentina and Singapore. Five countries are still open: San Marino and Türkiye with 100 places each on a first in, first served basis, plus China, India and Vietnam, which run on a ballot. The pause stops new applications being lodged while it holds, and it turned up on the Department of Home Affairs website rather than in a government announcement.
The detail comes from ABC News, which reported the pause and put it to Home Affairs, the minister and three industry and immigration figures. Department of Home Affairs figures reported by the ABC put the number of working holiday-makers in Australia at 206,187 as of 30 June 2025.
”It was quietly put out there”
At a press conference in Sydney on Sunday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the working holiday-maker visas were “being processed more slowly than they were previously”. He did not comment further on the changes.
The Home Affairs page for the 462 stream says lodgements are temporarily paused when a cap is nearly filled or to spread applications across the program year. “Lodgements may also be paused to support the Government’s migration settings while ensuring the program operates sustainably,” the page reads.
Immigration lawyer Chris Johnston, who has worked in the industry for decades, called the government’s actions “dramatic” and said the scale is what makes this one different.
“I do believe [in the past], they have paused, or run out of allocations, so these sort of things have happened before,” Mr Johnston told the ABC.
“But when you look at the screen, [almost] the whole screen is blue [paused]. So this is different to one country running out of allocations, or a one-off pause.”
He said there was no formal announcement. “It was just something that was put up on the website of the Department of Home Affairs,” he said. “It was quietly put out there.”
In a statement to the ABC, the department did not specifically address the pause. “Reforms to the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program will better control demand and provide a fairer allocation of WHM visas,” a department spokesperson said.
Why it’s happening, and why one ex-official says it won’t work
Nobody in government has spelled out the reason. Experts quoted by the ABC point to the broader argument over net overseas migration, which the Australian Bureau of Statistics defines as migrant arrivals minus migrant departures over a set period. Labor has said it wants net migration down to 225,000 a year.
“Many visa programs are suffering, either through slow processing, there’s a high number of refusals for student visas, and now we can see that attention is also being turned to working holiday visas,” Mr Johnston said.
Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, said that if cutting net migration is the goal, “slow processing is a very, very poor way to do it”.
“Slow processing usually just creates more problems than it solves,” he said. “It’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”
His point is mechanical, not political. Applications don’t disappear when the queue stops moving. “A pause or a slowdown just means the backlog of applications builds up,” Mr Rizvi said. “All those applicants would be legally valid applications and would have to be processed, so you haven’t actually solved any problem.”
Rizvi said removing the third year of the visa, which was added during the COVID pandemic, would be a more sensible lever if the aim is lower net migration.
What it means for a small trade business
Be clear about what a backpacker is and isn’t on a site. A working holiday-maker without an Australian licence can’t do fixed electrical wiring or gasfitting anywhere in this country, and sanitary plumbing and drainage need a licensed plumber in every state and territory. What they do fill is the unlicensed end of the job: labouring, trades assistant work, demolition and strip-out, site clean-up, fencing and landscaping crews, and the hand-to-hand work on regional jobs where you need a body for three days and can’t justify a permanent hire.
That’s the same reason horticulture leans on them. Wendi Aylward, a spokesperson for the Backpacker and Youth Tourism panel, said the short-stint nature of the work is the whole point.
“Those farmers [in regional areas] may need someone only for a week or a couple of days, and that’s where a working holiday-maker becomes just so critical,” she said. “They are regionally dispersed, and the wonderful thing is they spend the money that they make in those communities.”
The money side is where this reaches builders and subbies who never hire a backpacker at all. In 2019 working holiday-makers contributed $3.2 billion to the Australian economy, Tourism Australia reported, with at least $726 million of that spent in regional areas. That spend is hostel beds, pub kitchens, bakeries, tour operators and the small fitout and maintenance jobs those businesses put out to local trades.
“Working holiday-makers create jobs in regional Australia because they use the travel operators, they go to the bakeries, they stay at the hostels,” Ms Aylward said. “So, they not only do the work themselves, but they facilitate and create employment in Australia.”
The queue is already six weeks deep
The squeeze isn’t hypothetical for people mid-application. Aylward said the industry has had “very little information” from government.
“Those who had applied under the 417 or 462 visa after July 1, anyone who’s contacted Immigration to try and get an update on their visa have just been told that they need to wait,” she said. “And remember we’re now in mid-August, so we have people that applied in early July and are still waiting.”
Johnston said the harder hit falls on people who hadn’t lodged yet. “The pause basically means they will not be able to lodge a new one whilst it’s paused … so they will have to change their plans and wait until it opens again,” he said. “But when it opens, it might not be as easy to get as it previously was.”
Asked about the effect on agriculture, Burke said the Pacific Workers Scheme, known as PALM, was the “principal visa for the agricultural industry”. Rizvi said that answer surprised him, citing the “massive levels of exploitation and abuse” detailed in a report on that scheme from a NSW parliamentary inquiry. “I’m surprised the government is encouraging people to apply for the Pacific visa that has so many different problems,” he said.
Two things to watch if casual labour is part of how you resource jobs. First, whether the 462 lodgement pages flip back to open before the summer run of regional work, because nothing on the site says how long the pause lasts. Second, whether the 417 stream, the uncapped one covering the UK, Ireland, Canada, France and Japan, keeps clearing at its usual pace, since that’s where most of the labouring pool on eastern-seaboard sites actually comes from. The 206,187 already here aren’t going anywhere this month. It’s the top-up over the next six to twelve months that’s in question.
Frequently asked questions
Which countries can still apply for a subclass 462 working holiday visa?
Five of the 29 partner countries remain open: San Marino and Türkiye, which run 100 places each on a first in, first served basis, plus China, India and Vietnam, which run on a ballot.
How long will the pause last?
The Department of Home Affairs hasn’t said. Nothing on the department’s website indicates when lodgements from the other 24 countries will reopen.
Does the pause affect working holiday-makers already in Australia?
No. The 206,187 working holiday-makers already onshore as of 30 June 2025 aren’t affected; the pause only stops new applications being lodged.
Is the uncapped 417 visa affected by the pause?
No. The 417 stream, covering the UK, Ireland, Canada, France and Japan, isn’t part of the pause and is the main source of the labouring pool on eastern-seaboard sites.
Sourced from ABC News, Department of Home Affairs, Tourism Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics. Original article.
