NOM Explained: What Australia's Migration Numbers Mean for Your Visa Plans

News · 2026-08-26 · 5 min read

Thinking of building a new life in Australia? Whether you hope to arrive as a student, on a skilled visa or through a working holiday, one short word keeps popping up in the news: NOM. It stands for Net Overseas Migration, and right now it is the figure Australian politicians quote most often, debate most loudly and rarely describe the same way twice. Knowing what sits behind it can help you make sense of visa changes as they are announced, so you can plan your next step calmly.

NOM in plain words

The basic idea is easy to follow. Take everyone who comes to Australia and stays for a year or more, then subtract everyone who leaves to live in another country. What remains is NOM. The way each person gets counted, though, is a little more detailed than the short clips on television make it sound.

Australia applies a 12/16-month rule. A person does not need to stay for 12 months straight. Instead, they are included if they spend a total of 12 months in Australia during any 16-month period, even when that time is broken up by trips overseas. For example, a student who flies home for a month to see family and then comes back is still counted, as long as the total time adds up.

Who is inside the count, and who is left out

Many people assume NOM only tracks foreigners, but that is not so. It also includes Australian citizens and permanent residents coming home, plus New Zealanders who move across the Tasman. These groups travel mostly without visas, so no government can easily manage their numbers through visa rules. Diplomats and their families are not counted at all. Short-term workers under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) program, which brings farm workers from the Pacific for placements that can last only a few months, may or may not appear in the figure. It all depends on how long their placement runs.

The latest figures, broken down

The newest data places NOM at roughly 301,000 for the year to December 2025. That is a big drop from the post-pandemic peak of around 556,000 in 2023, yet it is still higher than what the government itself projected. Treasury expects the figure to fall to 225,000 by the 2027–28 financial year. In recent years, however, its forecasts have kept landing below the actual result. This is one reason NOM has become such a hot political topic: announcing a target is one thing, but reaching it is harder when much of the movement comes from returning citizens and New Zealanders rather than from visa decisions.

Looking at where arrivals come from is more helpful than the single total. In the 2024–25 financial year:

International students formed the biggest group, at around 157,000 arrivals, most of them studying in higher education.
Skilled visa holders, counting both permanent and temporary categories, added roughly 86,000.
Working holiday-makers contributed close to 78,000.
Family reunion visas brought in around 24,000.
Humanitarian visas accounted for just under 15,000.
Australian citizens coming home made up 64,000 arrivals.
New Zealand citizens made up 53,000.

Those last two groups sit almost completely outside the reach of visa policy.

Each party's promise on migration

All the major parties now say they will bring NOM down, but some pledges are much clearer than others.

One Nation

One Nation has publicly set a NOM target of 130,000. Its messages have not always matched, though. A newer MP suggested that the party's "real" figure, once PALM workers and aged care nurses were added back in, might sit nearer to Treasury's 225,000 forecast. Senior figures then took back those comments and confirmed 130,000 as the official line. The party has named graduate visas, international student numbers and a tighter skilled migration list as areas to cut.

The Coalition

The Coalition has not chosen a firm number. Instead, it connects any future cap to the pace of housing construction, with hints that the figure could end up somewhere under 200,000. One senator proposed 180,000, aimed at working holiday, student and select skilled visas. Other party figures quickly stepped away from that idea, especially because many regional and rural employers rely on working holiday-makers for seasonal labour.

Labor

Labor has in effect taken Treasury's projection of 225,000 by 2028 as its working target. Rather than broad visa cuts, it is focusing on enforcement: making sure temporary visa holders actually leave once their visas expire, and slowing down processing of working holiday and skilled visa applications in the meantime.

How to use this as you plan your move

If Australia is on your list, the headline NOM figure matters less than the visa categories being targeted for tightening. Student visas, graduate visas, working holiday visas and parts of the skilled visa list are all under close political watch. That means processing times, eligibility rules and yearly caps in these streams are more likely to change soon than areas such as family reunion or the humanitarian intake. Since actual migration numbers have often drifted far from government projections, it is wise to see any announced "target" as a signal of direction, not a promise.

Whether you are applying from the Philippines or from a job in the Middle East, the practical advice is the same: follow the official policy details as they are released, prepare your documents early, and do not let political noise rush your decisions. Patience and good preparation will carry you far, kabayan.

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