JAKARTA - Australia’s Department of Home Affairs said first Work and Holiday visa applications for countries subject to annual caps will open on July 2, Australian Eastern Standard Time, after system maintenance on July 1. The department posted the update on its Working Holiday Maker latest-news page, last updated June 23.
The opening applies to first Work and Holiday subclass 462 applications from countries with annual grant limits. Home Affairs said the date gives the department time to complete scheduled maintenance at the start of the program year before applicants lodge their forms.
The subclass 462 visa forms part of Australia’s reciprocal Working Holiday Maker program. The program allows young adults to take a 12-month holiday in Australia and undertake short-term work and study, with more than 40 partner countries or jurisdictions covered across the subclass 417 and subclass 462 streams.
“Each program year, there is a limit, or ‘cap’, on the number of first Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visas that we can grant to applicants from certain countries,” Home Affairs said on its country-caps page, also last updated June 23.
Several Asia-Pacific partners sit inside the capped subclass 462 system. China and Indonesia each have annual caps of 5,000 first Work and Holiday visa grants, followed by Singapore at 2,500, Thailand at 2,000, Vietnam at 1,500, Malaysia at 1,100 and India at 1,000.
China, India and Vietnam are managed through the Work and Holiday visa ballot instead of the standard application cap process. Passport holders from those countries must complete a pre-application process and be randomly selected before applying, although Home Affairs said the ballot does not change their annual visa grant caps.
The department said China, India and Vietnam ballot registrations for program year 2026-2027 opened on June 4 and closed on June 25. India joined the Working Holiday Maker visa program on September 16, 2024, with up to 1,000 first Work and Holiday visas available each program year for eligible Indian citizens aged 18 to 30.
Home Affairs says country caps may be open, paused or closed during a program year. A paused cap may reopen later in the same year, but a closed cap will not reopen until the next program year because all places for that year have been filled.
