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The number of British working holiday visas issued to Australians has skyrocketed by 70% in 2024, with over 79,000 granted. This surge is attributed to recent rule changes that eliminated the requirement for backpackers to complete 88 days of regional work in order to extend their visas, along with an increase in the eligible age range to 35. While this has boosted tourism and hostel occupancy in cities like Sydney, it has created challenges for regional agricultural employers who rely on the labor of backpackers to fill seasonal positions on farms.
Arrive in Sydney. Find a hostel.
Then head north, picking fruit, pulling beers or waiting tables, to clock up the 88 days of specified work needed to extend a working holiday visa. Under the Australia-UK free trade agreement, British backpackers no longer have to complete specified work to get a second or third working holiday visa. The age limit was also raised from 30 to 35.
More than 79,000 working holiday visas were granted to British citizens in 2024–25, up almost 70 per cent on the previous year. Dan McConnell knows it from both sides. The British-born general manager of Mad Monkey Backpackers arrived in Australia on a working holiday visa in 2015. He travelled the east coast, became a tour guide, found an employer willing to sponsor him and moved to Cairns to secure permanent residency.
His hostels hosted about 8,000 British guests during the post-COVID tourism boom. He said the change was being felt beyond the number of beds occupied.
"The British people were the ones that were spending a lot of money on our bars, while they were working towards extending their visas," Mr McConnell said. Mr McConnell said demand was stronger at the company's Sydney properties, where many working holiday makers were finding jobs and accommodation and choosing to stay put.
"Why would you give up your accommodation, whether that's in a hostel or a share house, to come up to Cairns and run the risk of not being able to find work? " he said. The working holiday scheme has become part of a much bigger argument over Australia's migration numbers. The federal government has been considering ways to reduce temporary migration, including whether British backpackers should once again have to undertake regional work to extend their visas.
On North Queensland farms, growers say British backpackers were once a familiar part of the seasonal workforce.
"Having the UK workers available did make a difference. It's increased the pressure of finding workers.
"But the disappearance of the British backpacker from regional Australia points to a broader change in the way the working holiday visa is being used. Australian National University Migration Hub director Alan Gamlen said the working holiday scheme had gradually changed from a vehicle for travel and exploration into something more closely resembling an international career break.
"It's evolved over time away from this voyage of self-discovery and exploration to more of a targeted career-building exercise,"He said Australia was no longer simply a place to travel through and the working holiday visa could also be a pathway towards a longer-term future. "Three years of successive visas almost gets them to permanent residence eligibility, so the working holiday visa is seen by some as a first step towards permanent settlement," he said.
Experts say British backpackers are increasingly choosing Australia’s big cities, including Sydney, as a place to work and stay. Britain was Australia's fourth-largest source of permanent migrants in 2024–25, with 10,205 places granted to UK citizens. Employer-sponsored migration accounted for 4,650 of those places. Department of Home Affairs figures show 321,116 working holiday maker visas were granted across all nationalities in 2024–25, up almost 37 per cent from 234,556 the previous year.
British Backpackers Working Holiday Visas Australia Migration Regional Work Requirement Seasonal Agriculture
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