International student data is published monthly, giving the latest available data on students studying on a student visa. This visualisation allows selection of the current, as well as previous monthly and annual, international student monthly summaries.
On this page:
International student monthly summary
Use the report to explore different views of data on enrolments, commencements and student numbers by month, year, education sector, source country and state/territory
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Key points
- In the year-to-date September 2023, there were 896,960 international student enrolments, a 2.5 per cent increase in enrolments on the same period in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).
- The commencement count for this period (482,851) is the highest on record and 11 per cent higher than in the same period of 2019 (433,253).
- Fifty-five per cent of international students were from the following five student source countries: China (21 per cent of international students), India (16 per cent), Nepal (8 per cent), Colombia (5 per cent) and Philippines (4 per cent).
- Growth in enrolments since 2019 is highest in the VET sector (18 per cent).
- Enrolments in Higher Education remain 0.8 per cent below 2019 levels.
- Enrolments in ELICOS grew by five per cent on 2019
- Enrolments in Schools and Non-award declined by 39 and 33 per cent respectively.
Considerations for interpreting this data
- International student data is published in monthly year-to-date (YTD) and annual calendar year formats based on monthly snapshots of Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS). Snapshots are used to avoid slight variations in data across different extract dates as PRISMS is a live system and is constantly updated.
- Monthly YTD data for the current reporting year is available in the monthly summary (PDF) and the monthly YTD data tables.
- Student numbers is a count of individuals that have studied within the reference period on a student visa.
- Enrolment numbers is a count of a student's enrolment within the reference period. If a student does multiple courses during the reference period, the enrolments will each be counted.
- Further information is available in the explanatory notes for data relating to international students studying in Australia.
International Student Data for the year-to-date (YTD) September 2023
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Summary infographic
All data
Latest data
International Student Data – full year data (based on data finalised in December 2022)
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