Australia Just Raised Its Working Holiday Visa Fee — Here's What You'll Now Pay

Australia has quietly made its working holiday visa more expensive again. From 1 July 2026, the fee to apply for a first Working Holiday visa rises to A$840, and — the part hitting the headlines — staying on for a second or third year now costs A$1,000 each time, up from A$670.

It's the latest in a run of annual increases that has pushed Australia to the top of the table: it is now, by some distance, the most expensive working holiday visa in the world. Nothing else about the visa is changing — the 12-month stay, the regional-work pathways to a second and third year, and the savings requirement all stay as they are.

In sterling, the first-year fee goes from roughly £340 to about £430 — a ~£90 jump before you've even booked a flight. The second and third years now sit at around £510 each (convert live before you budget, as the exchange rate moves).

Go the full three years and you're looking at about A$2,840 in visa fees alone, up from A$2,010. To put that in context, Japan's working holiday visa is around A$156 and Canada's is under A$400 for Australians — so on the visa fee alone, Australia now costs several times more than the alternatives.

This isn't a one-off, and that's the bit worth planning around. The first-year fee has climbed almost every July: roughly A$510 before 2023, then A$635 (2023), A$650 (2024), A$670 (2025) and now A$840 (2026) — a rise of about 65% in four years.

The increase is part of a wider 25% uplift applied across most Australian visa charges this year, so it isn't that working holidaymakers are being singled out — but the jump on the second- and third-year visas to A$1,000 is steeper than the across-the-board rise, and it's the one that stings if you were planning to stay the full three years.

It's not all bad news. From the same date, citizens of Cyprus, Finland, Germany and South Korea can apply for the 417 visa up to age 35 (previously 30), bringing them into line with the UK, Ireland and others who already have the wider 18–35 window. So while it costs more to get there, more people can now go, and go later in life.

If you're genuinely close to going, applying before 1 July saves you the increase — the fee you pay is the one in force on the day you lodge, and anyone who lodges before the change keeps the old A$670.

But don't rush an application just to beat the fee if you're not ready. A Working Holiday visa must be activated — meaning you make your first entry into Australia — within 12 months of it being granted. Apply far too early and you simply start that clock, and risk having to enter before you actually want to. The rule of thumb: if you'll be in Australia within a year, lodge before 1 July; if not, wait.

For most people, yes — the fee is painful up front but small against what a year in Australia earns. The national minimum wage is among the highest in the world at around A$24 an hour, and hospitality, farm and construction work routinely pays more, so the A$840 fee is roughly two days' work once you land.

The bigger budget lines are your flights, your first month's rent and bond, and the A$5,000-ish in savings you need to show on entry — the visa fee, even after this rise, is a relatively small slice of the total cost of setting up a year down under.