Visa process
Running an Australia subclass 500 case
Australia assesses whether the student is genuinely coming to study, and it does so in the applicant's own words. The Genuine Student statement is the part of the file that decides most borderline cases.
Checked against the official source on 2026-09-01
The document everything waits on
CoE - Confirmation of Enrolment
- Issued by
- The provider, after the offer is accepted and the deposit and OSHC are paid
- How long it takes
- 5 to 10 working days after payment clears
The CoE is generated in the provider's system and is what the visa application attaches to. A change of course or start date means a new CoE, and a lodged application referencing an old one causes delay.
The Genuine Student requirement
It replaced the Genuine Temporary Entrant test, and the change matters in practice: the emphasis is on whether the course makes sense for this student, not on proving an intention to leave.
The statement is written by the student. A file where every applicant from one agency submits the same structure, the same phrases and the same reasons is a file that invites scrutiny of the agency, not just the student. This is the single place where volume processing shows.
What helps: the student's actual academic history, the gap between their last study and now explained plainly, and a specific reason for this provider. What does not: superlatives about Australia.
OSHC, and paying it at the right time
Overseas student health cover must be arranged before the CoE is issued in most cases, and must cover the full visa period. A policy bought for one year against a two-year course is a common and avoidable delay.
Providers often arrange it as part of the offer acceptance. Confirming whether they do, per provider, stops the family paying twice.
Financial capacity
Evidence of funds for tuition, travel and living costs. As elsewhere, liquid and documented beats large and illiquid.
Australia does not always ask for it up front, which leads some counsellors to skip preparing it. Being asked for it mid-assessment with a short deadline is how an otherwise sound case is lost.
What trips these cases up
Drawn from refusal reasons rather than from official guidance. Shortest first.
- A Genuine Student statement that reads as though the agency wrote it.
- OSHC covering less than the full visa period.
- A lodged application referencing a superseded CoE after a start-date change.
- Financial evidence not prepared because it was not requested at lodgement.
- An unexplained study gap, which is answerable but not if it is left unanswered.
- Course changes after lodgement, which can look like the study was never the point.
The milestones, in order
The track Visatory ships for this country. Each agency can edit its own copy; this is the starting point.
- 01Offer acceptedstudent · 5 working days
- 02Deposit and OSHC paidstudent · 7 working days
- 03Confirmation of Enrolment issuedinstitution · 10 working days
- 04Genuine Student statement preparedstudent · 10 working days
- 05Overseas student health cover arrangedstudent · 3 working days
- 06Financial capacity evidence preparedstudent · 10 working days
- 07Visa application lodgedagency · 5 working days
- 08Medical examination completedoptionalstudent · 14 working days
- 09Biometrics givenoptionalstudent · 10 working days
- 10Decision receivedgovernment · 45 working days
Questions counsellors ask
- Is GTE still a thing?
- It was replaced by the Genuine Student requirement. The file looks similar; the emphasis shifted from proving an intention to return towards whether the course is a sensible next step for this student.
- When is the CoE issued?
- After the offer is accepted and the deposit and OSHC are paid. It is a payment-gated document, like the I-20, so the timeline runs from when money clears rather than from the offer.
- How long is the decision?
- Commonly around six weeks, with wide variation by provider and by country. Peak intakes are slower.
Running these cases in a spreadsheet?
Visatory tracks every milestone above per student, warns when one goes stale, and keeps the documents and the dates in the same place as the commission. Built for agencies rather than adapted from a sales tool.