Decoding NOM: How Australia Counts Its Arrivals and Why Every Party Now Wants a Lower Figure

News · 2026-08-26 · 5 min read

Skilled professionals in Dubai, Doha or Riyadh who are thinking about their next move often watch Australian visa news closely, and lately one short abbreviation keeps surfacing in every report: NOM, meaning Net Overseas Migration. Whether a person arrives on a student visa, a skilled visa or a working holiday, they may end up inside this figure. Politicians across the spectrum now cite it, dispute it and define it in slightly different ways, so a clear grasp of what it covers makes upcoming policy shifts much easier to interpret.

A Definition Worth Getting Right

Put simply, NOM takes everyone who comes to Australia and stays for a year or longer, then deducts everyone who departs to make a home elsewhere. The arithmetic sounds tidy, yet the way individuals qualify is more involved than campaign slogans imply.

The Counting Window

The measure relies on a 12/16-month rule. Nobody has to remain for 12 consecutive months. A person is included once they have spent 12 months living in Australia during any 16-month stretch, even if separate visits make up that total. A student who flies out for a month at home and then comes back is therefore still recorded, as long as the combined time reaches the mark.

More Than Foreign Nationals

It is a mistake to read NOM as a tally of foreigners alone. Australian citizens and permanent residents coming back are part of it, and so are New Zealanders crossing the Tasman to settle. Both groups move mostly without visas, which leaves governments little ability to manage them through visa rules. Diplomats and their families never appear in the count. Short-term workers brought in under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) program, which places agricultural labourers from the Pacific for periods that can be as brief as a few months, might or might not be included; the length of each placement is the only deciding factor.

Targets Versus Track Record

The latest data shows NOM at roughly 301,000 for the year to December 2025. That is well down on the post-pandemic peak of around 556,000 in 2023, though it remains comfortably above what government projected. Treasury expects the number to ease to 225,000 by the 2027–28 financial year. In recent years, however, its estimates have kept coming in lower than the actual result.

That pattern explains much of the political tension. Announcing a figure is easy; reaching it is far harder when a large portion of the movement involves Australians returning home and New Zealanders relocating, neither of which visa settings can do much about.

Who Actually Arrived in 2024–25

The composition of arrivals reveals more than the total. Across the 2024–25 financial year:

Overseas students were the single biggest contributor, at around 157,000, with most of them entering higher education.
People on skilled visas, permanent and temporary taken together, accounted for roughly 86,000.
Working holiday-makers added close to 78,000.
Australian citizens coming back numbered 64,000, while New Zealand citizens made up 53,000; both sit almost completely beyond the reach of visa policy.
Family reunion visas contributed around 24,000.
Humanitarian visas brought in just under 15,000.

How the Major Parties Compare

All the main parties now promise a lower NOM, though some explain their plans far more clearly than others.

Labor's Working Target

Labor has effectively taken on Treasury's projection of 225,000 by 2028 as its goal. Instead of broad visa reductions, it stresses enforcement: making sure temporary visa holders depart when their visas end, and processing working holiday and skilled visa applications more slowly in the meantime.

A Housing-Linked Cap From the Coalition

The Coalition has not fixed a number. It prefers to link any future ceiling to how fast homes are being built, with hints that the result could sit somewhere below 200,000. One senator nominated 180,000, aimed at working holiday, student and select skilled visas. Colleagues quickly stepped back from that idea, mindful that many regional and rural employers depend on working holiday-makers for seasonal labour.

One Nation's Shifting Message

One Nation's stated NOM target is 130,000, but its communication has been patchy. A newer MP suggested the party's "real" figure, after PALM workers and aged care nurses were added back in, could be nearer to Treasury's 225,000 forecast. Senior figures then retracted those remarks and restated 130,000 as the official position. The party has marked graduate visas, international student numbers and a tighter skilled migration list for reductions.

Reading the Signals From the Gulf

For experienced professionals considering a move from UAE to Australia, the headline NOM figure matters less than the specific visa categories in the spotlight. Student visas, graduate visas, working holiday visas and sections of the skilled visa list are all under active political scrutiny. Processing times, eligibility criteria and annual caps in those streams are more likely to change soon than family reunion or the humanitarian intake.

Because real migration numbers have so often drifted away from government projections, any announced "target" is best read as a direction of travel, not a guarantee. Keep following the official policy detail as it is published, and let that, rather than the surrounding rhetoric, guide a considered career step.

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