Financial capacity for a student visa: genuine access, money from parents, gifts, inheritances, loans, and the deposit that gets applications refused

MARN 1576536

What must be shown

A student visa applicant must give evidence of financial capacity in one of the forms the regulations allow: funds sufficient for the first twelve months of the course fees, the living costs of the applicant and each family member included for twelve months at the amounts the Department sets, the travel to and from Australia, and the school fees of any school-age children; or evidence of an annual income of the applicant's spouse or parent, for the year before the application, above the amount the Department sets, from a tax assessment or equivalent; or a scholarship or a sponsorship from an eligible body that covers the costs. The living cost and income figures are published by the Department and indexed, and the application is built to the figures current at lodgement. The Department may also, for applicants it assesses as higher risk, ask for evidence beyond the minimum. The student visa guide sets out the full criteria, and the October 2026 guide where the application is now made.

Genuine access

The regulations require the Department to be satisfied that the applicant will have genuine access to the funds while in Australia, and the Department reads the financial evidence for three things: whose money it is, where it came from, and whether it will remain available. Money in the applicant's or a parent's account with a history of months, built from visible income, is money the Department accepts. Money that arrived in a lump shortly before the statement was printed, from a transfer the file does not explain, is money the Department suspects was lent for the purpose and will be returned the day the visa is granted, and the suspicion is often right, because an industry exists to supply bank balances to visa applicants. The applicant's task is to show the source of every significant amount and the reason it is there, so that the officer sees a family's finances rather than a snapshot.

Money from parents and relatives

The commonest source is the applicant's parents, and the evidence is the relationship, by birth certificate or family register; the parents' bank statements over a period, usually several months, showing the balance and its history; the parents' own capacity to provide the funds, their employment letters and payslips, their business registration and accounts, their tax returns, their property, so that the officer sees that the family can afford the course without the balance being the whole of their means; and a signed statement from the parents undertaking to meet the applicant's fees and living costs, with the amounts. Where money has been moved from the parents' account to the applicant's, both sides of the transfer are shown, with the parents' statements explaining where the parents got it. A relative other than a parent, an uncle, a grandparent, a sibling, can provide funds in the same way, with the relationship shown and the relative's capacity evidenced, and the Department reads a relative's support more closely for whether it is genuine, because a relative has less reason to pay than a parent.

Gifts

A gift of money is accepted where it is documented as a gift: a gift deed or a signed and witnessed declaration by the giver stating the amount, the purpose, that it is a gift and not a loan, and the giver's relationship to the applicant; the giver's identity documents; the giver's bank statements showing the money leaving their account and the history behind it; the giver's own financial capacity, so that the gift is one they could make; and the transfer into the applicant's or the parent's account. A gift from a person with no visible means to make it, or a gift that cannot be traced from the giver's account, is read as a loan or as borrowed funds, and the application is refused on genuine access. A gift made months before the application, resting in the applicant's account with its documents, is stronger than one made the week before.

Inheritances

An inheritance is evidenced by the death certificate, the will or the succession document, the grant of probate or the court's order where the country issues one, the estate's distribution statement or the executor's letter showing the amount paid to the applicant or the parent, and the transfer into the account. An inheritance is a source the Department accepts readily where the documents exist, because the money's origin is a matter of record; an inheritance claimed without the estate documents is a large unexplained deposit with a story, and is treated as one. Property inherited and sold is evidenced as a property sale.

Loans

A loan from a bank or a financial institution that the Department recognises, an education loan, a loan against property, a personal loan, is accepted with the loan agreement, the sanction or approval letter, the disbursement into the account, and evidence that the borrower, the applicant or the parent, can service it; some countries' education loans are a standard route and the Department knows them. A loan from an individual is a different matter: the Department's position is that money borrowed from a friend, a relative or an agent, to be repaid after the grant, is not money the applicant has genuine access to for the purpose, and a private loan is accepted only where it is documented, the lender's capacity is shown, and the terms make it plausible that the money is available for the course. A loan from an agent, or a deposit arranged by one, is the thing the genuine access test was written against, and where the documents supporting it are false the refusal is under PIC 4020 with a three-year bar. The PIC 4020 guide sets out that consequence.

Property sales, business income and savings

The sale of property is evidenced by the title, the sale agreement, the registration of the transfer and the proceeds arriving in the account; business income by the registration, the accounts, the tax returns and the bank statements showing the trading; salary by the employment letter, the payslips and the credits to the account over the period; savings by the account history, which is the evidence for everything else. Fixed deposits and term deposits are accepted with the certificates and the maturity dates, and the Department asks whether the money will be accessible when the fees fall due. Assets that are not money, property held, gold, shares, show capacity but are not funds unless liquidated, and the application that relies on them explains how they will become the fees.

The large recent deposit

The officer reads the statement for the deposits, and a single large credit in the weeks before lodgement, bringing the balance from little to the required amount, is the pattern of borrowed funds, and the application is refused on genuine access unless the deposit is explained. The explanation is the source documents for that deposit: the parent's transfer with the parent's own statement behind it, the gift deed, the probate, the property sale, the loan sanction, the maturity of a term deposit, the sale of shares; and a covering statement that identifies each significant deposit and its source. An applicant who cannot explain a deposit, because the money was lent by someone who does not want to be named, does not have genuine access to it, and the application made on it fails. The remedy is time: funds that sit in the account for months, with the history visible, are funds the officer believes.

The income route

An applicant whose parent or spouse earns above the Department's income figure can rely on that income instead of a lump sum, with the tax assessment or the official tax document for the relevant year as the evidence, the relationship shown, and a statement from the earner that they will support the applicant. The route suits families with a steady income and no large savings, and it avoids the deposit question entirely; it requires a tax document that states the income, and a country where tax records are informal or where the income is undeclared cannot use it. The Department applies the figure strictly, and an income below it by a small margin is below it.

Consistency with the genuine student statement

The genuine student requirement asks about the applicant's circumstances and why this course in Australia makes sense for them, and the financial evidence is read against the answer: a family whose declared income could not have produced the savings shown, a course whose cost is out of proportion to the family's means, a sponsor whose capacity does not match their undertaking, each is an inconsistency that undermines both the funds and the genuineness. The statement explains how the course is being paid for and by whom, and the financial documents show the same thing; where the family has made sacrifices to fund the study, the statement says so and the documents show it. The genuine student guide covers the statement, and the refusal guide what a refusal on funds looks like and how a fresh application answers it.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The financial capacity criteria of subclass 500 in Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994 and the legislative instrument specifying the living cost and income amounts, the genuine access requirement, and Public Interest Criterion 4020, as in force at the date above; the amounts are indexed and the Department’s current published figures govern. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.