US citizens in Australia received 1,232 permanent family visas in the 2024-25 financial year, down from 1,366 the year before and 1,671 in 2022-23, a two-year slide recorded in the Department of Home Affairs’ Migration Trends 2024-25 report. The same report shows Americans moving the other way on tourism. US Visitor visa grants climbed to 579,217, the second-highest of any nationality.

That split runs through the whole report. Americans rank near the top of Australia’s temporary and visitor flows and near the bottom of its permanent intake. The permanent pathways where they do appear are narrow, and most of them shrank last year.

The pattern sits inside a wider US outflow, with 180,000 Americans emigrating in 2025, the largest in decades.

Where US citizens land in the permanent program

US citizens in Australia cluster in two permanent streams: family and talent. The Migration Program counts permanent visas by stream, with each grant tied to the holder’s citizenship.

The 1,232 US family visas in 2024-25 were almost entirely partner visas, at 1,166 grants. Both figures have fallen for two straight years. The United States ranked ninth among Family stream nationalities, behind:

• China
• India
• The Philippines
• Vietnam
• Afghanistan
• Pakistan
• United Kingdom
• Thailand

The ranking is low for a country whose citizens settle elsewhere in large numbers, including the 9,600 who moved to Ireland in a single year.

The talent pathways tell a sharper version of the same story. US citizens received 141 Global Talent (Independent) visas in 2024-25, down from 163 and 194 in the two prior years. They received 19 Distinguished Talent visas, third behind Sri Lanka and the UK. Both are small programs, and both moved down or stayed flat.

Australia replaced the talent visa, and US citizens led the new one

Australia closed the Global Talent visa to new applications Dec. 6, 2024, the department says. The next day it opened the National Innovation visa as a replacement, aimed at people it describes as highly talented in sectors of national importance.

The new visa granted just 25 visas in its partial first year. US citizens received six, second only to the UK’s 10. So Americans were the second-largest nationality in a program that, for now, barely exists. The number is too small to read as a trend, but it marks where the talent pathway reset.

The visitor numbers point the opposite way

Set against the permanent decline, the temporary flow is large and rising. US Visitor visa grants reached 579,217 in 2024-25, up from 559,620 the year before and 456,565 in 2022-23. Only China, at 622,839, ranked higher.

The contrast is the point. The same nationality that ranked ninth in family migration ranked second in visitor grants. Americans come to Australia in large numbers; comparatively few convert that into permanent residence through the channels the program tracks.

One smaller data point complicates the settlement picture. At June 30, 2025, the department estimated 5,500 US citizens were unlawful non-citizens, people who stayed past an expired or cancelled visa. That ranked third behind China and Malaysia. The estimate is rounded to the nearest 100, and most people in this category overstay only briefly before leaving, the department says.

What the visa data does and doesn’t show

The figures are visa grants by citizenship, not a count of every American living in Australia. They measure the program’s annual output, so they reflect policy and processing decisions as much as demand. A capped talent stream or a slow family queue can pull the numbers down regardless of how many Americans want to move.

What the data does show is a consistent shape. Across family, Global Talent and Distinguished Talent, US permanent visas fell or held flat in 2024-25, while US visitor grants rose for a third year. The thin permanent footprint shows up elsewhere too, including the 15,638 residence permits issued to US citizens in Spain.

Read through Australia’s own visa ledger, US citizens in Australia are a heavily temporary presence, lightly permanent, and the permanent share is getting thinner.