Families agree to pay for a degree abroad because of what comes after it. The rule that decides whether you can stay sits on an immigration website, not a university one, and most students read it in their final year instead of before they apply.
So we checked it for six countries that publish a documented route from a student visa to permanent residence. For each one: the permit you get the day you graduate, how long it lasts, and exactly what the country asks for before it will let you stay permanently. Every figure below comes from the government's own pages, and we have put the date on anything that moves.
Our guide to where international students can work the most covers the step before this one, the hours you are allowed during term.
Canada: one year of skilled work
Canada asks for the least work experience of the six before you can apply, and the rules were tightened in 2024, so the date on your study permit matters.
The Post-Graduation Work Permit is issued for the length of your programme, up to a maximum of three years, and it cannot run past your passport's expiry date. A master's programme of at least eight months can get the full three years even though the degree is shorter than that.
To qualify at all, the programme has to be at least eight months long (or 900 hours in Quebec), you must have kept full-time status in every semester, you apply within 180 days of confirmation that you finished, and your study permit must have been valid at some point in those 180 days.
Then two conditions catch people, and your degree type decides both. The page is explicit that "there are no field of study requirements for graduates with a bachelor's degree, master's degree or doctoral degree". Every other programme, including non-degree university programmes as well as college and polytechnic ones, has to be in an eligible field, meaning one "linked to certain occupations in long-term shortage", if the study permit was applied for on or after November 1, 2024. Degree graduates also need CLB 7 in English or NCLC 7 in French in all four language areas, a requirement that did not exist for applications submitted before November 1, 2024.
Permanent residence then runs through the Canadian Experience Class under Express Entry. It asks for one year of work, defined as 1,560 hours at 30 hours a week, gained in Canada in the three years before you apply, in an occupation at TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3. You take an approved language test and hit the minimum in all four skills. There is no education requirement for this stream at all, which is worth understanding: the degree is what earns you the work permit, and the work is what earns you the residence.
One line on that page costs students a year if they miss it. You cannot count work experience if "you were studying full-time while you worked", and co-op terms are named as not counting either. The part-time hours you put in during your degree do nothing for this, and nor does volunteering, an unpaid internship or self-employment. The clock starts when the degree ends.
Dariga from Kazakhstan, who went to UBC on a full ride, and Honoré from France, who chose McGill, both wrote about picking the university. Neither chose on the immigration rule, which is the normal order and the reason this post exists.
Germany: two years instead of three, because you studied there
Germany has the only rule on this list that shortens settlement specifically for people who took their degree in the country.
First the window. A graduate of a German university is entitled to a residence permit to look for work, issued "for a maximum of 18 months directly following your studies", with the right to work without restriction while you look. If you find nothing in that time, "an extension is excluded and you are obliged to leave the federal territory". You need a secure livelihood, a clarified identity and a valid passport.
Then the settlement permit. Section 18c of the Residence Act normally asks skilled workers for three years of holding a qualifying residence title, 36 months of pension contributions and a sufficient command of German. The official English text then adds:
The period stipulated in sentence 1 no. 1 is reduced to two years and the period stipulated in sentence 1 no. 3 is reduced to 24 months if the skilled worker has successfully completed vocational training or a course of study in Germany.
A German degree takes a year off permanent settlement. The EU Blue Card route runs alongside it at 27 months of qualifying employment with basic German, falling to 21 months for someone with "a sufficient command of the German language".
The condition to plan for is the language, because the degree can be taught entirely in English and the settlement permit still asks for German. Rahim from Kenya reached C1 and then found himself in a region that speaks Swabian. Anda-Alexandra from Romania in Bremen and a student from Kazakhstan at TUM both took English-taught routes in, which is the common case and leaves the German waiting at the end.
New Zealand: a points table you can check today
New Zealand publishes the whole thing as arithmetic, which makes it the easiest of the six to plan against before you apply.
The Post Study Work Visa runs for up to three years depending on what you studied, needs NZD 5,000 in living expenses, and must be applied for within 3, 6 or 12 months of your student visa expiring depending on the qualification. A degree at level 7 or higher lets you work anywhere; below that you have to work in a role related to what you studied.
The Skilled Migrant Category resident visa has three pathways, and the one that matters to a graduate is the points-based pathway. You submit an expression of interest, and if it is accepted Immigration New Zealand invites you to apply, so this is not an application you can simply lodge.
You need 6 points. Three to six of them come from one skill category, either your qualification, your New Zealand occupational registration or your income, and up to three more from skilled work experience in New Zealand.
Where you earned the degree changes the number. A New Zealand bachelor's degree is worth 5 points and a bachelor's from anywhere else is worth 4. A New Zealand master's is 6 if you completed at least 30 weeks of full-time study in New Zealand and hold a bachelor's, and 5 otherwise, against 5 for an international master's. A doctorate is worth 6 either way. You cannot claim points at all for a non-degree qualification at level 7 or below, and an overseas qualification usually needs an International Qualification Assessment from NZQA first.
The resident visa lets you live, work and study there indefinitely, and after two years you can apply for the Permanent Resident Visa that removes the travel conditions.
Australia: the occupation list comes first
Australia is generous on the post-study permit and strict on what follows it.
The Temporary Graduate visa, subclass 485, Post-Higher Education Work stream, runs "usually between 2 and 3 years, depending on your qualification", and five years for Hong Kong and British National Overseas passport holders. It costs from AUD 5,750. You must be aged 35 or under when you apply, be in Australia at the time, have held a Student visa in the last six months, and hold a recent degree in a CRICOS-registered course. No other country here sets an age limit on the graduate permit.
Permanent residence through the Skilled Independent visa, subclass 189 has four gates: your occupation has to be on the relevant skilled occupation list, you need a suitable skills assessment for it, you have to be invited to apply, and you have to satisfy the points test. The visa is permanent and costs from AUD 6,135. Because the occupation list does the first filtering, the subject you choose at seventeen is quietly deciding this one.
Izzatun writes about studying in Sydney if you want the view from inside an Australian degree.
Netherlands: one year to find work, five years to stay
The Dutch permit is the shortest on this list and the most forgiving about when you use it.
The orientation year is issued "for a maximum period of 1 year" and "it is not possible to extend it". You can apply within three years of finishing your studies, so you can go home, work, and come back to use it later, which no other country here allows. During that year employers do not need a separate work permit for you and you can work or start a business without restriction.
Permanent residence is a count of years rather than points. The IND asks for a valid Dutch residence permit for at least 5 consecutive years, your main residence in the Netherlands for the whole period, every renewal filed on time, an income that meets the requirement, registration in the population register, and the civic integration exam passed at level A2 or an exemption from it. The page was last updated on 20 May 2026.
One line on that page is the one to check against your own situation. Alongside the five years, the IND requires that "you now have a valid residence permit for a non-temporary residence purpose". Which purposes count as non-temporary is set by the IND rather than by the applicant, so ask them which category your permit falls into before you count your student years towards the five.
Anita chose Leiden partly for the shorter three-year programme and the lower tuition, and Jia wrote about Erasmus Rotterdam including what the first months cost her. Course and price are how most people pick the Netherlands.
United Kingdom: the graduate visa shrinks in January
Two things to know, and one of them has a date on it.
The Graduate visa currently gives two years after an eligible degree and three years after a doctorate. From 1 January 2027 the two years becomes 18 months, and your application date decides which you get. It cannot be extended.
It is also not a settlement route. To stay longer you switch to another visa, usually the Skilled Worker visa, and settlement comes through that. Indefinite leave to remain normally asks that "you must usually have lived and worked in the UK for 5 years" on a qualifying route, and the government's page does not list Student or Graduate visas among them.
What to check before you choose a country
Four conditions separate these six far more than the headline durations do.
The language. Germany wants German at the settlement stage and the Netherlands wants Dutch at A2. Canada and New Zealand want English, which you already have. A country can teach your whole degree in English and still require its own language before it lets you stay.
Your age. Australia closes the graduate visa at 35. Nowhere else here sets an age limit.
Your occupation. Australia needs it on a list and assessed. Canada needs the job at TEER 0 to 3. New Zealand pays points for registration and income.
Whether student years count. In the Netherlands the five-year clock needs a permit held for a non-temporary purpose, so ask the IND where your student years sit before you count them. In Canada and Germany the degree unlocks the permit rather than accruing time by itself.
One country is missing. Ireland runs a Third Level Graduate Programme, and its immigration pages would not load their content while we were checking, so we have left it out rather than quote a source that is not the government's own.
Start your own journey
Read the immigration page before the university page. Each government above publishes its rules in plain language on its own site, and those pages are the only version that counts. They also change: Canada added a language requirement in November 2024, and the UK is cutting the graduate visa in January 2027.
Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, can tell you what each country allows for your nationality and your subject, alongside what the degree will cost you. It's free to use.
Start with Kai, and read the stories from students already living in these countries.
