Condition 8202 breach: what does my Australian school have to report in 2026?

Plain-language guide · general information, not immigration advice

When your education provider reports a breach of condition 8202, it sends two separate things. First, under subsection 19(2) of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (the ESOS Act), a registered provider must give particulars of any breach by an accepted student of a prescribed condition of a student visa — and section 12 of the Education Services for Overseas Students Regulations 2019 makes condition 8202, the condition set out in Schedule 8 to the Migration Regulations 1994, a prescribed condition for exactly that purpose. Second, item 11 of the table in subsection 11(2) of the same Regulations requires that those particulars be accompanied by your residential address in Australia, your residential address overseas, and your phone number and email address. Both rules appear in the Education Services for Overseas Students Regulations 2019 (F2019L00571) on the Federal Register of Legislation, current as at September 2026. What follows is general explanation of how the reporting duty is built, not personalised advice about your own case; for that, the text of the legislation and official or professional guidance are what count.

Who counts as an "accepted student" here?

Subsection 11(1) of the Regulations applies the whole table to an accepted student who is accepted for enrolment, or enrolled, in a course provided by a registered provider. So the duty is not limited to students already sitting in class: it can attach from the point you are accepted for enrolment. The reporting side of the ESOS framework turns on the provider's records of you as a student, not on whether you think of yourself as "still enrolled".

Why does condition 8202 trigger a report at all?

Because it has been prescribed. The duty in subsection 19(2) of the ESOS Act is written to bite on breaches of a prescribed condition of a student visa; the Act does not itself list which conditions those are. Section 12 does that work: for the purposes of subsections 19(2) and 20(1) of the Act, visa condition 8202 is prescribed. The note under section 12 spells out the consequence in plain terms — subsection 19(2) requires a registered provider to give particulars of any breach by an accepted student of a prescribed condition of a student visa.

The practical effect is that your provider's obligation is statutory, not contractual. It is not a matter of school policy, a term in your enrolment agreement, or something a coordinator can decide to waive because you have been doing better lately.

What exactly is in the report?

What the provider must give	Where the duty comes from	What it means for you
Particulars of the breach	s 19(2) of the ESOS Act, read with s 12 (condition 8202 prescribed)	This is the substance of the report: particulars of the breach of that prescribed condition
Your residential address in Australia	s 11(2), table item 11(a)	The address on file is the one that travels with the report
Your residential address overseas	s 11(2), table item 11(b)	A separate required field, not optional and not a substitute for the Australian address
Your phone number and email address	s 11(2), table item 11(c)	Also required, in the same package

Item 11 carries no condition in column 2 of the table, which means the address and contact block is required whenever particulars of a breach are given — it is not switched off by any circumstance listed in the instrument.

How fast does the provider have to send it?

Subsection 11(2) requires the information in the table to be given within the applicable number of days — an expression defined in subsection 19(1A) of the ESOS Act — after the event in column 1 occurs. For item 11, the event is the giving of particulars under subsection 19(2), so the contact details follow the breach report rather than sitting in a separate queue. The Regulations themselves do not state a number of days; they point back to the Act. If you need the operative figure, read subsection 19(1A) of the ESOS Act as currently in force.

Does the report recommend cancelling my visa?

No. Section 12 and item 11 require particulars of the breach and your contact details; nothing in either provision requires your provider to propose an outcome. The reporting duty is a transparency obligation about what happened and how to reach you. Any decision about your visa is a separate step, and a report is not itself that decision. This is also why a breach report is not synonymous with cancellation, even though it can lead to your case being looked at.

Why is my provider asking for an overseas address?

Because the Regulations ask for one. Item 11(b) requires your residential address overseas as a distinct field alongside item 11(a), your residential address in Australia. Suppose a student moved twice in Australia and never updated the overseas address recorded at enrolment: the report still goes out with whatever is on file, and that is the record that accompanies the report. Keeping both addresses current is therefore a records problem to solve before a report is made, not after.

Does this duty apply to every student visa holder?

Not necessarily. Section 6 of the Regulations defines "student visa" for the purposes of the Act as a visa of a subclass mentioned in the definition of student visa in regulation 1.03 of the Migration Regulations 1994, unless it was granted to one of five categories:

a Foreign Affairs student (within the meaning of the Migration Regulations 1994);
a Defence student;
a secondary exchange student;
an overseas student approved under a scholarship scheme or exchange scheme sponsored by the Commonwealth to study or train in Australia; or
a person who satisfies the secondary criteria, but not the primary criteria, under the Migration Regulations 1994 for grant of the visa.

If your visa falls into one of those categories, it is not a "student visa" for ESOS purposes, and the subsection 19(2) reporting machinery built around prescribed conditions is not engaged in the same way. Worth checking before assuming the general rule applies to you.

Are there other moments when my contact details are reported?

Yes — the same contact block recurs in several other items of the table in subsection 11(2), which is useful context if you are trying to work out which of your details the table covers.

Event	What the provider must report
The course does not begin when expected (where s 19(1)(c) of the Act does not apply)	Residential address, phone number and email address (item 5)
The student changes course	The day of the change, plus residential address, phone number and email address (item 6)
The student's studies are deferred or suspended	The day the deferment or suspension starts, the expected duration, plus residential address, phone number and email address (item 9)
The student's studies are terminated before the course is completed, whether or not by the student	The day of termination, the last day of studies, plus residential address, phone number and email address (item 12)

The table also covers related events such as a change in course duration or a change in the location at which the course is provided, and requires the provider to report a change when it becomes aware that certain recorded details about the student have changed (item 3). Separately, item 1 requires details about any education agent engaged in recruitment activity in relation to the student — agent name, business and registered office addresses, postal address, phone, email and website, ABN or ACN, trading names, directors' names, and, where the agent or an involved employee is a registered migration agent, the Migration Agents Registration Number.

What should I look for in the warning letter in front of me?

Three things, all of which you can check from the document itself. First, what breach is actually alleged — the report will carry particulars of it, so the description in the letter matters more than the label on the envelope. Second, which contact details the provider holds for you: item 11 sends the Australian address, the overseas address, the phone number and the email address on file, so an old address is a live problem rather than a clerical one. Third, what the letter says about the provider's own review or appeal step and its deadline — that is the pathway for putting your side of the story into the record before the particulars are finalised.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my provider have to report every condition 8202 breach, or only serious ones?

The note to section 12 describes subsection 19(2) as requiring particulars of any breach by an accepted student of a prescribed condition, and the instrument sets no seriousness threshold. It also does not prescribe how the provider must decide that a breach occurred; that determination sits with the provider's own processes.

Will the report include my attendance records or medical certificates?

The instrument requires particulars of the breach plus your residential addresses in Australia and overseas, your phone number and your email address. It does not provide for attendance records, medical documents or your correspondence with the provider to be attached to the report, which is why anything you want considered needs to go through the provider's stated process.

Does a report mean my visa is cancelled?

No. A report under subsection 19(2) is a notification, and item 11 of the section 11(2) table adds contact details to it. A cancellation decision is a separate matter, and the Regulations do not treat the provider's report as one.

Am I told before the provider reports me?

The Regulations set out no pre-notification step: item 11 requires your residential addresses, phone number and email address to be given within the applicable number of days after the provider gives particulars under subsection 19(2). Whether you hear anything first depends on your provider's own procedures, which is why a warning letter is worth reading closely when one arrives.

I am a Defence student or on a Commonwealth-sponsored scholarship. Does this apply to me?

Section 6 excludes Foreign Affairs students, Defence students, secondary exchange students, Commonwealth-sponsored scholarship and exchange students, and people who meet only the secondary criteria for the visa from the definition of "student visa". If you are in one of those groups, your visa is not a student visa for ESOS purposes and this reporting duty is not engaged on that basis.

What address ends up in the report if I moved and never updated my file?

The one your provider holds. Item 11 requires both an Australian and an overseas residential address, and the provider can only report what is recorded — so an outdated address is the address that travels with the breach particulars.