By Angus Watson, CNN Updated 4:50 AM EDT, Fri June 27, 2025

People swim in the lagoon in Funafuti, Tuvalu, on November 28, 2019. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesSydney, AustraliaCNN — 

More than a third of the population of Tuvalu has applied to move to Australia, under a landmark visa scheme designed to help people escape rising sea levels.

The island nation – roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia – is home to about 10,000 people, according to the latest government statistics, living across a clutch of tiny islets and atolls in the South Pacific.

With no part of its territory above six meters, it is one of the most at-risk places in the world to rising seas caused by climate change.

On June 16, Australia opened a roughly one-month application window for what it says is a one-of-a-kind visa offering necessitated by climate change. Under the new scheme, Australia will accept 280 visa winners from a random ballot between July and January 2026. The Tuvaluans will get permanent residency on arrival in Australia, with the right to work and access public healthcare and education.

More than 4,000 people have applied under the scheme, according to official figures seen by CNN.

“The opening of the Falepili Mobility Pathway delivers on our shared vision for mobility with dignity, by providing Tuvaluans the opportunity to live, study and work in Australia as climate impacts worsen,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement.

CNN has reached out to the Tuvalu government.

According to Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo, more than half of Tuvalu will be regularly inundated by tidal surges by 2050. By 2100, 90% of his nation will be regularly under water, he says.

Fongafale, the nation’s capital, is the largest and most populated islet in Tuvalu’s main atoll, Funafuti. It has a runway-like strip of land just 65 feet (20 meters) wide in some places.

“You can put yourself in my situation, as the prime minister of Tuvalu, contemplating development, contemplating services for the basic needs of our people, and at the same time being presented with a very confronting and disturbing forecast,” Teo told the United Nations Oceans Conference this month in Nice, France.

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