As a landmark achievement in the development of the China–Australia bilateral economic relations, the China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (“ChAFTA”) achieves a higher level of liberalisation in education services compared with China's commitments under the World Trade Organisation and its other free trade agreements. However, the ChAFTA fails to relax the major regulatory barriers in China, which will remain the key obstacles to Australia's education services exports to China. Through a preliminary study and a regression analysis of the impacts of the ChAFTA on Australia's education exports to China based on available data, we show that the ChAFTA did not play a significant role in promoting the application and approval of Sino‐Australian joint programmes but did contribute to the growth of international student enrolments from China. The effect of the ChAFTA is, at best, secondary to that of domestic regulation and tends to be greater in less regulated areas.