Skilled Visa

You need at least 65 points to enter the SkillSelect pool. That is the entry mark, not the score that gets invited. Points come from your age (the highest band, 30 points, goes to applicants aged 25 to 32), your English level, skilled work experience in and outside Australia, your qualifications, Australian study, a professional year, a credentialled community language, a skilled partner, and nomination (5 points for the 190, 15 for the 491).

The difference between sitting in the pool and being invited usually comes down to a few points. Lifting English from proficient to superior, or having a partner's skills assessed, changes the outcome more often than people expect. Our 189 points test guide walks through every category with the current values.

1. Check your occupation and the list it sits on. The points-tested visas (189, 190, 491) use the skilled occupation list set by legislative instrument; the Skills in Demand and 186 visas use the Core Skills Occupation List. The Department publishes both on its occupation list page.
2. Get a skills assessment. Each occupation has an assessing authority (for example Engineers Australia, ACS, VETASSESS or AHPRA-linked bodies). Assessments take weeks to months and cost several hundred to over a thousand dollars, so start here before anything else.
3. Sit an English test if you need points for English or your assessing authority requires one. Superior English (for example IELTS 8 in each band) is worth 20 points; competent English is worth none.
4. Lodge an Expression of Interest in SkillSelect. The EOI is not a visa application. It records your claims and your points, and it can be updated while it sits in the pool.
5. Apply for state nomination if you are going for the 190 or 491. Queensland and Western Australia each publish their own occupation lists, minimum scores and program dates, and they open and close during the year.
6. Wait for an invitation. The Department runs invitation rounds; the score needed varies by occupation and round. Once invited you have 60 days to lodge the visa application with every claim documented.
7. Lodge, then health and character. Expect a medical examination and police certificates for every country you have lived in for 12 months or more in the last ten years.

Each subclass has its own visa application charge, indexed every 1 July, plus charges for family members and a possible second instalment if a family member has less than functional English. The Department's Visa Pricing Estimator gives the current figure for your exact combination (checked 20 September 2026). On top of that, budget for the skills assessment, English test, medicals and police certificates, and any state nomination fee.

Processing times are published in the Department's global visa processing times tool and differ by subclass and by how complete the application is. The invitation stage is the part nobody can predict: it depends on your occupation and score in each round.

For the 491, "regional" covers most of Australia outside Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Perth, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba and all of regional Queensland and Western Australia qualify. Our guide to 491 eligible areas and the 491 to 191 pathway lists the postcodes and the income requirement for the permanent stage.

These still appear in older articles and some agents' price lists, but you cannot lodge a new application for them:

• Skilled Regional (Provisional) visa, subclass 489: replaced by the 491 in November 2019.
• Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, subclass 187: replaced by the 494.
• Skilled Recognised Graduate, subclass 476: closed.
• Skilled Regional visa, subclass 887: only available to people who already hold a 489, 495, 496 or 475 visa and meet the residence and work requirements. New regional applicants use the 491 then the 191.

The Temporary Skill Shortage visa (subclass 482) was replaced by the Skills in Demand visa on 7 December 2024; it keeps the subclass number. See who qualifies for the Skills in Demand visa.

Bullseye Consultants is a registered migration agency with offices in Brisbane and Perth, so we work with both the Queensland and the Western Australian nomination programs every week. Our four migration agents are registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority; every MARN is on our team page so you can check it yourself.

A first consultation is $80 by phone or $110 in person, GST inclusive. We calculate your points honestly, tell you which subclass and which state give you a realistic chance, and put the fees for the whole matter in a written costs agreement before any work starts. If a skilled visa has been refused, see the skilled visa refusal appeal guide. For a broader overview, read our skilled migration to Australia explainer.