South Australia was the first state to issue invitations in 2026 — invitations went out yesterday, and the official gazette was released today (see the header image).
- Not much change from the previous round: around 300 invitations issued, with the majority going to Health, Education, Design Engineering & Science, Transport, and Construction Trades; IT received almost all 491 invitations, with only 1 subclass 190 issued.
- This round appears to have allocated more to onshore applicants, especially for subclass 190. Some offshore candidates who lodged 190 applications were only issued 491s — for example, in the construction-heavy occupations. SA may be partly responding to feedback about having issued too many offshore 190s in the previous financial year.
- SA’s next round is in early February.
Other states have been quiet over the New Year period so far.
Here’s a brief update on recent visa processing as well
Skilled: Subclass 189 / 190 / 491 / 191 / 887
- Subclass 189 is still primarily processing the August invitation batch, reaching around the end of August.
- Most 190/491 grants are for applications lodged in 2024, with a small number of 2023 and 2025 lodgements also approved.
- 191 processing is mostly on applications from mid-2025, but no grants have come through yet; 887 has also had no recent grants — barring exceptional cases, expect a wait of a few months at least before grants issue.
- For Subclass 143 Parent visas, a large wave of request-for-further-information (RFI) notices was issued before the holiday, reaching up to mid-August 2018. After the break, the department has started processing 2nd VAC payments and granting visas, and the flood of RFIs has paused for now. I’ll be lodging a file review request for the first-half grant data shortly and will update everyone then.
- Subclass 186 DE is progressing to mid-2024, and 482 is up to around mid-2025 — applications in regional areas or on the skills-shortage list move faster.
- Subclass 858 NIV grants are issuing within a few months; GTI is around the second half of 2024.
- Quite a few 801/300 partner visa PR-stage grants came through over the holidays, mostly for applications lodged in the first half of 2025. Grants at the provisional (temporary) stage have been comparatively few.
- Subclass 870 (Sponsored Parent Long-stay) is getting slower and slower. Today we saw a sponsorship approval for a submission lodged in August last year, and after that you still need to wait for the visa grant itself. GTE (Genuine Temporary Entrant) requests for further information have become increasingly common at the visa assessment stage — if you’re considering lodging an 870 for your parents, we recommend preparing well in advance.
- Subclass 485 processing is quite fast now — December graduates, remember to get your 6.5 English score first.
- Subclass 500 saw a large number of grants before the holiday for students commencing in February/March this year, moving quickly up to early December. Today we saw a grant for a lodgement from 11 December.
