This Tuesday’s new federal budget was announced,195,000 migration placesand how they’ll be allocated is now clear. Full details here:2022–23 Federal Budget | PR quotas still hold surprises — Subclass 189 nearly doubles, and parent migration gains another 2,500 places!

Still to be confirmed isthe final state nomination allocation— the Department of Home Affairs website has already taken down the transitional quota figures, replacing them with a note that negotiations with state governments are ongoing and results will be published once finalised.

So is the final state nomination quota the one thing everyone is most hoping for before this financial year closes?

Accordingly, over the past few days we’ve received quite a few enquiries and messages asking about

which quota is which and what it covers,

what stage am I at, and which quota should I be most focused on?

Here are a few of the most common questions — let us break them down for you,

and perhaps even offer a small prediction (brace yourselves for pushback).

The annual migration planning level

From 190,000 down to 160,000 and back up to 195,000 — the migration quota is likely the number you’ve heard most often. This is the government’splanned figure set when budgeting for the following financial year:the total number of migration visa grantsacross all categories. The figure includes both primary and secondary applicants, with detailed breakdowns by visa type —primarily PR visas and provisional PR visas such as the Subclass 491.

This figure is updated each financial year and is generally confirmed before 1 July when the federal budget is released.

What happens if the financial year begins before the final budget is announced?

We’ve been fortunate enough to see this happen twice in the past three years.

2020–21 financial year:Due to COVID-19, the government’s plans were thrown into disarray and the budget was delayed until October 2020. This meant the migration quota was not confirmed at the start of the 2020–21 financial year — one of the main reasons for the significant visa processing delays at that time. Think of it as a programme suddenly losing its targets, leaving everyone uncertain about how to proceed. Of course, this was not the only contributing factor.

State governments also did not receive their nomination allocations, and for a long period were unable to send invitations or approve nominations.(The relationship between the two will be explained below.)

2022–23 financial year:This time it was due to a change in government. The Liberals had released a budget in March, but the incoming Labor government — taking office in May — wasn’t satisfied, and released a new one this week, in which the migration quota was lifted from March’s 160,000 to 195,000.

State nomination allocation

The state nomination allocation is how many places each state governmenthas availableto nominate applicants for Subclass 190, 491, 489, and business/investor migration visas.Once the nomination is formally approved,the next step is to lodge the visa application.

Because state nomination programmes have been extremely competitive in recent years,states have progressively introduced expression-of-interest (pre-invitation) mechanisms— regardless of what they’re called, the general process is:

– Applicant lodges EOI: provides details of their eligibility

– State government issues a pre-invitation: looks good — submit documents to verify

– Applicant lodges nomination application: generally within 14 days

– State government approves nomination: documents match, sponsorship granted — the state then ‘notifies’ the Department of Home Affairs

Once you reach the visa lodgement stage, the state government is largely no longer involved. Many people waiting on visa grants often ask which state their Subclass 190/491 came from —the visa grant process has nothing to do with which state nominated you.

A nomination quota is only considered ‘used’ once the state government formally confirms the nomination. Once issued, it cannot be retrieved — if an applicant fails to lodge their visa or is refused, the nomination cannot be returned.

Another frequently asked question: will state governments fail to use their full allocation?

This may have happened in earlier years.These days, most states don’t have enough places and will even request additional allocations. Even where the allocation isn’t fully used, the gap tends to be very small.One example that stands out: one year, New South Wales couldn’t figure out how to manage its Subclass 491 invitations for the entire year, then unleashed a flood of invitations at the end of the financial year — presumably to hit its KPIs. This is exactly why a well-designed invitation system matters so much for relative fairness.

The relationship between the two

is a dynamic one.

The main reason is the time lag between nomination approval and visa grant, which in recent years has been quite considerable.This means receiving a nomination and lodging a visa application in the current financial year does not guarantee a grant in the same financial year.Just as with nominations, it only ‘counts’ against the quota once the visa is finally approved.

An extreme example: some Subclass 190/491 applications lodged in late 2019 or early 2020 are still awaiting a decision. Their state nomination quota was drawn from the 2019–20 financial year, but the migration planning quota they’ll consume may well be from the 2022–23 year.

Also, state nomination applies to primary applicants only —one nomination per family unit.Visa applications include both primary and secondary applicants— each family member submits their own visa application. So if a family of three has the mother receiving one nomination, the whole family will consume three migration planning quota places.

How is the state nomination allocation determined?

That said, the time lag does not mean the two figures are unrelated.

Another extreme example: if the annual nomination allocation were 100,000 and the visa grant quota were only 10,000, the visa processing team would…

We’ve summarised the difference between total migration quotas and state nomination figures from the 2018–19 financial year to the present:

PS.

– State-level nomination allocations were only published centrally by the federal government from 2021–22 onwards; the 2018–19 figure is based on actual approvals, and 2019–21 figures are from FOI requests.

– Regional quotas may include some Subclass 494 places, but these tend to be in the low thousands.

The 2019–20 financial year was a turning point; figures from 2020–21 onwards are more meaningful for comparison. It’s clearly not a straightforward maths problem, but the pattern shows nominations tend to run slightly higher than grants.

Coming back to 2022–23: there may still be a little room for Subclass 190, and more room for Subclass 491.

Overall that’s the picture —within those totals, how each state splits its Subclass 190 versus 491 allocation comes down to negotiation. States have their own priorities— for instance, the ACT has clearly leaned more heavily towards Subclass 491 in recent years — while the federal government has its own principles, such as Tasmania not receiving a larger allocation than New South Wales.

So the moment news came out, we immediately called on state governments to step up!

In short,the migration planning quota is the foundation for determining state nomination allocations—in deciding the state nomination allocation, the government must weigh upthe current financial year’s migration planning quota, the backlog of Subclass 190/491 visa applications, the wishes of the state governments, and the federal government’s assessment of each state’s capacity,among many other factors.

Subclass 189 invitation quota

Subclass 189 has come back to life this financial year — some have also asked whether there’s an invitation quota for Subclass 189.

At its peak, individual occupation quotas set a cap on grants per occupation. To better distribute places for highly competitive occupations, accounting, ICT, and engineering were designated as ‘pro-rata’ occupations, each receiving a set number of invitations per round, as shown in the table below.

However, as the previous government deliberately wound back Subclass 189 invitations, per-occupation caps gradually lost their relevance — when invitations are simply not being issued manually, a cap of 5,000 has no practical meaning.

So it appears that from around the last financial year, the SkillSelect team dropped even this nominal table altogether.

\ | /

★

The relationship between migration planning quotas and state nomination figures is not a simple maths problem —in fact, it’s not really a maths problem at all. So treat comparative data as a reference only,and let’s hope the state governments give us some good news!After all, this is a year of fresh starts — can we get a little extra? If there’s no quota ‘bonus’ on offer, at least sort out the policies, yes — looking at you…

For detailed enquiries about state nomination, or to join state-specific nomination discussion groups,

add our customer service team and note the relevant state — such as New South Wales!

\ | /

★

Study and migration video resources

Click the image to read featured articles

Previous recommendations

Official data: Subclass 491 and 190 backlogs are shrinking!

‍

After 8,500 parent migration places: how much will processing speed up?

2022–23 Federal Budget: Subclass 189 and parent migration are the big winners!

Migration information and Q&A community

Step 1: press and hold to add customer service

Step 2: after adding, please

Attention!Please verify you’re speaking with agenuineNewstars consultant!

Study abroad and migration consultations by region

↓↓ Contact our team ↓↓

Sydney

Melbourne

Canberra

Brisbane

Adelaide

Hobart

Beijing

Guangzhou

7、

Scan to follow the Newstars official account

Reply in the official account withthe numbers or keywords below (not in the article comments section)to receive the most timely and professional migration updates!Reply 【A】 to view the full contents directory (covering all topics)!

Reply:0000 → view the 16 November policy update (Subclass 491 + skilled migration points)

Reply: 000 → latest visa/citizenship processing wait times

Reply: 001 → latest Subclass 189 EOI official report

Reply: 002 → Subclass 189 skilled independent migration

Reply: 003 → state Subclass 190 state nomination

Reply: 004 → Subclass 489 regional state nomination

Reply: 005 → student entrepreneur and investor migration

Reply: 006 → parent migration visa

Reply: 007 → employer-sponsored visa

Reply: 008 → Subclass 485 visa

Reply: 009 → partner migration/points bonus

Reply: 010 → work experience points bonus

Reply: 011 → PY points bonus

Reply: 012 → NAATI/CCL points bonus

Reply: 013 → regional points bonus

Reply: 014 → visitor/family visit visa

Reply: 015 → working holiday visa

Reply: 016 → TAFE study abroad

Reply: 017 → Australian international students migrating to Canada

Reply: 018 → Subclass 407 training visa

Reply: 019 → Subclass 408 temporary activity visa

Reply: 020 → New Zealand migration

Subclass 189 final invitations for accounting and IT! New South Wales Subclass 491 adds a priority pathway!Tap‘Read more’ for the migration weekly bulletin — video edition

A Closer Look: How Much More Room Is Left in This Financial Year’s State Nomination Quota? The Most Common Questions About Migration Quotas — Answered in One Go!

Official data: Subclass 491 and 190 backlogs are shrinking!

After 8,500 parent migration places: how much will processing speed up?

2022–23 Federal Budget: Subclass 189 and parent migration are the big winners!

2022–23 Federal Budget: Subclass 189 and parent migration are the big winners!

2022–23 Federal Budget: Subclass 189 and parent migration are the big winners!

Quick Links

Popular Services

Our Branding Offices

Follow Us