Australia’s Latest Visa Processing Update for May: The Overall Picture
On 25 May, the Department updated its recent visa processing speeds. With the financial year about to enter its final month, this year differs from previous years: because the PR quota was confirmed relatively late, the Department did not push hard early in the financial year when the quota was at its most plentiful, so by the end of the financial year most categories still have quota available for grants.
The figures from the Department’s official website are shown in Figure 1. Following the method used last month by @Xueshu Hunzi de Xiuxing Biji, I have also pulled together the oldest backlog dates for most visa types, and compared them against the data I compiled last month. Where processing has continued to slow I have shaded the background orange, and where it has sped up I have marked it in green. Overall, apart from the Subclass 309 prospective-partner visa, the longest backlog times for the partner and child visas have all shortened. For the rest, apart from the Subclass 491 and Subclass 858, the longest wait times have generally increased.
Below is our internal data.
Latest Processing Times for Skilled Visas
Subclass 189: grants are coming through for both November and December 2025 lodgements.
Subclass 190: the bulk is processing applications lodged in June–July 2025.
Subclass 491: mainly processing applications from the first half of 2025.
Subclass 191: processed in lodgement order, currently early September 2025.
Subclass 887: I have seen relatively little data on my end recently, and the timeline has lengthened to around six months.
Subclass 858: has slowed recently, with grants going to applications lodged at the end of 2024.
Sponsored Visa Processing Details
Subclass 482: several August 2025 lodgements have been granted recently, with the latest grants going to November lodgements; priority occupations are noticeably faster, at 1–3 months.
Subclass 186: the bulk is at July 2024, with priority occupations and regional areas reaching around mid-2025.
Latest Grant Activity for Family Visas
Parent category: 143 visas are still being granted, with requests for further documents now reaching applications lodged around 4 December 2018.
Partner category: recently there have been quite a few early-2024 lodgements. For cases where the TR and PR are granted together, the TR stage has progressed to the first half of 2025, while the PR stage — which is not subject to quota limits — has progressed to February–March 2026.
Child visa: just today, a January 2025 lodgement was approved.
Temporary Visa Processing Speeds
485/600: these temporary visas have all been granted quickly recently, with most applicants receiving an outcome within a month. The Subclass 500 student visa is split into onshore and offshore; onshore applications are generally a little slower than offshore ones.
As May enters its final week, we hope the Department will honour its promise to issue Subclass 189 invitations. If it sticks to the pattern of issuing invitations on Thursdays, that would be the day after tomorrow, the 28th. A quick reminder to anyone who has already been granted a Subclass 189/190: please take a moment to withdraw any Subclass 189 EOIs you have not yet removed.
As for state nomination, last week essentially wrapped up the final round of the financial year, and the numbers were not large. The increase in Subclass 190 and Subclass 491 applications will not be significant, so the backlog should fall further. We hope this favourable backlog position will prompt the Department to consider allocating more invitation places in the new financial year.
