Seriously — Here Are the Real Migration Options for Accountants, Whatever Your Score or Situation!

Students with an EOI score >100, or close to reaching it

• NSW 190 may have a chance this financial year

Most applicants with scores this high are concentrated in the Sydney and Melbourne areas, and are mostly NSW or Victorian graduates. Because of COVID, NSW and Victoria didn’t invite any accounting applicants last financial year, which is why so many NSW and Melbourne students are wondering whether they can go the regional state-nomination route, or whether other states have suitable policies, and so on. However, the current policies of the various regional states aren’t very friendly to accounting students from other states, so it’s essential to pick the pathway that actually suits you.

If you’re an NSW graduate, we’d recommend staying in NSW and continuing to wait for a 190 invitation,because accounting has returned to the NSW 190 list this financial year, and NSW has always tended to invite higher-scoring applicants. So once invitations start going out, accounting students with 100 points still have a good chance of being invited.For Victorian graduates, it’s also worth considering moving to NSW to live and work,since Victoria’s policy this financial year won’t be inviting accounting applicants at all.

• You can also proactively choose employer sponsorship

Is there any other migration pathway besides waiting for an invitation? Yes, there is!Employer-sponsored visa categories.

Generally, big-city graduates on 100 points already have around three years of work experience,so while waiting for an invitation, don’t overlook employer sponsorship as a migration option. (This is especially true for Victorian applicants — if you don’t want to move to NSW, you should definitely seize any employer-sponsorship opportunity.)

This financial year the Department of Home Affairs has placed accounting on the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List,and occupations on this listget priority processing for nominations and visas from the Department,especially for employer sponsorship.

We’ve recently had a large number of accounting cases granted on the 482 (a temporary visa, up to four years) and the 186 (a PR visa)!

Accountant — secured the nomination in record time in the first half of the year, lodged the visa, and had it granted just as quickly. Congratulations.

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Accountant — no additional documents required at any stage, nomination approved successfully.

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So what are the requirements for employer sponsorship? Simply put, the applicant needs to havetwo or three years of full-time work experience, and an employer willing to provide sponsorship,Two years of work experience allows you to apply for the 482 visa, while three years allows you to apply for the 186 visa. For accounting applicants, the sponsoring employer needs to have had a turnover of $1 million in the past financial year, and the company needs to have five employees on staff.

For more detail, check out an article I wrote earlier →Accounting / 2613 / engineering and hundreds of other occupations — Plan B, granted in as little as 2 months!

If you’d like to learn more about employer sponsorship, feel free to get in touch with me directly

Students with an EOI score ≤95 points, and >1 year of work experience

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This is probably the largest group of accounting students. Since there’s no shortage of accounting applicants on 100 points, and given the uncertainty over how many places state governments will allocate to accounting,the chances of being invited on 95 points aren’t looking very promising. For this group of students, there are a few genuinely workable options:

• Option 1: Consider moving to a regional area of NSW to work as soon as possible, with a view to going the NSW 491 route later

Based on NSW’s past policy, the state government tends to favour applicants who are already living and working in a regional area.Especially this year, with 3,640 places available under the NSW 491 quota, and the state government prioritising applicants who work and live in regional areas, moving to a regional area to work as soon as possible still gives you a good chance of an NSW regional invitation.

• Option 2: Canberra state nomination

Since introducing the Matrix points system, with two fixed invitation rounds every month, the ACT government has consistently had the most stable policy of any state. For accounting students from other states, the Canberra small business pathway is currently the more recommended migration method. That’s because on the regular employment points route, out-of-state students lack the bonus points for living and studying in Canberra, making it hard to compete with local graduates. The advantage of the small business pathway is that it doesn’t require the applicant to hold a visa with full-time work rights, and there’s no investment-amount requirement.

For an accounting student from another state, if you’re applying with a partner, and you’ve got a 7 across the board in English,

The Matrix score you can generally reach:

Main applicant’s English — 10 points

Partner’s English (7 across the board) — 5 points

Partner holds a higher education qualification — 5 points

Occupation on the ACT Critical Skills List — 20 points

Master’s degree — 15 points

Running the business for six months — plus 10 points

Running the business for one year — plus 20 points

If you’ve run the business for six months, that’s 65 points; for one year, it’s 75 points. If you’ve run it for a year, don’t forget there’s also 5 points for ACT residence, and if your partner is also working, there are extra points on top of that.

So what exactly are the requirements for the Canberra small business pathway?

Requirements for the 491:

Residence requirement:

Have lived continuously in Canberra for at least 3 months before lodging the Matrix

Business requirements:

— Be the majority shareholder (51%, holding more than half of the ownership) of a business registered locally in the ACT, and the business must have been operating for at least 6 months.

— The business must have an annual turnover of at least AUD $200,000 (AUD $100,000 for six months)

— The business must be profitable during that period

Employment requirements:

— As the majority shareholder, the applicant needs to have drawn at least $13,000 in taxable income from the business in the 3 months before lodging the Matrix (the applicant’s visa doesn’t need full-time work rights — a student visa is fine)

— Must employ at least one Australian citizen/PR holder/New Zealand citizen who lives in Canberra, employed for at least 13 weeks before lodging the Matrix, working no fewer than 20 hours per week. However, the employment doesn’t need to be continuous, and doesn’t have to be filled by a single person (for example, you could employ A for 7 weeks, then, 2 months later, employ B for 6 weeks)

Requirements for the 190:

Residence requirement:

Have lived continuously in Canberra for at least 6 months before lodging the Matrix

Business requirements:

— Be the majority shareholder (51%, holding more than half of the ownership) of a business registered locally in the ACT, and the business must have been operating for at least 6 months.

— The business must have an annual turnover of at least AUD $200,000 (pro-rated if the period is under or over a year)

— The business must be profitable during that period

Employment requirements:

— As the majority shareholder, the applicant needs to have obtained at least $26,000 in taxable income from the business in the 6 months before lodging the Matrix (the applicant’s visa doesn’t need full-time work rights — a student visa is fine)

— Must employ at least one Australian citizen/PR holder/New Zealand citizen who lives in Canberra, employed for at least 13 weeks before lodging the Matrix, working no fewer than 20 hours per week. However, the employment doesn’t need to be continuous, and doesn’t have to be filled by a single person (for example, you could employ A for 7 weeks, then, 2 months later, employ B for 6 weeks)

Among the invitations seen so far,with 65 points, the chances of a 491 invitation are still quite high. The score requirement for the 190 is a bit higher, so students hoping to apply for the 190may need to be prepared to run a business in Canberra for more than six months.

• Option 3:Employer sponsorship

If you have 2-3 years of full-time work experience, employer sponsorship is also worth considering.If you have less than two years of full-time work and your work visa is about to expire, you could first consider applying for the 407 visa,which also requires an employer to provide sponsorship, with no turnover requirement for the employer, though the applicant needs one year of full-time work experience. Once granted the 407 visa, the applicant can work full-time,using the 407 visa to build up full-time work experience, then going on to apply for the 482 or 186 visa.

For more detail, see:Highly recommended! After your 485 expires, this visa lets you keep working full-time + stay in the big city waiting for an invitation + keep building work-experience points! And gives you an even better shot at employer sponsorship!

Recent accounting/business graduates in the big cities

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For students who’ve just graduated, there are still plenty of options — after all, your work visa gives you at least another two years, and you can use that time to plan ahead early.

The current recommendation is to consideremployer sponsorship, meaning you should start working right after graduation and not waste your work visa time.

You could also considerthe Canberra small business pathway, with detailed requirements as above. It’s a way to secure the 491 fairly quickly.The regular Canberra applicant category also works, but it takes some time to build up the points,as accounting currently needs a Matrix score of at least 95 to secure the 491.

You could also considerNSW state nomination, though it’s best to work in a regional area after graduating, since that won’t affect your NSW 190 or NSW 491 application either way.

• Accounting graduates in the various regional states

For graduates in South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, the chances of getting a state nomination are already quite good, so we’d recommend staying in that state and meeting its state-nomination requirements as far as possible.

• Queensland graduates could consider the Queensland small business pathway

Business requirements:

The business you purchase must have already been operating for at least 2 years before you take it over;

— The business contract price must be at least AUD $100,000 or more (renovation, equipment and similar costs don’t count)

— The applicant must hold 100% of the shares

— The business must operate for at least six months

— Must employ at least one local employee holding Australian PR, working at least 20 hours a week

— Needs a visa with full-time work rights, ideally with at least 9 months’ validity remaining; a student visa won’t do

— Sub-leased/franchise-style businesses are no longer accepted (e.g. petrol stations);

— Home-based businesses are no longer accepted (e.g. cleaning companies, courier services, etc.);

— A monitoring process will be considered, aimed at ensuring the small business keeps operating for more than 3 years;

— A small business already used for a 491-SBO application can’t be sold to another applicant for a 491-SBO application;

— Small businesses purchased before 1 April 2021 aren’t affected by the above policy.

The Department of Home Affairs’ requirements for the Queensland 491 small business:

— Under 45 years of age

— EOI score must reach at least 65 points (including the 15 points for state nomination)

— Valid qualification (completion letter, academic transcript)

— Valid skills assessment (a broad occupation list)

— IELTS 4×6 or PTE 4×50

Study abroad and migration — practical short videos