Yesterday we updated you on the processing-speed reference shown on the Department of Home Affairs website through to June: the 186 and 482 employer-sponsored visas have all sped up markedly! The 191 has raced forward by 2-3 months? And the 189/190/491 are granting steadily!
Today is the last day of the 2025-26 financial year, and what everyone really wants to know is: will your grant come through in the new financial year? So, drawing on the major visa backlogs we pulled from case files earlier plus the new financial year’s quotas, we’ll forecast the likely processing progress for each visa.
Subclass 189 Skilled Independent Migration: New Financial Year Grant Forecast
189 —
Situation: largely processed in order; currently mainly clearing the November round.
Backlog: as at the end of March our case-file check showed a backlog of 7,941, with 3,282 places remaining; the June round issued 10,000 invitations, and at an assumed 60% acceptance rate the backlog sits at 10,000+; the new financial year’s quota rises to 21,090 places.
Estimate: for those already invited and lodged, we expect good news within about six months in most cases. The pre-announced September round will most likely also be granted within the 2026-27 financial year.
Subclass 190/491 State-Nominated Visas: New Financial Year Queue Forecast
190 & 491 —
Situation: the Department of Home Affairs is currently processing along several lines in parallel and giving priority to some occupations in short supply. Although the website says processing is currently up to February 2025, we have seen grants from both 2024 and 2026. The forecast below therefore carries considerable uncertainty and is for reference only.
Backlog: the 2024 backlog is largely cleared, and processing is shifting more towards applications from the first half of 2025.
190 estimate: combining the April-May state-nomination numbers (counting primary and secondary applicants at 1.5x), this financial year’s backlog is 20,000+. The new financial year’s quota is 35,550, which in theory could clear the backlog (setting aside the impact of priority occupations jumping the queue). Those newly entering the pool can expect to wait no more than a year. Of course, with the backlog in good shape and the grant quota rising slightly, does this also mean each state’s nomination allocation could edge up in the new financial year — at least back to last financial year’s 16,500?
491 estimate: by the same reasoning as the 190, the 491 backlog has fallen sharply after processing across the 2025-26 financial year and is expected to be a little over 10,000. Unfortunately the new financial year’s 491 quota drops significantly (after deducting the allocation given to the 494, it may be under 10,000), which is not even quite enough to clear this portion. Applicants waiting in the pool should be prepared for roughly 1 to 1.5 years from lodgement to grant.
Subclass 491 to 191 Permanent Residency: Progress Surges, a Wave of Grants May Follow
491 to 191 —
Within a single month the website’s progress moved forward by 2-3 months, though we have not yet seen a large volume of grants. A good sign is that some mid-December 2025 lodgements have recently received AC letters. The 191 backlog as at the end of March broke through 20,000; looking at last year’s July-August grant shower, when nearly 10,000 were cleared in one go, we hope this year sees a repeat!
Subclass 887 Regional Visa and Child Visa: Faster Processing Forecast
887 —
The overall backlog is much smaller than the 191, with most cases having a processing time of around 3-6 months.
Parent Migration 143/864: A New Trend of Differentiated Further-Document Requests
Are the 143 & 864 starting to see different-priority further-document requests? —
There have been a few weeks in June with no grants; our most recent 143 grant was around the end of May.
On the document-request front, however, there are new signs: the pace of further-document requests for the 143 and 864 is starting to diverge.
Will the aged category be processed faster than the general category?
This is a question many clients ask during consultations. In fact, after Covid the document-request pace for these two visa types had been levelled out, but we have recently noticed that since June we have received almost no 143 requests (previously up to early December 2018). Over the past two weeks, however, we have received several 864 requests, already reaching mid-January 2019. We are not sure whether this is a temporary one-off or is driven by the new financial year’s quota favouring onshore places (the 143 can only be granted offshore, while the 864 can be granted onshore); we will analyse further once we have more data.
Child visa —
As at the end of December 2025 the backlog was 7,834, with grants for lodgements from late May 2024; the quota rises to 3,500, which should help speed up processing considerably.
Partner Migration New Financial Year Forecast: High Backlog, Slow Growth
Partner visa —
In the last week of the 2025-26 financial year there were still grants at the permanent-residency stage, because the 801/100 do not draw on the quota. The 820 and 309, which do draw on the quota, had a backlog of 100,000+ as at the end of December 2025; although there have been approvals recently, lodgement volumes are also high. The new financial year’s quota rises slightly by 1,000 to 41,500, which will bring a modest speed-up, but clearing the backlog will still take at least 2 years.
Here’s hoping that in the new financial year the Department of Home Affairs gets to work sooner — whether on grants or invitations — rather than dragging its feet as it did this year.
