We’ve received the FOI-release visa data for the 189, 190 and 491 programs through the end of November 2025. Year-end holidays meant the reply arrived later than usual — better late than never.

Key findings for November

– Subclass 190 and 491 grants continue to accelerate, with higher volumes clearing the backlog

– State-nominated cases continue to be processed in parallel across multiple lodgement months

Data source

Data summary

Subclass 189 ————

New lodgements rose by 3,694, driven by the mid-November invitation round in which 10,000 invitations were issued. By the end of November — about two weeks after the round — 2,552 primary applicants had lodged, so the acceptance rate sits at roughly 25%. The final acceptance rate for this round will not be confirmed until the end-of-December and end-of-January data is released.

Grants also roughly doubled, reaching 1,400+.

With such a large jump in new lodgements, the backlog has continued to grow past the 10,000 mark, now exceeding 11,000. In November, the Department focused mainly on applications lodged in December 2024 and August 2025. 557 were finalised from the December 2024 batch (fewer than 800 remaining); the November 2024 cohort is almost cleared with only about 100 left; 760+ were granted from the August 2025 batch (1,200+ remaining); September 2025 lodgements have barely begun processing.

190——

Total new lodgements exceeded 1,000, up 588 from October. States received their full allocations in November, so state-nomination activity is progressively recovering — an improvement, but not yet a full recovery.

Grant volume remained at 3,000+, slightly below October.

The backlog shrank by 2,000+.

Processing across November was more spread out for Subclass 190 — finalisations occurred across lodgements from June 2023 through October 2024, in volumes ranging from a few dozen to over 300 per month. The highest single-month total was 325 from December 2023 lodgements.The remaining caseload for each month in FY23-24 is now modest — all under 400.

The backlog is now concentrated in October 2024 and later, with most of those months still holding 1,000+ pending applications. Some early-2025 lodgements are now seeing grants too — 187 were finalised from the June 2025 cohort.

491——

New lodgements grew by more than 700, up 200+ from October.

Grants rose by 600+ compared with October, reaching 2,700+.

The backlog shrank by a further 2,000+ and now sits below 24,000.

Subclass 491 is also being processed across spread-out lodgement months, primarily targeting FY23-24 applications. Lodgements from late July 2023 fell by 581, and the monthly pending count for FY23-24 is slightly higher than for 190 — ranging from 200+ to 800+. However, for FY24-25, the 491 monthly backlog is lower than 190.

Heading into 2026, the Department has resumed granting across all three programs — we hope to see your name in the next batch of data!