This Week

Australian Migration News

1. Latest 189 EOI backlog for Early Childhood, Social Workers, Secondary Teachers and Nursing

2. Major changes to temporary-visa ART appeal procedures finally pass into law

3. Canberra’s latest official report released — Small Business stream drops its cut-off

4. Tasmania’s weekly invitations arrive on schedule

5. This week’s visa grants, invitations and skills-assessment success stories — as usual

I. Latest 189 EOI backlog for Early Childhood, Social Workers, Secondary Teachers and Nursing

The start-of-month routine update of the 189 EOI pool backlog is in. A new invitation round is due in February, so the data as at the end of January is the most useful reference.

This time we focus on four major occupations:Early Childhood is looking increasingly worrying, Secondary Teachers and Social Workers have maintained a healthy backlog, and Nursing remains the largest backlog pool. We also draw some tentative predictions for the February round from this data.

Nursing ——

Nursing always carries a very large backlog, but it wins on invitation volume each round. The 75-point-and-above backlog has passed 4k, and based on last round’s 2k+ invitations,we expect at most only some of the 75-point applicants to be invited. For Nursing, 80 points and above remains the safer bet.

Social Workers ——

Social Workers should be the healthiest of the three priority occupations — the total backlog at 75 points and above is around 500, but competition at the top of the scale has clearly begun, with 95- and 100-point applicants starting to appear.Based on the last round’s pattern, 75-point applicants stand a good chance of being invited.

Secondary Teachers ——

The backlog is relatively healthy: the last 189 round did invite 75-point Secondary Teachers, issuing roughly 400–500 invitations. But competition at the top end is not light — after the November round cleared the end-of-October 80+ backlog, there are again nearly 300 applicants sitting at 80 points and above, with high-score applicants on the rise.The next round’s cut-off is likely to be 80 points or higher; whether 75-point applicants get through will depend on the total volume issued.

Early Childhood ——

Early Childhood now has over 1k applicants at 85 points and above, with the 85-point backlog growing by more than 200 a month and the 90-point band adding 49 in a single month.

For Early Childhood applicants, the only option is to maximise your points, and if a good opportunity appears in another state, make the call quickly and don’t miss it. A case we have mentioned several times is a client who decisively relocated to WA, found a job, and secured a 190 grant.

Early Childhood has also recently seensome states adjusting the teacher registration rules for Graduate Diploma Early Childhood. We have contacted each state government and received replies. A reminder, once again: teacher registration is not the same as skills assessment.Early Childhood skills assessment rules have not been amended; the changes to teacher-registration requirements mainly affect whether applicants meet the work / work-experience requirements for some state nominations. For a detailed summary, see:Appendix: an analysis of the impact of the Early Childhood teacher-registration changes.

2. Legislation passed: temporary-visa ART appeals no longer require a hearing

Although framed as affecting all temporary visas, this really targets Student visas. Several years ago the Department began tightening VET Student visas, and large numbers were refused. Applicants who had entered during a more relaxed period were also refused on renewal in large numbers. Because onshore applicants retain appeal rights, they appealed to the ART after refusal, stayed on Bridging Visa A, and were able to continue study and work 48 hours per fortnight. This caused the ART to build up a huge backlog of Student-visa appeals.Last year the backlog grew by about 2,000 cases per month, and by this February it had reached 35,000. The Tribunal is only now working through applications lodged in 2024, and conservatively each case has to wait 1.5 years.

The Department has long wanted to address the problem.After multiple rounds of debate in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the amendment has finally passed. The day after it passed we already felt the pace of decisions picking up — recently-lodged clients received their first request for further information, and clients who lodged in 2025 received a second request for further information.

Beyond the expected gradual pick-up in speed, the way the supporting material is organised becomes even more important after the reform.In the past, some applicants reasoned that because there would be a hearing and they really were attending classes, they could win the member over at the hearing itself — and so they underestimated the importance of supporting documents and written submissions, and chose to DIY because they were the ones attending and doing most of the talking anyway.

That approach will no longer work. Both the documentary evidence and the written submissions are critical, and professional guidance is essential. If you need to appeal, including on a Student visa, please contact us — we have extensive appeal experience.

III. Canberra’s latest official report is out — the Small Business stream really has dropped its cut-off

Canberra, which issued invitations last week, published its official report on Friday.

Small Business issued 17 subclass 190 invitations with a minimum score of 105, and 16 subclass 491 invitations with the cut-off lowered to 95.

The employer-sponsored-holder stream issued 49 subclass 190 and 20 subclass 491 invitations; new applications to this stream close after 1 February.

The general onshore stream issued 123 subclass 190 and 140 subclass 491 invitations.

The offshore stream issued 31 subclass 190 and 60 subclass 491 invitations.

Cut-off scores across all occupations are set out below:

IV. Tasmania’s weekly invitations arrive on schedule

This round issued 35 subclass 190 and 26 subclass 491 invitations.

The minimum invited score for the 190 was 51 and for the 491 was 37 — both in the orange pathway.

The backlog now stands at 484 subclass 190 ROI applications and 199 subclass 491 applications.

698 subclass 190 and 486 subclass 491 places remain in the allocation.

YUD

This week’s visa grants, invitations and skills assessments

StateNomination

Victoria

Formal nomination

Lodged 20 January 2026, Victorian 190 nomination approved 2 February 2026 — Civil Engineer

Canberra (ACT)

Formal nomination

2025–12–23 submitted, 2026–02–03 invited — ACT 190，Software and Applications Programmers nec

2025–12–23 submitted, 2026–02–05 invited — ACT 491，Civil Engineering Draftsperson

2025–12–24 submitted, 2026–02–06 invited — ACT 491，Accountant (General)

South Australia

Formal nomination

Lodged on 27/11/2025, Invited on 2/2/2026. Occupation: Community Worker

Visa grants

1189 Skilled Independent

18 Sep 2025 Onshore lodgement189, 03 Feb 2026 Grant–University Lecturer

190 State-Nominated

Lodged: 08/11/2024, Granted: 04/02/2026

491 Skilled Work Regional (State-Nominated)

Lodged: 03/06/2024, Granted: 04/02/2026

191 / 887 Regional Permanent Residence

None this week

Employer-sponsored

Lodged 22 October 2025, 482 nomination approved 2 February 2026 — Wall and Floor Tiler

Investor / GTI visa

None this week

Partner migration

Lodged: 07/02/2025, Granted: 03/02/2026 820

Lodged: 05/09/2024, Granted: 05/02/2026 820

Lodged: 12/03/2025, Granted: 02/02/2026 309

Parent visa

Lodged 5 September 2018, subclass 143 granted 3 February 2026

Lodged: 07/08/2018, Granted: 05/02/2026

485 Temporary Graduate visa

Lodged: 28/01/2026, Granted: 31/01/2026

Submitted on 7/10/2025, Granted on 5/2/2026

Submitted on 2/2/2026, Granted on 5/2/2026

Submitted on 18/11/2025, Granted on 2/2/2026

500 Student visa

Submitted on 5/12/2025, Granted on 4/2/2026

600 Visitor visa

Lodged: 16/01/2026, Granted: 02/02/2026

Lodged: 09/01/2026, Granted: 02/02/2026

Skills assessment

CA skills assessment

Lodged: 04/02/2026, Granted: 05/02/2026

EA

Lodged 22 January 2026, EA skills assessment approved 5 February 2026 — Civil Engineering

Lodged: 25/12/2025, Granted: 02/02/2026 CDR

Lodged 20 November 2025, EA skills assessment approved 5 February 2026 — Civil Engineering