The 24-25 Migration Report has arrived later than usual — typically released around October, this year’s edition was not published until late December. There are still plenty of takeaways; here are the highlights.
The report only covers capped visa categories — it does not include 191/888/801/100.
India tops skilled migration
India’s numbers continue to climb year on year, now exceeding 430,000 — more than four times the second-ranked country. Family migration is also its largest category.
Among applicants from mainland China, family-migration approvals have now overtaken skilled migration — something we haven’t seen in previous years. For every other country, family migration remains well below skilled migration.
Primary-applicant grants across the five main skilled occupation groups — 189/190/186/491/494 (Figure 2)
2544 Nursing: over 5,000 grants — the largest single category, and the top grant channel is actually the 186.
2613 (ICT): around 4,200 — 190 and 186 are neck and neck.
3513: around 3,500 — 186 makes up the majority.
2211: 3,250 in total, predominantly state-nominated.
2332 Civil Engineering: close to 2,700, predominantly state-nominated.
Looking at primary applicants only, Nursing and Early Childhood Education are essentially on par among the priority occupations.
Under Ministerial Direction 105 priority occupations, Nursing recorded 1,600 grants and Early Childhood Education over 1,500 — the top two of all occupations. However, Health is still well ahead of Education overall.
Top 10 occupations under the 186 (by primary-applicant grants only)
First: Registered Nurse. Second: Chef. Third: Software Engineer — all three cleared 1,000 grants. The FY24-25 employer-sponsored grant counts for these occupations will be one of the factors determining next financial year’s 189 invitation quota. Most names are familiar, with a few exceptions.
186 backlog up more than 50% (Figure 3)
Following the relaxation of employer-sponsored pathways late last year, more applicants have lodged 482 and 186 DE applications. Combined 186 TRT + DE lodgements exceeded 65,000, and FY24-25 grants also rose by several thousand. As of 30 June 2025, the 186 backlog stood at over 580,000 — up 20,000 year on year.
189 backlog (primary + secondary) is under 7,000 — the next round should be in February.
491/494 share a 33,000 quota; the 491 backlog fell by 7,000.
Across every skilled category in FY24-25, only Regional had grants 52 short of its allocation — every other category hit its quota exactly.
190 backlog also down — under 35,000 as of 30 June 2025.
By year-end, the combined 190 and 491 backlog was close to 66,000, with new lodgements exceeding 10,000. This is likely why the Department is working to ease the backlog this financial year by trimming invitation quotas.
The 188 has a 1,000-place annual quota, and FY24-25 used it all. By 30 June 2025 the backlog had dropped by nearly 5,000 — the withdrawal rate is higher than the grant rate (Figure 4)
DigiTech accounts for 37% of GTI, Financial Services 20%, and Health over 10%. Because these are FY24-25 858 grant figures, they sit under the original GTI — not the new NIV (Figure 4)
Partner visas (Figure 5) — backlog is approaching 100,000, though new lodgements alone don’t appear to have increased by much. The FY24-25 quota was used up exactly.
New parent-visa lodgements are down, but the backlog remains stubbornly high — nearing 160,000. 143 cases have been progressing through requests for further information at a good pace recently; new lodgements now face a wait of 14+ years.
Once PR is granted, we still recommend lodging parent applications as soon as possible — even if it’s just getting the 103 queued up first.
