2026 Australia: The Latest Processing-Time Update Across All Visa Types
It has been a while since we last updated on processing speeds. Today, drawing on the latest FOI data for Subclass 191, we share how processing has been tracking lately across the various visa types.
The Department’s official figures are set out in the images (Images 2 to 3); the text below adds what we are seeing on our side.
1. Skilled visas
Subclass 189– Processed strictly in lodgement order. Most recent grants have gone to clients who lodged in December, with some who lodged even earlier still waiting.
State nomination– Processed across multiple tracks. The Department’s website shows that both categories (Subclass 190 and 491) are now working through applications lodged from January 2025 onwards, and we have also had grants for applications lodged in late 2024.
Transition to Subclass 191– Has progressed to the middle-to-late part of August 2025. The FOI data shows that, as at the end of January this financial year, the backlog stood at 14,000+, lodgements had just passed 15,000, and finalisations were approaching 17,000 (Image 1). Taking the earlier data into account as well, monthly finalisations fell steadily from the July peak through to October, dropping below 1,000 in October. Over the following three months, however, the average was close to 1,500 per month [grants 16772 – (5307 + 3975 + 2114 + 973)]/3, which counts as having arrested the decline.
Subclass 887– One client who lodged in October 2025 received a grant in mid-October.
2. Employer-sponsored visas
Subclass 482 and 186- The marked speed-up shown on the official website is not something our clients have actually felt — most likely because employer-sponsored cases have clear priority tiers. For Subclass 186, regional / teaching / health / accredited sponsor cases are expressly processed first and have already advanced to May 2025, while non-priority cases are still at June 2024.
Subclass 407- No slow-down here — if anything it has sped up. Just last week a client received a grant, with the whole process taking under six months.
3. Family visas
Subclass 143- The further-documents stage has reached the middle of November 2018. The pace of further-documents requests and grants has not let up; however, if the quota is exhausted, even after you complete the further-documents stage you will still have to wait until the next financial year for the grant.
Partner visas- No noticeable speed-up overall. The TR (provisional) stage has reached the second half of 2024, and the PR stage is around the middle of 2025.
4. Temporary visas
Student visas- Some applications lodged in early April have been granted; Subclass 485 results come through in just a few weeks; and Subclass 600 is also done within 2-3 weeks.
Although past experience suggests that processing slows in May and June owing to quota limits, the FOI data shows that Subclass 189/190/491 have not been processed ahead of pace — indeed they have consistently run below the average speed you would expect — so there is still reason to be optimistic about processing in the final quarter of the year.
