News

News May 19, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Onshore Applicants Now Prioritised in Migration Quotas | A Rare PR Opportunity for Offshore Applicants — The MINT Programme

Australian MINT Investment Migration for Offshore Applicants Newstars Education & Migration has officially become an authorised Panel Agent for the Northern Territory’s MINT programme, able to manage the entire application process on behalf of applicants. The Northern Territory MINT Programme: Detailed Overview and Positioning The MINT programme is a state-nominated skilled migration pathway, under which applicants ultimately lodge their migration

News May 18, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Australia Fast-Tracks Subclass 189/190/491 Grants: Latest Tally of Each State’s Remaining Nomination Quotas

This Week’s Key Migration News Major shake-up in the new financial year’s PR quota allocation — onshore prioritised over offshore: how to respond Subclass 189/190/491 grants stay fast, backlogs fall further State nomination quotas as at April — which states can still issue more? ACT releases the final invitation-round report of the financial year This week’s grants, invitations and skills-assessment

News May 14, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Must-Read for Commerce and Humanities Applicants Over 32: How to Set Up Australian or New Zealand Residency — Three Migration Pathways to Settle Faster

Australia and New Zealand Migration for Commerce and Humanities Applicants Over 32: A Low-Cost Guide to Securing Residency Recently, a number of commerce and humanities applicants over 32 have been asking whether migration to Australia is still possible at this age — particularly those who have worked in China for more than ten years and have now hit a plateau

News May 14, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Australia’s 2026-27 Migration Policy Explained: 132,000 Skilled Places, with Onshore Priority Now the Key

Australia’s 2026-27 Migration Budget: A Full Breakdown of the Overall Quota The Department of Home Affairs has released its 2026-27 Budget, and there is plenty of migration news this year, so let’s go through it point by point. 1. The 2026-27 quota is confirmed at 185,000 — this refers to the PR grant quota 2. 132,240 places go to the

News May 12, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Skilled Migration Grant and Backlog Data to the End of February Is Here — Take a Look 🤝

Overview of the February 2026 Australian Subclass 189/190/491 FOI Data Another update on the Subclass 189/190/491 data! Through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request we have obtained the figures up to the end of February 2026 (see the feature image); the original data is shown in Figures 2-3. Key Changes in Grants and Backlogs Across the Three Main Visas —

News May 11, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Australia’s New Partner Visa Rules Take Effect in April 2026: Incomplete Documents Now Stall Processing — Key Changes You Must Know

Key Changes to Australia’s Partner Visa Rules in April 2026 In April 2026, the Australian Department of Home Affairs released two consecutive updates on partner visa processing, drawing particular attention to the processing workflow, documentation requirements and communication methods for partner visas. 01. Key change: after a request for further documents, you theoretically get only one chance to respond The

News May 9, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Stop Lodging Blindly! Wait Times to PR by Category in Australia — The Latest Complete Edition

Australia’s 2026 New Financial-Year Budget: Migration Places and the PR Backlog Explained On the evening of 12 May (next Tuesday), Australia releases its new financial-year Budget — it’s hard to believe another year has already gone by. As usual, I’ll talk it through on a livestream, so do come back and register to tune in. I’ll also cover the latest

News May 7, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

State Nomination Programmes Enter the End-of-Financial-Year Wind-Down

Overview: Australian State Nomination Programmes Wrapping Up for the Financial Year Only yesterday I was reflecting that another financial year is almost over — and today the state governments went and reminded me all over again. NSW Subclass 190 About to Wrap Up Subclass 190 will not be releasing any further EOI pre-invitations, while Subclass 491 Pathway 2 — also

News May 6, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

Australian Skilled Migration Too Competitive to Crack? When Your Subclass 485 Expires With No Way Out, New Zealand’s 6-Point Migration to the Rescue!

Australia’s 2026-27 Budget Approaches: Where Do Subclass 485 Work-Visa Holders Go When the Visa Expires? It’s now May, and next week on the evening of the 12th, Australia will hand down the 2026-27 Budget, which should reveal the PR visa quotas. Every signal is telling us that yet another financial year is about to end. Another financial year has nearly

News April 30, 2026 Qiqi CHEN

How to Check Australian Visa Processing Times in 2026: Reading the Hidden MaxDays to Estimate Your Wait

How the New Method for Checking Australian Visa Processing Times Works A new way to check visa processing times? A better way to estimate how long you’ll wait? In the past, when checking processing times, most people’s first instinct was to open the Department of Home Affairs’ official website and look at the familiar Global Visa Processing Times tool —