Home Affairs: Employer-sponsored and Student-visa processing has sped up, with more acceleration to come! Points-test and regional-migration reform proposals — expected early 2026?
MIA held its routine quarterly meeting with the Department of Home Affairs on 10 December. The meeting briefed MARA-registered migration agents on valuable updates from the Department. 482-The Department is continuing its efforts to reduce the Subclass 482 backlog. The high-salary Specialist Skills stream should soon see its backlog effectively reduced, while the Core stream will be a bit slower. The legacy 482 TSS backlog has now dropped to under 3,000 applications. The critical occupations listed on MD 105 (primarily the “three-treasure” occupations) are not used to guide the processing of 482 SID applications.
482-On processing quality: the Department is also strengthening quality reviews, providing more training to case officers, and conducting additional audits to improve consistency and reduce the 482 refusal rate.
Subclass 186 visa — some Subclass 186 applications currently receive an immediate medical-examination reminder after lodgement. This prompt will be removed shortly. MIA suggests that — unless your occupation is high priority (fast processing) — you can wait a few months before completing the medical. If processing takes more than 12 months, case officers will extend the medical validity to 18 months.
Subclass 485 visa — the procedural guidelines will be finalised before Christmas and back-dated to 1 July 2024 (mainly for use and reference by practitioners). MIA specifically noted that we are now seeing some 485 holders whose visas are about to expire going offshore to re-apply for a Student visa; in the Department’s view they are in fact onshore applicants, so the refusal rate will be noticeably higher. Onshore Student visa — processing time has dropped from 11 months to 5.5 months, and is expected to keep accelerating. The Department has improved its triage (streaming) mechanism, and lower-quality applications are being refused outright — both of which help overall speed. Temporary-visa appeals without a hearing — the proposal to remove mandatory hearings from ART appeals for temporary visas (including Student visas) is still sitting in Parliament; a parliamentary committee is reviewing it and will provide feedback in due course. 2026 new-international-student cap — the Department of Education and the Department of Home Affairs will update and share on a weekly basis tracking data on New Overseas Student Commencements (NoSC) at each institution.
Partner visa — this year’s lodgement numbers have dropped slightly, and the old backlog is being cleared in an orderly fashion. Applications lodged more than two years ago that are still undecided now account for less than 5% of the total backlog. A Partner-visa status-update newsletter will be launched shortly. The Department has previously flagged staffing shortages on multiple occasions. MIA reported that on this occasion they received no feedback from the Department indicating any replenishment or increase in staffing. This MIA meeting primarily covered routine visa-processing information and some ART-appeal tips for agents — no policy or reform updates were shared. Instead, industry peer Iscah shared two reportedly Department-sourced updates this week:–Recommendations for points-test reform and regional migration reform are expected to be delivered to the federal government in early 2026.–The multi-year state-nomination plan has been delayed, as the Minister now feels it is necessary to retain year-on-year flexibility in allocations.–There are 9,695 NIV EOIs currently in the pool.–The success rate of Student-visa ART appeals is approximately 44%.– There are currently more than 400,000 people on bridging visas onshore in Australia, and around 226,000 on Work and Holiday visas. For Subclass 189 / 190 / 491 / 191 visa data, see: Latest skilled-migration visa data! Subclass 190 / 491 grants surge, 191 grants exceed 12,000 in four months, August-round 189 acceptance rate near 70%!For the Department’s December visa-processing-time update, see: Department updates December visa-processing times | Employer-sponsored 186 speeds up, 143 top-up push-back to August! VIC / QLD / SA government holiday arrangements updated! Most agencies begin their holiday break this Saturday, yet plenty of grants are still coming through up to the 18th. We hope news of the 2026 reforms will firm up soon, that state governments will reopen invitations quickly, and that everyone’s visa is granted smoothly!
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Subclass 189 per-occupation invitation-number formula revealed for the first time! Canberra issues a new round, and state-nomination visa processing speeds up!
Latest skilled-migration visa data! Subclass 190 / 491 grants surge, 191 grants exceed 12,000 in four months
Subclass 189 issues 10,000 invitations | Per-round invitation numbers for the “four treasures” plus other common occupations, with calculation table included!
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Search the dialogue box [numbers only] to view articlesCode 01 — Australia’s most popular skilled-migration programs: Subclass 189, 190, 491 Code 02 — One-stop work-to-migration employer-sponsored pathways: Subclass 482, 186, 494 Code 03 — Study first, then migrate: recommended fields and courses Code 04 — Study pathways for secondary school / Gaokao / undergraduateCode 05 — A must for international-student migration: the Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate visa Code 06 — Arrange immediately after your PR is granted: Parent migration and visasCode 07 — Master of Marriage: Partner migration Code 08 — Pivoting to Hong Kong: the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme and Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents & ProfessionalsCode 09 — Essential for parents / relatives / friends visiting as tourists: the Subclass 600 visaCode 10 — Weekly-updated success stories: grants, invitations and skills assessments
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