This Week’s Highlights

Australia Migration News

1. Department of Home Affairs internal processing arrangements — points-test reform taking shape?

2. December visa processing-time update — broadly stable

3. Canberra releases its latest invitation round — Small Business stream opens the gates

4. TAS and QLD “hold the line to the end”, continuing to issue pre-invitations

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

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I. Department of Home Affairs internal processing arrangements — points-test reform taking shape?

This week we met with MIA, which shared the following takeaways from its quarterly meeting with the Department:

1. Ongoing effort to reduce the 482 backlog and lift quality.，sThe Specialist Skills stream should soon see its backlog meaningfully reduced; the Core stream will be a little slower. The old 482 TSS backlog has already been trimmed to under 3,000 applications. At the same time, the Department is strengthening quality review, providing more training to case officers, running more checks and improving consistency in order to bring down the 482 refusal rate.

2. Regarding 485 visas:the procedural guidelines will be finalised before Christmas. MIA specifically noted that some 485 holders whose visas are about to expire are leaving the country to apply for a Student visa offshore; in the Department’s eyes, these people are effectively onshore applicants, so the refusal rate is relatively high.

3. Onshore Student visa processing has already sped up and will continue to speed up.— processing times have dropped from 11 months to 5.5 months, and further acceleration is expected, thanks to improved screening and direct refusal of lower-quality applications.

4. Removing the hearing requirement for temporary-visa appeals is still being discussed at the Senate stage, with advice awaited.

5. Partner visa lodgements are slightly down this year, with orderly clearance of older backlog underway; applications lodged more than two years ago but not yet processed now make up less than 5% of the total backlog.

This week, industry colleague iscah shared several important updates said to be from the Department, including:

– Recommendations on points-test reform and regional-migration reform are expected to be submitted to the Federal Government in early 2026.

– The multi-year state-nomination plan has been delayed, because the Minister now again feels it is necessary to preserve yearly flexibility in allocations.

– There are 9,695 NIV EOIs in the pool.

II. December visa processing-time update — remaining stable

We’ve extracted the skilled-migration portion to share with everyone.

189

50% took 10 months, one month slower; 90% need 11 months, one month slower

189s are processed in lodgement order. The bulk of December and November 2024 cases have largely been cleared, and we are already seeing many applications invited and lodged in August 2025 under processing.

190

50% take 17 months, two months faster

90% need 27 months, one month slower

491

50% take 21 months, one month slower

90% need 28 months, one month slower

The largest share of 190 and 491 processing in October was still for applications lodged in June–July 2023, but processing has not strictly followed lodgement order — cases from 2024 and even early 2025 have been picked up out of sequence.

491 to 191

50% take 7 months, unchanged

90% need 15 months, one month slower

191 grants reached 12,000 in the first four months of the 2025–26 financial year, but gradually fell back between July and October, to fewer than 1,000 in October. Processing has not stopped entirely, but the concentrated “grant showers” we saw earlier are no longer there. The dual-track system continues — we’re seeing applications from the second half of 2024 as well as from early 2025.

For more detail on 189/191/190/491 processing, see our earlier FOI data:Latest skilled-migration visa data! 190/491 grants have surged, with 191 topping 12,000 grants in four months, and the August 189 round reaching close to a 70% acceptance rate!

887

50% take 7 months, three months faster

90% need 20 months, two months slower

858GTI

50% take 18 months, eight months slower

90% need 25 months, seven months slower

858NIV

The Department has now also released grant data for the new 858 NIV.

50% take 4 months

90% need 6 months

For the summary on employer sponsorship and family migration, see:Department updates December visa processing times | Employer-sponsored 186 speeds up, 143 further-information requests pushed to August! VIC/QLD/SA state-government holiday arrangements updated!

III. Canberra releases its latest invitation round — Small Business stream opens the gates

190 issued 172 invitations, 491 issued 177,around 50 fewer 491 invitations than the previous round. Within the three priority occupations, early-childhood and primary-school teachers had slightly higher scores, while the others sat broadly in the 60–85 range; non-priority occupations still sit at 100+.The Small Business stream has finally opened up: 190 issued 19 invitations and 491 issued 28 (compared with 28+19 total SBO invitations in the entire previous financial year), and scores have eased slightly.Offshore applicants still have a chance this financial year — in this round, almost every occupation received offshore invitations.

For detailed invitation scores by occupation, see below.

IV. TAS and QLD “hold the line to the end”, issuing pre-invitations

In theory, this is the last working week of the year for state governments, and many have wound back processing work — but QLD and TAS still issued a small number of pre-invitations in this final working week.

We had twoTASgraduate clients receive ROI pre-invitations — one 491 and one 190.From the official state-government report released afterwards, we can see:

Still the Orange+ stream, with 20 x 190 issued (lowest score 61) and 27 x 491 issued (lowest score 30). Processing has currently reached applications lodged on 18 November 2025. From next week, the Tasmanian office will be closed for the holidays.

QLDalso issued a small round of invitations — our 85+15 restaurant manager received a 491 invitation.

This week’s grants, invitations and skills assessments

Statenomination

SA

Formal nomination

Submitted on 11/12/2025, Approved on 18/12/2025. Occupation: Software and Applications Programmers nec. 90 — 491 graduate stream

Submitted on 9/12/2025, Approved on 16/12/2025. Occupation: Registered Nurse nec. 75 — 190 graduate stream

QLD

Pre-invitation

85+15 score cafe and restaurant manager

TAS

Formal nomination

TAS 190graduate– 554points 2025 12 11 state-nomination lodged,2025 12 19

ROI pre-invitation

TAS 491graduate – 31points 2025 11 26 ROI lodged,ROI，2025 12 18 pre-invitation received

TAS 190graduate – 304points 2025 12 17 ROI lodged,ROI，2025 12 18 pre-invitation received

Visa grants

189 independent skilled migration

None this week

190 state-government nomination

2024 10 30 lodged,2025 12 17 granted

2024 2 5 lodged,2025 12 15 granted (with further-information request)

Lodged 15 December 2023, granted 16 December 2025 — 190

491 regional state nomination

Lodged 10 April 2024, granted 17 December 2025 — 491

191/887 regional permanent residence

None this week

Employer sponsorship

Submitted on 24/7/2025, Granted on 15/12/2025. 482 subsequent

Lodged 10 June 2024, nomination approved 15 December 2025 — Accountant

Lodged 26 May 2025, granted 18 December 2025 — 482, Architect

Investor visa / GTI visa

Lodged December 2019, granted 17 December 2025 — 188A

Lodged August 2025, granted 16 December 2025 — 858 NIV Resources, invited June

Partner migration

2025 6 12 lodged,2025 12 13 granted 801

2025 6 18 lodged,2025 12 13 granted 801

Parent visas

2018 7 25 lodged,2025 11 13 further-information request notified,2025 12 12 second invoice received,invoice，2025 12 16 granted

2018 6 23 lodged,2025 10 24 further-information request notified,2025 11 20 second invoice received,invoice，2025 12 15 granted

2025 6 12 lodged,2025 12 18 granted 870

485 graduate work visa

None this week

500 Student visa

None this week

None this week

600 Visitor visa

2025 12 12 lodged,2025 12 17 granted,offshore application PR PR parent

2025 12 4 lodged,2025 12 16 granted,offshore application PR PR parent

2025 12 8 lodged,2025 12 17 granted,offshore application PR PR parent

2025 12 3 lodged,2025 12 15 granted,offshore application PR PR parent

155 visa

2025 12 1 lodged,2025 12 15 granted — – less than 2 years of residence

Skills assessment

ACECQAAssessment application (teaching-related)

2025 10 27 lodged,2025 12 18 skills assessment issued

VETASSESS

2025 11 26 lodged,2025 12 16 skills assessment issued (with further-information request)

Lodged 5 December 2025, approved 15 December 2025 — Actuary skills assessment

EA

Lodged 3 December 2025, passed EA skills assessment 18 December 2025 — Telecommunications Engineer

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