Australia is one of the few wealthy countries that will still consider you on your own merits. You do not need an employer to vouch for you, you do not need to be transferred by a multinational, and you do not need family there. If your occupation is on the right list, your skills are assessed, and your points total is high enough, you can be invited to apply for permanent residence directly.
That is the headline. The detail is where it gets slow, because the sequence has five or six steps, each of which has its own queue, and the whole thing can take well over a year from decision to arrival.
This guide sets out the two parallel systems, what the current salary rules are for the sponsored side, and the preparation that makes the difference.
Two systems, not one
The points-tested system. You arrange your own skills assessment, sit an English test, submit an Expression of Interest, and wait to be invited. Your occupation must appear on the relevant skilled occupation list. If invited, you apply for a visa that is permanent from day one, or in the case of the regional and state-nominated categories, permanent with a geographic condition attached.
The employer-sponsored system. An Australian business nominates you for a specific role. The business must be an approved sponsor, the role must be genuine, and the salary must clear a published threshold. The main temporary route is the Skills in Demand visa, subclass 482, which can lead to permanent residence through subclass 186.
Most people should investigate both at once rather than committing to one. They have different bottlenecks, and the one that moves first is not always the one you expected.
The salary threshold on the sponsored side
For employer-sponsored visas, the key number is the Core Skills Income Threshold.
From 1 July 2026 the Core Skills Income Threshold is AUD 79,423, following an indexation increase of 3.8 per cent. It applies to subclasses 482, 494 and 186.
Two things follow from that figure.
First, the salary must be at least the threshold and at least the annual market salary rate for the role — the rate an Australian doing the same job in the same place would be paid. As with the UK, clearing the headline number is not sufficient on its own if the market rate is higher.
Second, the threshold is indexed annually on 1 July. A nomination lodged in late June and one lodged in early July are tested against different numbers. If a nomination is close to the line, timing is not a detail.
There is also a higher Specialist Skills Income Threshold used for a faster processing stream for high-earning roles; figures around AUD 146,576 have been widely reported for the current year. Treat that as indicative and confirm it against the department before relying on it, because the department publishes its salary figures through a page that does not always render consistently.
The points test, if you are going it alone
Points are awarded across a set of factors. The ones that move the needle most:
Age. The highest award sits in the 25 to 32 band, and points fall away sharply after 40. This is the factor nobody can improve, and it is the reason the advice to people in their twenties is always "start now."
English. There is a meaningful gap between competent, proficient and superior English, and the jump from proficient to superior is often the single cheapest way to add points. If you are a native speaker you may assume you will score top marks automatically; you will not, because you still have to sit an approved test and the writing section catches people out.
Skilled employment. Years of relevant post-qualification experience, counted separately for work inside and outside Australia.
Qualifications. A doctorate, a bachelor's degree, a diploma or trade qualification, each worth different amounts.
Partner. Points for a partner with competent English and a positive skills assessment, and a smaller award if you have no partner, or a partner who is already Australian.
Community language, regional study, professional year. Smaller awards, but they are the ones that tip a borderline total over the line.
The total you need is not fixed. There is a floor to be eligible to submit an Expression of Interest, but the score that actually gets invited depends on how many people above you are also waiting, and that varies by occupation and by round. Occupations in high demand are invited at the floor; crowded occupations such as accounting and some IT categories have historically required scores far above it.
Skills assessment: start here
Before anything else, your occupation must be assessed by the designated assessing authority for that occupation. Engineers go to one body, accountants to another, trades to another again. Each has its own evidence requirements, its own fee, and its own processing time.
This is the step people leave too late. It frequently takes months, it often comes back asking for more documentation, and nothing else can proceed without it. If you do one thing this month, make it this.
A positive skills assessment generally has a validity period, so there is such a thing as doing it too early as well.
The sponsored route in practice
Three moving parts have to line up:
- Sponsorship. The business must be, or must become, an approved sponsor.
- Nomination. The business nominates the specific position, demonstrating the role is genuine, that it sits in an eligible occupation, and that the salary meets both the threshold and the market rate.
- Visa application. You apply, with health and character checks, and evidence of skills and English.
Employers also pay into the Skilling Australians Fund as part of nomination. That levy is an employer cost and cannot lawfully be passed to you — if a prospective employer suggests you cover it, that is a serious red flag about how they run their obligations generally.
The regional angle
Australia pushes hard towards regional areas, and the incentives are substantial: extra points, additional occupations available, and in some cases a shorter or easier path to permanence. "Regional" in Australian terms includes substantial cities — the definition is broader than the word suggests, and it is worth checking rather than assuming it means remote.
A regional commitment is a real commitment. Visas in this family carry conditions about where you live and work, and they are enforced.
What it costs
Budget in four buckets:
- Skills assessment. Several hundred to over a thousand Australian dollars, depending on the authority.
- English test. A few hundred dollars, and more if you sit it twice, which many people do to chase a higher band.
- Visa application charge. The largest single item, charged for the main applicant and again, at a lower rate, for each dependant.
- Health and character. Medical examination and police certificates from every country you have lived in for a qualifying period, which for people with a mobile history can mean several.
Then add the relocation itself. Australia is far from everywhere, and shipping a household there is expensive.
Health and character
Every applicant undergoes a health examination with a panel physician, and the health requirement applies to the whole family unit, including members who are not migrating with you. The requirement is concerned with cost to the public health system and with public health risk.
Character requires police certificates and a declaration. Old convictions do not automatically disqualify, but non-disclosure is treated far more seriously than the underlying matter. Declare everything.
What to do in what order
- Confirm your occupation is on a current skilled occupation list and identify the assessing authority.
- Book and sit your English test. If the result is close to the next band, sit it again.
- Start the skills assessment. Expect it to take months.
- Calculate your points honestly, including the partner points.
- Submit an Expression of Interest, and in parallel approach states and territories about nomination.
- If you are also pursuing sponsorship, run the job search simultaneously — an offer does not stop a points application.
- Gather police certificates early; some countries are slow.
State and territory nomination, which most people underuse
Beyond the independent points route, every Australian state and territory runs its own nomination programme. A state nomination adds points to your total and, in several categories, is the difference between an invitation and an indefinite wait.
Each state publishes its own occupation list, which is not the same as the national list, and its own criteria — often including a commitment to live and work in that state for a period, sometimes a job offer in the state, sometimes evidence of a genuine connection such as prior study there.
The practical point is that the states are not competing for the same people. An occupation that is oversubscribed nationally may be in genuine shortage in South Australia or Tasmania. Someone who checks only the national list and concludes they have no chance is often wrong.
State programmes also open and close through the year, sometimes with little notice, and allocations are finite. This is a space where monitoring matters. Set up alerts on the relevant state websites rather than checking occasionally.
The regional visas in more detail
Two subclasses dominate the regional picture.
Subclass 491, the Skilled Work Regional provisional visa, is points-tested and requires either state nomination or sponsorship by an eligible relative living in a designated regional area. It is valid for five years, carries a condition that you live, work and study in a designated regional area, and provides a pathway to permanent residence through subclass 191 once you have met the residence and income requirements.
Subclass 494, the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional provisional visa, is employer-sponsored, valid for five years, and also leads to subclass 191. It is subject to the Core Skills Income Threshold.
Both carry real conditions. The residence requirement is monitored, and people have had visas cancelled for moving to a capital city. If you take a regional route, take it seriously.
The upside is substantial: extra points, a wider range of eligible occupations, lower competition, and in many regional centres a cost of living that makes an AUD 80,000 salary go considerably further than it would in Sydney.
How the Expression of Interest actually works
You submit an Expression of Interest through SkillSelect. It is not an application and it carries no fee. You state your occupation, your claimed points, and which visa subclasses and states you are interested in.
Invitation rounds are then run, and invitations go to the highest-scoring candidates in each occupation. Where two candidates have the same score, the earlier submission date wins — which is why submitting as soon as you are eligible matters even if you expect to improve your score later.
An Expression of Interest is generally valid for two years. You can update it, and an update that increases your points takes effect from the date of the change, not from your original submission date, for ranking at the same score.
Two things people get wrong. First, claiming points you cannot evidence: the points you claim are checked at application stage, and a claim you cannot support is not merely corrected, it can lead to refusal and a finding about your conduct. Second, treating the invitation as the finish line: once invited you have a limited window, usually sixty days, to lodge a complete application with all evidence. Gathering police certificates after you are invited is how people let invitations lapse.
After you arrive
A few practical steps that nobody mentions until you need them.
Tax file number. Apply as soon as you arrive. Without one your employer must withhold tax at the top marginal rate, and you will not see the difference back until you lodge a return.
Medicare. Permanent residents and certain temporary visa holders from countries with a reciprocal health care agreement are eligible. Temporary visa holders generally are not, and are usually required to hold private health insurance as a condition of their visa. Check which applies to you before you arrive, because a gap in cover can breach a visa condition.
Superannuation. Your employer must pay a percentage of your salary into a superannuation fund. If you later leave Australia permanently on a temporary visa, you may be able to claim it back as a departing Australia superannuation payment, taxed at a high rate.
Credit history. Your overseas credit record does not transfer. Expect to be treated as having no history for the purposes of renting, phone contracts and borrowing, and plan for larger deposits in the first year.
Honest limitations of this guide
Occupation lists change, points thresholds in practice move with each invitation round, and visa application charges are updated periodically. Any specific number in any guide on this subject has a shelf life measured in months.
What is durable is the structure: assessment, English, points, invitation, application for the independent route; sponsorship, nomination, application for the employer route. And the Core Skills Income Threshold of AUD 79,423 from 1 July 2026, which is the figure to plan a sponsored salary negotiation around.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a job offer to move to Australia? Not for the points-tested routes. You do for the employer-sponsored routes.
How long does the whole process take? Long. Skills assessment alone is often several months, and the invitation wait is unpredictable. Plan in years rather than weeks, and do not resign from anything on the strength of an Expression of Interest.
Can I include my partner? Yes, as a dependant. A partner with their own skills assessment and competent English also adds points to your total.
Does age really matter that much? Yes. It is the largest single points factor you cannot influence, and it turns over on your birthday.
Is the Skills in Demand visa permanent? No, it is temporary, but it has pathways to permanent residence, most commonly through subclass 186.
Can my employer ask me to pay the nomination levy? No. That cost sits with the sponsor and may not be recovered from you.
What is a skills assessment and who does it? It is a formal assessment of your qualifications and experience against Australian standards, carried out by a designated assessing authority for your specific occupation. Engineers, accountants, nurses and tradespeople all go to different bodies, each with its own fee, evidence requirements and processing time.
Does studying in Australia help? Yes, in several ways. Australian study attracts points, regional study attracts more, and graduates may be eligible for a temporary graduate visa that gives time in the country to gain skilled experience and find a sponsor.
What if my occupation is not on the list? Check the state and territory lists as well as the national one, because they differ. Also consider whether an adjacent occupation your experience genuinely supports is listed. If nothing fits, the realistic routes are study, or an employer-sponsored labour agreement where one exists for your industry.
Do I need private health insurance? Temporary visa holders usually do, and it is frequently a visa condition. Permanent residents and some temporary holders from countries with a reciprocal agreement can access Medicare instead. Check which applies before you travel.
Can I apply from inside Australia? In some cases, depending on your current visa and its conditions. Some visas carry a no-further-stay condition that prevents it entirely.
Sources: Salary requirements to nominate a worker, Department of Home Affairs · Skilled occupation list, Department of Home Affairs · Updated income thresholds for skilled visas, BDO