Privacy Statement and Privacy Policy

Our previous updates have covered several major changes to Australian visas and immigration. A lot of further significant reforms are yet to be legislated in the coming months by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) and these may also have a significant impact on prospective migrants, both onshore and overseas. The new skilled occupation list that underpins the employer sponsored and point-tested visa programs will be released in January 2018 and updated

Victoria (Living in Victoria) has announced that applications for engineering and building occupations (see below) on the Visa Nomination Occupation List for Victoria will not be accepted from 16 October 2017 to 12 January 2018. The Visa Nomination Occupation List refers to eligible occupations for state nomination for subclass 190 and subclass 489 visas. The temporary closure however will not affect processing of applications received prior to 16 October 2017. The applicatio

A great outcome for permanent residents this week as the changes to citizenship requirements were struck from Parliament on Wednesday. It is expected that applications will now continue to be processed under the current rules. As reported by SBS News, a spokesperson for Mr Dutton has indicated a revised start date for any new bill proposed to be 1 July 2018, however the government would still need to get a new bill through parliament which will require support from independe

The English requirement for the primary visa applicant for Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) and Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (subclass 187) visa is a time of application requirement. For applicants needing to undertake an English language test to meet the English requirement, there are various acceptable English tests. There are certain exemptions available to meet the English requirement. In terms of acceptable English tests, the more commonly used tests are

The holiday period is fast approaching. If you have overseas travel arranged and have applied for a further visa in Australia, you need to ensure you hold a visa which allows you to re-enter Australia during the processing of your visa application. If you have a pending application with DIBP, and your bridging visa A is in effect or will come into effect whilst you are overseas, you will need to obtain a Bridging Visa B prior to travelling overseas. A Bridging Visa B applicat

The NSW 190 Priority Skilled Occupation List (NSW 190 List) has now been updated for the program year 2017-2018. The list contains the priority occupations for which the visa applicants may be nominated by NSW, for a skilled nominated visa subclass 190. Various occupations have been added to the list such as ICT Security Specialists, Architects, Civil Engineering Technicians and Engineers (Chemical, Electronics, Industrial, Product or Plant). Whilst NSW has also removed certa

SkillSelect is an online system that allows overseas skilled workers to be considered for a general skilled migration visa. To commence the process, an Expression of Interest (EOI) must be submitted through SkillSelect online. General skilled migration visas (subclass 189 and 190) are point based visas. Applicants will be eligible to apply once they have accumulated the minimum score. An EOI ranks applicants based on information, such as nominated occupation, age, English abi