Moving to Australia Permanently: Which Routes End in Residence

Permanent means permanent on grant, or it means five years of conditions

Australia’s skilled program has two kinds of route and they are described in the same language. Some visas make you a permanent resident the day they are granted. Others are provisional: you get five years, you live under conditions, and at the end of it you apply for a separate permanent visa that you have to qualify for all over again.

Both get called migration. Only one of them is settled when you land. If you are moving a household, selling a home and taking children out of a school system, the distinction is the most consequential thing on this page.

The routes that are permanent on grant

Three of them.

The Skilled Independent visa, subclass 189 is the cleanest. Nobody sponsors you and no state nominates you, and the Department describes it as a visa to live and work permanently anywhere in Australia. You need an occupation on the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, a suitable skills assessment, an invitation, and enough points. It is also the narrowest door: 212 of the 216 occupations on that list reach it, against 457 occupations for the permanent employer sponsored route.

The Skilled Nominated visa, subclass 190 is permanent on grant too, and the Department states that you become a permanent resident on the day the visa is granted. It is nominated by a state or territory government, and that nomination is the thing you are accepting. The Department says only that every state and territory agency has its own criteria for deciding who it will nominate, and directs you to contact the agency to find out what it wants from you. So read the nominating state’s own terms rather than assuming they mirror the Department’s. One rule the Department does publish: if the agency withdraws your nomination after you have applied, your application becomes invalid.

The Employer Nomination Scheme visa, subclass 186 is the permanent employer sponsored route. It has three streams, and the two that matter here are these. On the Direct Entry stream you need an occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List, a positive skills assessment unless exempt, and unless exempt at least three years of relevant work experience in the occupation. The Department notes something worth knowing here: applicants who are exempt from the skills assessment are also exempt from the work experience requirement. On the Temporary Residence Transition stream you come through a 482, and we cover that route separately.

Two mechanical details apply to both 186 streams, and both bite in practice. You must apply for the visa within six months of the nomination being approved. And the Department cannot grant the visa if the nomination is withdrawn or the position is no longer available, which means your application is only as durable as your employer’s intentions.

The routes that are provisional

Two of them, and they run for five years before anything is permanent.

The Skilled Work Regional visa, subclass 491 is nominated by a state or territory government or sponsored by an eligible relative, and it is points tested. The Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional visa, subclass 494 is sponsored by a regional employer to fill a shortage they cannot fill locally, and it needs a nomination from an approved work sponsor, an occupation on a relevant list, a suitable skills assessment, English, and an age under 45.

Neither makes you a permanent resident. The Department is explicit that the 491 is a temporary visa. Both are the entry ticket to a separate application later: the Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional) visa, subclass 191, on its Regional Provisional stream. That stream is the one this section describes, and the subclass has a separate Hong Kong stream with its own rules.

What the 191 actually asks for, and the number almost every source gets wrong

The 191 is where the plan either closes or does not, so it is worth reading the Department’s own words rather than the commentary.

You must hold an eligible visa when you apply, and have held it for at least three years before you apply. An eligible visa means a subclass 491 or a subclass 494.

You must have complied with the conditions of your eligible visa while in Australia, and the Department states that this requirement applies for the whole period you hold the visa or visas. Not at the point of application. Throughout. A condition breached in year two is not cured by three good years afterwards. You must also provide proof that, while holding the eligible visa, you lived, worked and studied in a designated area of Australia.

And then the income requirement, which is the part to read twice. The subclass’s landing page says the visa is for workers who hold an eligible visa and meet an income requirement. The criteria for the Regional Provisional stream then say, under a heading titled Satisfy the income requirement, that there is no minimum income requirement. What is required instead is documentary: notices of assessment issued by the Australian Taxation Office for three income years out of the five years of your eligible visa.

So the Department’s own pages read differently depending on which one you land on, and the operative one is the stream criteria. It is a filing requirement rather than an earnings threshold. The practical consequence runs the other way from what people expect: it is not that you have to earn a particular figure, it is that you need lodged Australian returns and assessments for three years, which means an applicant who spent long stretches out of the Australian tax system, or whose partner was the earner, can have a documentation problem where they thought they had none.

One timing point the article cannot resolve for you. A 491 runs for five years and you may apply at the three year mark, but the requirement is three income years out of the five. Apply early and all three assessments have to fall inside the years you have actually held the visa.

The Department also asks that any money owed to the Australian Government by you or a family member has been paid back or has an approved payment plan in place, and it frames that as preventing processing delays.

The one boundary that does not move

Age. The 494 requires you to be under 45. The 190 sets its test at invitation rather than application: you must be aged under 45 when the Department invites you to apply, and you can still apply if you turn 45 afterwards. The 186 usually requires you to be under 45 when you apply.

The word usually is doing real work on the 186, and the exemptions are the most under-reported thing in Australian employer sponsorship. On both 186 streams you can be exempt if you are nominated as an academic by an Australian university, or as a scientist, researcher or technical specialist at ANZSCO skill level 1 or 2 by a government science agency or an Australian university. The academic bands differ between the streams, Level A to E on the Temporary Residence Transition stream and Level B to E on Direct Entry, so check yours rather than assuming.

Direct Entry adds an exemption for holders of a Special Category (subclass 444) or New Zealand citizen’s family member (subclass 461) visa who have worked for the nominating employer in the nominated position for at least two years in the last three, excluding unpaid leave.

The Temporary Residence Transition stream adds two more. A medical practitioner who has, in the three years immediately before applying, worked in that occupation in a designated regional area for at least two years as a 482 holder, into a nominated position that is also in a designated regional area, is exempt. A 482 holder who worked in eligible sponsored employment for at least two of the three years ending immediately before applying, and whose earnings in each of those years were at least the Fair Work High Income Threshold, is exempt.

The earnings exemption is the quiet escape hatch, but read it precisely. It is not a pure pay test: it sits on top of the eligible sponsored employment requirement, so the two qualifying years have to be full time, in Australia, and in the occupation the visa was granted for. With those in place, the age cap becomes a question about what the payroll already says, and that is worth knowing at 43 rather than at 46.

If you are close to any of these boundaries, treat it as a question for a person. Our eligibility check takes two minutes and asks for an age band, but it treats 45 and over as a signal to look outside the skilled routes, which is the right default and the wrong answer for anyone sitting on one of the exemptions above.

Now put the queue against it

Which route you pick changes how long you wait, and by more than most people budget for. Home Affairs prioritises skilled applications under Ministerial Direction 119, which came into effect on 25 July 2026 and replaced the priorities under Direction 105. It ranks on two things: your occupation, and where you were when you applied.

Read on 20 August 2026, against banners the Department had last updated between 29 July and 17 August 2026, it reported allocating for processing applications generally lodged in the following months. These move, so check the current figures before relying on them.

On the 189 points tested stream, January 2026 for applicants who were in Australia, and November 2025 for applicants outside it. On the 190, April 2025 onshore and February 2025 offshore. On the 491, March 2025 onshore and February 2025 offshore. On the 186, July 2024, both onshore and offshore, for anyone outside a priority occupation.

Put the 189 next to the 190 and there is close to a year between two visas that both end in permanent residence on grant. Put the 186 next to either and the gap is larger again.

The mistakes we correct most often

Treating the 491 as permanent residence with a regional condition attached. It is a five year provisional visa, and the 191 is a fresh application with its own criteria.

Assuming the 191 has an income threshold and planning around a figure. The Department says there is no minimum income requirement. The requirement is three years of ATO notices of assessment out of five.

Reading the 191’s condition compliance requirement as a test applied at the end. It applies for the whole period you hold the visa.

Accepting a state nomination on the 190 without reading what the state asked for. Those conditions belong to the state, not to the Department, and they differ.

Letting the six month window between a 186 nomination approval and the visa application lapse.

Assuming the 45 age cap is absolute on the employer sponsored permanent route. There are several exemptions across the streams, including one that turns on earnings at or above the Fair Work High Income Threshold sitting on top of two qualifying years of sponsored employment.

Comparing routes on eligibility alone and ignoring the queue, when the published allocation dates differ by more than a year between visas that produce the same status.

Where to start

If your occupation is on the points tested lists and you can reach a competitive score, the points tested routes are the ones to model first, because they end in residence without a five year conditional period. If they are closed to you, employer sponsorship reaches more than twice as many occupations, and the regional routes reach more again at the cost of five years of conditions and a second application.

None of that is decided by which visa sounds best. It is decided by your occupation, your age, and where you will be standing on the day you lodge. Our MARA-registered advisers work those three facts first, because they close off most of the options before preference gets a say. If you are weighing a provisional route against a permanent one, it is worth a conversation before you commit five years to the answer.

Sources

• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189)
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled Nominated visa (subclass 190)
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491)
• Department of Home Affairs, Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional) visa (subclass 191)
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (provisional) visa (subclass 494)
• Department of Home Affairs, Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186) Direct Entry stream
• Department of Home Affairs, Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186) Temporary Residence Transition stream
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled visa processing priorities
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled occupation list