The Skilled Occupation List Australia Runs On Is Actually Four Lists

There is no single skilled occupation list

Australia runs four of them at once, and the question that decides your options is not whether your occupation is skilled. It is which of the four lists carries it.

The Department of Home Affairs publishes them all through one search tool, which it calls the combined list. That framing makes them look like a single list with a filter on it. They are not. Each list feeds a different set of visa subclasses, the overlaps between them are not the ones you would guess, and there are occupations that sit on one list and no other. If yours is one of those, your entire route into Australia is decided before you have scored a single point.

One caveat on everything below, and it comes from the Department itself. The search tool is a convenience. The Department states that the current list of eligible skilled occupations for each visa program is in that program’s legislative instrument, and the instrument is what a decision is made against. The counts here are read from the instruments in force and were current when this article was reviewed in September 2026. They move whenever an instrument is amended, so treat every figure as dated rather than permanent, and check the instrument for your own visa before you rely on one.

The four lists, and how big each one is

Read from the instruments in force, they break down like this.

The Core Skills Occupation List, the CSOL, is the largest: the current instrument runs to 456 occupations. It arrived with the Skills in Demand framework in December 2024 and it is the list that drives employer sponsorship.

The Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, the MLTSSL, carries 212 occupations. It is the list behind the points tested visas.

The Short-term Skilled Occupation List, the STSOL, is the list that governs the 190 and the 491, and it currently holds 215 occupations. What STSOL membership uniquely adds is state and territory nomination.

The Regional Occupation List, the ROL, is narrower than its reputation. The ROL that governs the state nominated 491 currently holds 77 occupations. The 494 does not draw on it at all: that visa runs on a separate regional instrument of its own, currently 434 occupations.

Which list opens which visa

Here is the mapping, read from the legislative instruments in force. These are the skilled migration subclasses. The Training visa, subclass 407, has a legislative instrument of its own, LIN 19/050, currently running to 509 occupations. Its occupations appear in the combined search tool, but that does not make it a shared list in law. It is left out below because it is a training route rather than a migration one.

For the Skilled Independent visa, subclass 189, 212 occupations are eligible, and every one of them is on the MLTSSL. Not one 189 eligible occupation sits outside that list. The Temporary Graduate visa, subclass 485, draws on exactly the same 212.

For the Skilled Nominated visa, subclass 190, 427 occupations are currently listed: 212 on the MLTSSL and 215 on the STSOL.

For the Skilled Work Regional visa, subclass 491, the two streams are not the same size. For the state or territory nominated stream, 504 occupations are currently eligible: 212 MLTSSL, 215 STSOL and 77 ROL. The family sponsored stream reaches only 212, the same set as the 189.

The Skills in Demand visa, subclass 482, on its Core Skills stream, and the Employer Nomination Scheme visa, subclass 186 on its Direct Entry pathway currently use the same CSOL, with 456 occupations. The 482 also runs a Specialist Skills stream, which is not restricted to the CSOL.

For the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional visa, subclass 494, the separate regional instrument currently runs to 434 occupations.

Read those numbers next to each other and the shape of the Australian skilled program falls out of them. The 186 Direct Entry stream currently covers 456 CSOL occupations, while 212 MLTSSL occupations are currently eligible for the 189.

The asymmetry that decides your options

Now the part worth the reading time. The lists are not nested, and the gaps run both ways.

There are substantial differences between the CSOL and the lists that govern the points tested visas. Each occupation therefore has to be checked separately, against the legislative instruments in force, to see which visa pathways it actually opens. There is no shortcut that holds across the whole programme, because the instruments are not versions of one list.

That check is the one we most often do too late, and it needs stating precisely. If an occupation is not on the CSOL, the 482 Core Skills stream is generally not open to it on the strength of that listing. Depending on the occupation and the salary, the 482 Specialist Skills stream may still be available: it can reach occupations in ANZSCO major groups 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 where the salary requirements are met. For the 186 Direct Entry pathway, the CSOL remains decisive.

So an economist, to take an occupation that sits on the MLTSSL and not the CSOL, cannot simply be told there is no 482. Which stream fits, and whether the salary reaches the threshold, is the question that has to be asked first.

The Painter problem, and why the ANZSCO code matters more than the title

Here is the trap that best illustrates how the lists actually behave.

Search the Department’s list for a painter and you get two records.

ANZSCO 2013 and ANZSCO 2022 can use different titles for the same occupation, or for one that has been reclassified. Code 332211 is Painting Trades Worker in ANZSCO 2013 and Painter in ANZSCO 2022. Which version governs depends on the visa: Home Affairs uses ANZSCO 2022 for the 482 and the 186, while the other skilled visas covered here still run on ANZSCO 2013.

So those two rows are not two occupations. They are one occupation under two classification versions, and each row shows only the visas that go with its version. Neither points at the other. The pattern repeats: solid plasterer and renderer (solid plaster) share 333212, fibrous plasterer and plasterer (wall and ceiling) share 333211, sheetmetal trades worker and sheetmetal worker share 322211.

The hardest version is the one where the code changes too. Cabinet Maker, two words, appears under ANZSCO 2022 as 394112, which is the version the 482 and the 186 Direct Entry pathway run on. Cabinetmaker, one word, appears under ANZSCO 2013 as 394111, the version behind the other skilled visas. Here not even the six digits connect the two rows.

None of this is a typographical accident. Australia is running two versions of its occupation classification side by side, and the way a record presents that determines whether you can see the whole picture. Of the 714 records the Department’s combined search tool returned when we read it on 20 August 2026, 415 carried an ANZSCO 2022 code labelled as applying to the subclass 186 and 482 visas alongside a separate ANZSCO 2013 code for all other visas. Those are the harmless ones: both codes and every visa appear on a single row. The problem is the 43 records that carried an ANZSCO 2022 code and nothing else, and the 255 that carried only an ANZSCO 2013 code. Where a counterpart exists it is a separate row, under a different title, with a different set of visas.

So the practical instruction is not to try more spellings. It is to search on the six digit ANZSCO code, because on most of these pairs the code is the only field that links the two records, and then to read the visas named on every row the code returns.

Our eligibility check takes two minutes and will place you against a destination and a broad route. It asks whether your occupation is on a relevant list rather than telling you, so if the honest answer is that you are not sure, that is the answer to bring to a conversation rather than a reason to guess.

Caveats sit on top of the lists

Being on the right list is necessary and it is not always sufficient. Caveats are position or business related exclusion conditions that apply to certain listed occupations in the 482 Core Skills stream and the 186 Direct Entry pathway. They sit in the relevant legislative instruments themselves, so they are part of the legal framework of the visa rather than a note attached beside it, and they can turn on turnover, employee numbers, salary or the actual duties of the role.

A general accountant, for example, is on both the MLTSSL and the CSOL, but for those two visas the record excludes clerical, bookkeeping and accounting clerk positions, and excludes any position in a business with an annual turnover below one million Australian dollars, or with fewer than five employees. A perfectly genuine accounting role in a small firm can therefore fail on the caveat while the occupation itself is squarely on the list.

Chefs, cooks, bakers, pastrycooks, management consultants, marketing specialists, human resource advisers and a number of farming occupations all carry caveats of their own. Which occupations are caveated changes with the instrument, so if yours carries one, read the caveat before you read anything else.

The assessing authority is assigned, not chosen

One more thing the list decides for you. Where a skills assessment is required for the visa pathway you are taking, it must as a rule come from the assessing authority designated for that occupation and that pathway. You do not select the assessor that looks most convenient. An assessment from an authority not designated for your occupation is not a suitable skills assessment, and the application will be refused on that criterion. Whether an assessment is required at all is set by the visa rather than by the profession: on the 482 a mandatory assessment applies only to certain occupations and applicants, and the 186 and the 494 carry exceptions of their own.

A small number of records name no authority at all. Most are statutory and uniformed roles, judges, magistrates, police officers, fire fighters and Defence Force ranks among them, and almost all of those carry no visas either. They are not reached through the skills assessed pathways in the first place.

Two timing rules go with the assessment, both from the Department’s own guidance for the points tested visas.

Your skills assessment must have been obtained in the three years before the date of your invitation, and the Department states plainly that it cannot accept an assessment issued more than three years before that date. If the assessment was itself issued for a shorter period, that period must not have passed.

Medical practitioners and lawyers are treated differently again. For medical practitioners the Department accepts unconditional or general medical registration, or conditional specialist registration with no further training or supervision requirement, from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. For barristers and solicitors it accepts admission to practise in an Australian state or territory. In both cases the registration or admission has to be held at the time of invitation.

The mistakes we correct most often

Searching for a job title instead of an occupation, or searching once and stopping. On most of the split pairs the six digit ANZSCO code is the only thread connecting two records that carry different visas.

Assuming the lists are nested, so that anything sponsorable is also points testable. The CSOL and the points tested lists differ substantially, and in both directions.

Hearing that the 482 Core Skills stream is closed to an occupation and concluding that the 482 is. The Specialist Skills stream is not restricted to the CSOL, and the 494 runs on a regional instrument of its own.

Reading the CSOL as a replacement for the MLTSSL and the STSOL. It replaced the occupation lists used by the old Temporary Skill Shortage framework. The points tested visas still run on the MLTSSL and the STSOL.

Clearing the list and ignoring the caveat, particularly in accounting, hospitality and management roles in small businesses.

Commissioning a skills assessment from the wrong authority, or letting a valid one age past three years before an invitation arrives.

Treating the search tool as the operative list rather than the legislative instrument, and working from a snapshot taken before the most recent review.

Where this leaves you

If your occupation is on the MLTSSL, you have the widest set of options and the points tested routes are worth modelling first. If it is on the CSOL only, the conversation is about employers rather than points, and it starts at employer sponsored visas. If it is on the MLTSSL and not the CSOL, and the job you want is in a capital city, the 482 Core Skills stream is not the route, and the question becomes whether the Specialist Skills stream or a regional option fits.

Our MARA-registered advisers check occupation, ANZSCO code, list membership, caveat and assessing authority as one step rather than five, because in practice they are one question. If you are not certain which of the four lists carries your occupation, that is worth a conversation before anything else is set in motion.

Sources

• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled occupation list
• Department of Home Affairs, Legislative instruments for the skilled migration program
• Department of Home Affairs, Skilled Nominated visa (subclass 190)
• Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)
• Department of Home Affairs, Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186)