The visa fees: what a family pays at submission

Of all the amounts in the Australian journey, the visa fees are the least negotiable: you pay them per person, directly to the Australian government, at the moment you submit your application. There is no discount, no family rate and no refund on a refusal.

Precisely for that reason they belong early in your budget — not as a surprise in phase four.

The amounts, per person

For the Skilled Independent (subclass 189) these base fees apply since 1 July 2026, checked against the official fee table on 7 August 2026:

Who	Fee
Main applicant	A$ 6,135
Partner (18+)	A$ 3,070
Per child (under 18)	A$ 1,540

So a couple pays well over A$ 9,200, a family with two children well over A$ 12,200 — converted, around € 7,500, depending on the exchange rate. The 190 and 491 routes use fee amounts in the same order; the exact amounts per subclass are in the official table (see the source).

The fees are indexed every year on 1 July. If you submit around the turn of the programme year, count on the new amounts — and check the table just before submitting. What is written here was checked on the date above this article, but the table is leading.

And watch out for one catch for adult family members with limited English: for an accompanying applicant aged 18 or over without functional English, Australia charges a substantial extra amount on top of the fees — check the current rule in the fee table if that applies to you.

What's not in it

The fees are the final piece, not the whole cost picture of the application phase. On top of that, in the course of the journey you pay for the skills assessment (differs per authority), the language test per sitting, the medical examination per person at the panel physician, police certificates per country and any translations. Each with its own moment in the journey — and that is exactly why the application phase for a family easily runs into thousands of euros before a single suitcase is packed.

The calculator on the Australia page adds all this up for your situation, indicating per item whether it is a checked rate or an estimate.

The unwritten rule

Pay the fees only once the rest of your file is complete — the examination planned, the certificates in, every claim from your Expression of Interest covered with evidence. On a refusal the fees are gone, and most refusals are avoidable: expired documents, points claims not substantiated. Whoever uses the 60-day clock well makes submission a formality — and the fees the last payment of the application phase instead of a gamble.