Is your occupation on the list? This is how you look it up

There is one check that comes before everything, before the points count and before the family conversation: is your occupation on the skilled occupation list? If not, there is no route — and every euro you spend after that, you spend on a journey that doesn't exist.

The good news: this check takes an evening and not a penny.

It's about your tasks, not your title

Australia classifies occupations via ANZSCO, a coding system in which every occupation has a number and a task description. And that's where the first pitfall is: a Dutch job title rarely translates one-to-one. "Project manager", "consultant" or "team lead" means nothing to an Australian assessor — what counts is what you actually do.

So don't search on the translation of your job title, but read the task descriptions of candidate occupations and choose the occupation whose tasks most resemble your working week. That chosen occupation later becomes your nominated occupation, and your whole file — the skills assessment, your reference letters, your work-experience points — is tested against it.

Which list determines which route

There isn't one list. For the independent 189 route your occupation must be on the MLTSSL, the medium- and long-term list. For the 190 (state nomination) and the 491 (regional) broader lists apply.

That is immediately useful information: if your occupation is only on the broader lists, you already know now that you should think towards state nomination or regional — and that your points calculation may add the corresponding bonus (+5 or +15). Which route belongs to which list is explained in the three visa routes.

The lists change in between. Occupations are added and dropped, without a fixed calendar. So check the list again at the moment you really submit — and always link to the overview page of Home Affairs, not to a copied list on a migration site, because that lags behind by definition.

The list tells you two more things

Next to every occupation on the list it also says which authority does your skills assessment — ACS for IT, Engineers Australia for engineers, VETASSESS for many professional occupations. That is your next step, and the processing times and costs differ considerably per authority.

And the ANZSCO code itself you need later for your Expression of Interest. So note it down, together with the date on which you looked — then at submission you can see at a glance whether something has changed.

What if your occupation isn't on it?

First look whether a related occupation within the same occupational group is on the list and whether your tasks honestly fit under it — that is legitimate, as long as the task description really matches what you do. If there is truly no match, that is a hard answer, but a cheap one: you know it after one evening, instead of after a refused assessment.