The three visa routes to Australia, explained

For skilled migrants Australia has three main routes. Which one fits you determines not only your visa but your whole journey: where you may live, how long it takes you, and which steps you have to take in which order. That's why this is the first choice you make, and the only one that's hard to undo later.

The 189 — Skilled Independent

A permanent visa without obligations. You may live and work anywhere in Australia, you're tied to no state, and you don't have to ask anyone for a nomination. It is the freest route, and therefore also the route most people aim for.

Precisely for that reason it's the toughest. You compete with all other applicants worldwide, and only the highest scores are invited.

The 190 — State Nominated

Also permanent, but with a state attached. An Australian state or territory nominates you, and expects in return that you live there for the first two years. There's something in it for you: the nomination is worth five extra points.

Those five points sound modest, but they are often exactly the difference between waiting and being invited. The downside is that you're tied — to a state, and to the occupation list that that state uses, which can be narrower than the national one.

The 491 — Skilled Work Regional

A provisional visa for five years, with fifteen extra points. You live and work for three years in a designated regional area, and can then apply for permanent residence.

"Regional" means something broader in Australia than you'd think: it includes entire cities such as Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. For whoever doesn't necessarily need to live in Sydney or Melbourne, this is often the fastest route to permanent residence — via a detour that looks longer on paper.

The rule of thumb

The more points you bring yourself, the more independent the route you can choose. Whoever scores comfortably can aim for the 189. Whoever sits in the middle of the pack often gets much further with a state nomination or a regional route than with patience.

The difference between "may take part" and "gets invited"

This is where it goes wrong for most people, and this is the part official websites don't make clear.

The official minimum is 65 points. That number is everywhere, and it's correct: with 65 points you may submit an Expression of Interest. But in practice applicants for the 189 only receive an invitation around 85 to 95 points.

Don't count your chickens on 65 points. Whoever plans on the official minimum submits an application that is technically valid and in practice never gets its turn. That doesn't cost a refusal — it costs months or years of waiting for an invitation that doesn't come.

That difference between the threshold and reality is where time and money disappear. It is also exactly the kind of information a good migration agency tells you straight away, and that you only piece together yourself after weeks of searching on forums.

What this means for your order

You can't make this choice on your own on the basis of preference. It follows from two things you need to know first: is your occupation on the right list, and how many points do you realistically bring. Only once those two are settled do you know which routes are open to you at all — and then the choice usually becomes clear by itself.

What you shouldn't do in any case is start collecting documents before you know this. The requirements differ per route, and work you do for the wrong route can be thrown away.

Watch the change of programme year

The thresholds, quotas and occupation lists are revised per programme year, usually around July. A score that still looked comfortably enough in May can have become tight in August. Plan for that: if you're close to an invitation in spring, pressing on is often wiser than waiting out another round.

For the current thresholds always look at the source below, and not at a saved version or a summary on a forum — these rules change more often than most others.