189, 190 and 491 Visa Costs for 2026

The 189 visa fee for a main applicant is $6,135, fixed by Schedule 1 item 1137 of the Migration Regulations 1994 in the compilation in force from 1 July 2026. That is the first line of the budget, not the total: each accompanying applicant aged 18 or over adds $3,070, each applicant under 18 adds $1,540, and every adult applicant assessed as not having functional English adds a further $4,885 that must be paid before the visa can be granted.

What follows itemises every Department charge for the 189 at its legislative source, explains how the 190 and 491 charges are built and where to read them, and keeps those law-fixed amounts separate from the third-party costs — skills assessment, English testing, health examinations, police certificates, state nomination and professional fees — that sit on top. The aim is a household total you can verify line by line, and a clear view of when each amount falls due.

Item 1137 of Schedule 1 covers the Skilled—Independent (Permanent) (Class SI) visa, and subitem (3) sets the first instalment of the visa application charge for the points-tested stream, payable at the time the application is made. For an applicant who does not hold a Pacific-regional passport, the three components are a base application charge of $6,135, an additional applicant charge of $3,070 for each applicant who is at least 18, and an additional applicant charge of $1,540 for each applicant under 18. These figures are current as at 1 October 2026 and come from compilation F2026C00667, in force from 1 July 2026.

Two points about how the item is written matter for budgeting. First, the base application charge is paid once, by the applicant seeking to satisfy the primary criteria; the additional applicant charge is paid by each person who claims to be a member of that applicant's family unit and seeks to combine their application with it. Second, the note to the item says not every component applies to every application, and points to regulation 2.12C for the explanation of the components. In practice, for a 189 the base charge always applies and the additional applicant charges apply only to the people you actually include.

The 190 visa cost is set by Schedule 1 item 1138, Skilled—Nominated (Permanent) (Class SN), and its first instalment is likewise payable at the time the application is made. The 491 visa fee is set by the Schedule 1 item for the Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa. All three items use the three-part structure that regulation 2.12C explains: a base application charge for the main applicant, an additional applicant charge for each applicant aged 18 or over, and a lower additional applicant charge for each applicant under 18. So the comparison a family needs is three sets of three figures, plus whether a second instalment applies — not three headline numbers.

For the 190 and 491 dollar amounts, check the current charges in the Department of Home Affairs Visa Pricing Estimator, which the Department publishes for working out the cost of a specific visa, or read them from item 1138 and the 491 item directly. One figure in circulation needs flagging: a migration-agency page gives the 491 base charge as AUD 6,140. It is not cited to a Schedule 1 item and is unconfirmed, so do not carry it into a budget.

What can be compared now is the structure of each subclass and the costs that attach to it beyond the visa charge.

With the three 189 components you can total any household in four steps. Count only the people who will be applicants on the combined application; a family member who stays behind and is listed as non-migrating attracts no additional applicant charge.

1. Start with the base application charge for the main applicant: $6,135.
2. Add $3,070 for each other applicant who is at least 18 — a partner, or a dependent child who has turned 18.
3. Add $1,540 for each applicant under 18.
4. Set aside, separately, $4,885 for each applicant aged 18 or over who may be assessed as not having functional English. This is not paid at lodgement but must be paid before grant.

If the main applicant holds a valid passport issued by a Pacific-regional country, substitute $5,030, $2,515 and $1,260 in steps 1 to 3; the second instalment in step 4 is unchanged. The ready reckoner below applies the steps to common household shapes; each row shows the item 1137 amounts being added so you can check the arithmetic yourself.

Then add $4,885 for each adult in the row who may not be assessed as having functional English. For the second row, that turns $10,745 at lodgement into $15,630 across the life of the application if the partner lacks functional English.

The second instalment of the visa application charge for a 189 is $4,885, charged to each applicant who was at least 18 at the time of application and is assessed as not having functional English, unless the applicant falls within item 1A — the family-violence provisions in subclause 189.311(3), (4) or (5) of Schedule 2. Every other applicant pays nil. It is payable before grant of the visa, not at lodgement, and the note to clause 189.411 confirms the visa cannot be granted until it is paid.

Three features of this charge catch people out. It is written per applicant, not per application, so two adults without functional English mean two charges. It is assessed, not declared: the Department decides whether each adult has functional English on the evidence lodged, and 'functional English' is a different defined term from the 'competent English' the main applicant had to hold at the time of invitation under clause 189.223. And it arrives at the end of the process, when the first instalment has long been paid, so a family that budgeted only the lodgement figure meets it with no warning.

Because the main applicant in the points-tested stream has already had to show competent English at invitation, the adults to budget for are the accompanying ones: a partner, or a dependent child who has turned 18 by the time you apply. Evidence that an adult has functional English, lodged and accepted, removes the charge entirely. It is worth settling the position of every accompanying adult before lodgement rather than discovering it when the Department requests payment.

Item 1137 contains a second, lower first-instalment table. It applies to an applicant seeking to satisfy the primary criteria who holds a valid passport issued by a Pacific-regional country, and to every applicant whose application is combined, or sought to be combined, with that person's. For those applicants the base application charge is $5,030, the additional applicant charge for an applicant aged 18 or over is $2,515, and the additional applicant charge for an applicant under 18 is $1,260.

Read the trigger carefully. The concession turns on the passport of the person seeking to satisfy the primary criteria. If the main applicant holds a Pacific-regional passport, the whole combined application is charged at the lower rates; if only the partner does, nobody is. 'Pacific-regional country' is a defined term in the Regulations, so confirm your passport falls within it before budgeting at the lower figures. The concession does not touch the second instalment: subitem (4) applies the same $4,885 to any applicant aged 18 or over assessed as not having functional English, whichever first-instalment table applied. Whether item 1138 or the 491 item carries an equivalent concession is a matter for those items; do not assume it.

The additional applicant charge is paid for each person included in a combined application beyond the main applicant, and for a person who asks to be added to an application that has been lodged but not yet decided, where the visa permits it. For the 189 the position is explicit: the note to item 1137 says a member of the main applicant's family unit may apply seeking to satisfy the secondary criteria, but the application must be made before a decision is made on the main applicant's application. After the decision the window is closed; a family member would then need a visa application of their own, with its own charge.

The rate depends on age: $3,070 for an additional applicant who is at least 18 and $1,540 for one under 18. The first instalment is payable at the time the application is made, so a dependent child who has turned 18 by lodgement is charged at the adult rate and, if assessed as not having functional English, also falls within the second instalment. For a family with a 17-year-old, the lodgement date can therefore be worth $1,530 in first instalment and up to $4,885 more in second instalment.

Two groups cost nothing in additional applicant charge. Non-migrating family members, whom the application form asks you to list, attract no charge; they must nonetheless meet the health and character criteria discussed below. And a child born after you lodge and before the Department decides the application is added with no additional applicant charge.

Take a family of three. Aarav is the main applicant, Neha is his partner (aged 34) and their daughter Riya is 6. None holds a Pacific-regional passport. Their 189 first instalment at lodgement is built from item 1137 as follows.

$6,135 + $3,070 + $1,540 = $10,745, payable at the time the application is made. That is the family's entire Department charge if Neha is assessed as having functional English.

If Neha is assessed as not having functional English, a second instalment of $4,885 is charged to her, payable before the visa can be granted. The family's Department charges become $10,745 + $4,885 = $15,630, paid in two tranches: $10,745 at lodgement and $4,885 at the end of processing. Riya, under 18 at application, is outside the second instalment, and Aarav has already shown competent English at invitation.

If Aarav instead held a valid Pacific-regional passport, the first instalment would be $5,030 + $2,515 + $1,260 = $8,805, and Neha's possible second instalment would remain $4,885.

None of these totals includes the skills assessment, English test, health examinations, police certificates or any nomination fee. Those follow, and for a family of three they are paid for more people than the visa charge alone suggests.

Everything in this section is a cost the Department of Home Affairs does not set and does not collect. Each is paid to a different body at that body's price, and most are paid before you are invited to apply, which means they are spent whether or not an invitation ever arrives.

The relevant assessing authority for your nominated occupation sets its own fee, and the fee differs by authority, by occupation and by the pathway you use within that authority. It is a third-party cost: the Department neither sets nor collects it, and paying it counts toward no part of the visa application charge. Take the figure from the authority's own current fee schedule for your occupation and record the date you read it, because the authority can change it without any change to the Migration Regulations.

What the Regulations do fix is when the assessment must be valid. Clause 189.222 requires that, at the time of invitation to apply, the relevant assessing authority had assessed your skills as suitable for the nominated occupation; that the assessment was not one obtained for a Subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) visa; and that it was still in date on one of two tests. If the authority specified a validity period, and that period did not end more than 3 years after the date of the assessment, the period must not have ended at invitation. If the authority specified no period, or a period longer than 3 years, no more than 3 years may have passed since the date of the assessment. A further limb applies if the assessment rested on an Australian qualification obtained on a student visa: that qualification must have come from a registered course.

The timing point is the one that costs money. The test is applied at the time of invitation, not at lodgement, and the date of an invitation is not in your control. An assessment dated more than 3 years before your invitation fails clause 189.222 regardless of how recently you lodged your expression of interest, and the fix is a fresh assessment at the authority's full fee. If you are waiting in SkillSelect with an assessment approaching its third anniversary, budget for a reassessment now rather than being invited with an expired one. A 485-based assessment cannot be used for the 189 at all, so a graduate holding one must budget for a full skilled migration assessment in addition.

The English test fee is paid to the test provider and is a third-party cost. Migration-agency guidance lists IELTS Academic, PTE Academic, TOEFL iBT and Cambridge C1 Advanced as the tests commonly booked for the 189; the Department's English language requirements govern which tests and scores it accepts. Provider prices differ by test and by test centre, so take the current price from the provider's booking page for your location and date the figure.

Keep the fee separate from the level you are aiming for: the test costs the same whether you reach competent, proficient or superior English. Clause 189.223 requires the main applicant to have competent English at the time of invitation, a term defined in regulation 1.15C. The points test is a separate question: Schedule 6D awards 20 points for superior English and 10 points for proficient English at the time of invitation, and nothing for competent. A partner's competent English at invitation is worth 5 points under item 6D113, and a partner's English evidence also bears on the second instalment. One result can therefore serve three purposes — threshold, points and VAC2 — and timing it to be current at invitation avoids paying for a second sitting.

Because the criterion is applied at the time of invitation, the result you rely on must still be accepted by the Department at that moment; a result that lapses between your expression of interest and your invitation means another test fee. Whether a passport alone satisfies competent English, and so saves the test fee, is answered by the definition in regulation 1.15C and the Department's English language requirements. Settle that question before you book a test, not after.

Health examinations and police certificates are paid to the bodies that provide them — the examining clinic or panel physician, and each country's police authority — at their own prices. They are not part of the visa application charge. The Regulations fix who must meet the criteria, and that is where families under-budget.

Under clause 189.225, the main applicant must satisfy public interest criterion 4005, the health criterion, as must every family member who is also an applicant. Each member of the family unit who is not an applicant must also satisfy criterion 4005, unless it would be unreasonable to require them to undergo assessment. A partner or dependent child staying behind therefore pays no additional applicant charge but can still need a health examination at the family's expense.

Character works the same way. Clause 189.211 requires the main applicant and each accompanying applicant to satisfy public interest criteria 4001, 4002, 4003, 4003B, 4004 and 4020, and applicants who have turned 18 to satisfy criterion 4019. Each member of the family unit who is not an applicant must satisfy criteria 4001, 4002, 4003, 4003B and 4004. Where the Department asks for police certificates to establish those criteria, count every person asked and every country from which a certificate is requested, because each is a separate fee from a separate authority. For the family of three above, the health count is three if everyone travels; if a dependent stays behind, the applicant count falls by one while the health count does not.

The first instalment is payable at the time the application is made, and the compilation in force from 1 July 2026 carries the figures above. The figure that matters to you is the one in force on the date you lodge, so if you lodge under a later compilation, read item 1137 again on that date. Charges are amended by regulation: the Migration Amendment (Visa Application Charges) Regulations 2025 (F2025L00796) took effect on 30 June 2025, and its changes now sit within the current compilation. A migration-agency page reports that charges rose on 1 July 2026 for applications lodged on or after that date and that earlier applications kept the earlier charge; that report is unconfirmed, and the item itself is the figure to budget from.

The second instalment is payable before grant. Keep the $4,885 per affected adult liquid through processing rather than committing it to relocation, because the visa cannot be granted until it is paid.

Card payments carry a surcharge. The Regulations apply the Migration Amendment (Credit Card Surcharge) Regulation 2014 to any instalment, or part of an instalment, of visa application charge paid on or after 19 April 2014, and the Migration Amendment (Credit Card Surcharge Additional Measures) Regulation 2014 to payments of fees and charges from 1 July 2014. The percentage for each payment method is set by the Department rather than in Schedule 1, so budget a margin above your total and record the rate the Department applies to your payment.

Treat the first instalment as spent once you lodge. Whether any part of a visa application charge is refundable is decided by the Department under the Migration Regulations, not by the outcome you hoped for; do not build a refund into the budget for any outcome, and if you are considering withdrawing an application, ask the Department about the refund position before you withdraw rather than after.

The SkillSelect expression of interest. No visa application charge is payable at the EOI stage. The first instalment is payable at the time the visa application is made, which comes after an invitation; clause 189.221 requires that written invitation before the visa can be granted. The money moves at the skills assessment and English test, before the EOI, and then at lodgement.

Translations and certified copies. Documents not in English are translated at the translator's price, and the count runs across the whole family unit — birth certificates, marriage certificates, qualifications, employment references and police certificates for each person. Estimate per document, not per person.

The later permanent-visa charge after a 491. The 491 is provisional. Permanent residence later means a second visa application and a second visa application charge. Migration-agency guidance describes the subclass 191 (Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional)) visa as the route for 491 holders, and it is a visa with its own application charge. A 491 holder who instead applies for a 189 must have held the 491 for at least 3 years at the time of application under clause 189.224A and pays the full item 1137 charge again. Either way, a 491 budget is two visa charges several years apart, and the household may be larger by the second one.

Agent fees. A registered migration agent's professional fee is a service cost set by the agent. It is never a Department charge, and a page that folds it into 'visa costs' is quoting its own price. One agency publishes a full-service skilled visa fee of $7,950, split into three stage payments of $2,650; that is that agency's price, not a market rate and not an official figure. Ask any agent for the fee in writing, itemised separately from the Department charges.

The second-instalment decision. If an accompanying adult lacks functional English, you either pay $4,885 before grant or obtain evidence that the adult has functional English. Both cost money; price both routes before you lodge.

Is the 189 charge per person or per application?

Per person, built in components: one base charge of $6,135, then $3,070 or $1,540 for each additional applicant depending on age.

My child turns 18 before we lodge. Does that change the charge?

Yes. The first instalment is payable at the time the application is made, and an applicant who is at least 18 then is charged $3,070 rather than $1,540; if assessed as not having functional English, that child also falls within the $4,885 second instalment.

Do I pay the second instalment when I lodge?

No. It is payable before grant of the visa, and the visa cannot be granted until it is paid.

Can the main applicant be charged the second instalment?

The rule names any applicant at least 18 at application and assessed as not having functional English; a points-tested main applicant has already shown competent English at the time of invitation, so the charge in practice falls on accompanying adults.

My partner is not migrating. Do they cost anything?

No additional applicant charge is payable for a non-migrating family member, but they must still satisfy the health criterion 4005 unless unreasonable, and character criteria 4001 to 4004, so a health examination or police certificate may still be a cost.

Does the Pacific-regional rate apply if only my partner holds that passport?

No. The lower table applies where the applicant seeking to satisfy the primary criteria holds the Pacific-regional passport, and to applicants combined with that person.

Can I add my partner after I lodge?

Only before a decision is made on your application, and the partner pays the additional applicant charge.

I hold a 491. Do I pay the 189 fee in full if I apply for a 189 later?

Yes, item 1137 applies to every 189 application, and you must have held the 491 for at least 3 years at the time of application under clause 189.224A.

Every figure above sits in one of two groups, and the group tells you how to confirm it on the day you need it.

Visa application charges are amended by regulation — the Migration Amendment (Visa Application Charges) Regulations 2025 is the most recent such instrument on the register — so re-read the Schedule 1 item on the day you lodge and use the figure in force then. Third-party fees move on their own timetables, so date every quote you collect.

This is general information prepared by Global Migrations (Global Migration & Education Solutions, ABN 22 998 014 414). It is not personal migration advice and it is not Department of Home Affairs policy. Your total depends on who is in your family unit, their ages at the date of application, their English evidence and passports, and the subclass you are invited to apply for. Ranbir Singh, registered migration agent MARN 1069570, can confirm the current charges and your household's position before you lodge — contact Global Migrations, call +61 3 7043 2395 or email info@globalmigrations.com.au.

Before you lodge, work through these steps in order:

1. List every intended applicant with their age on your planned lodgement date, their passport and their English evidence; note anyone under 18 who turns 18 before that date.
2. Total the first instalment from item 1137 (or item 1138 or the 491 item for your subclass), using the Pacific-regional table only if the main applicant's passport qualifies.
3. For each adult without accepted functional English evidence, set aside $4,885 and price the evidence route against it.
4. Check the date of your skills assessment against the 3-year rule in clause 189.222 and the likely timing of your invitation; budget a reassessment if it will expire first.
5. Collect dated quotes for health examinations and police certificates for every family-unit member, migrating or not.
6. On lodgement day, re-read the Schedule 1 item, add a margin for the card surcharge, and keep the second-instalment money untouched until grant.