Subclass 190 Visa Requirements: From Eligibility to Grant

The Skilled Nominated visa (subclass 190) requires two things to run in parallel: an assessed score of at least 65 points under the general points test in Schedule 6D of the Migration Regulations 1994, and a nomination from a state or territory government agency that has not been withdrawn. Neither element substitutes for the other, and neither is sufficient on its own — a written invitation from the Minister is a precondition of the visa application itself. This article works through the legal stages of the pathway in order, sets out the Schedule 6D points bands exactly as legislated, and adds a dedicated look at how South Australia runs its own nomination process for readers weighing subclass 190 against subclass 189 or other options.

Subclass 190 is a permanent points-tested visa under Schedule 1 item 1138 of the Migration Regulations, available to applicants who have been nominated by a State or Territory government agency and invited in writing by the Minister to apply. It sits within the General Skilled Migration program alongside subclass 189 (Skilled Independent), but the defining legal difference is the nomination requirement itself: item 1138's eligibility table specifies that the applicant must be nominated by a State or Territory government agency, a criterion subclass 189 does not carry. It is designed for skilled workers whose nominated occupation and profile match what a particular state or territory government is seeking to fill in its own labour market, rather than for occupations assessed solely against a national list.

The pathway runs through several distinct legal stages, each governed by a different instrument or agency decision. Confusing one stage's requirements for another's is a common procedural error — nomination eligibility is set by the state, points and visa criteria are set by the Regulations, and the invitation itself is a ministerial act.

Schedule 2, Part 190 of the Migration Regulations sets out the primary criteria that must be satisfied at the time a decision is made on the application. The key ones are:

• Clause 190.211 - the applicant was invited, in writing, by the Minister to apply for the visa.
• Clause 190.212 - at the time of invitation, the relevant assessing authority had assessed the applicant's skills as suitable for the nominated occupation, the assessment was not for a Subclass 485 visa, and the assessment (or its validity period, capped at 3 years unless otherwise specified) had not expired.
• Clause 190.213 - at the time of invitation, the applicant had competent English.
• Clause 190.214 - the applicant's score under the points system in Subdivision B of Division 3 of Part 2 of the Migration Act is not less than the score stated in the invitation and not less than the qualifying score (the pass mark).
• Clause 190.215 - the nominating State or Territory government agency has not withdrawn the nomination.
• Clause 190.215A - where the applicant currently holds, or last held as a substantive visa, a Subclass 491 or Subclass 494 visa, that visa must have been held for at least 3 years at the time of application, unless the Minister specifies otherwise by legislative instrument.
• Clause 190.216 and 190.217 - public interest criteria (health, character and related requirements) and special return criteria.

Item 1138 in Schedule 1 adds age and occupation conditions that sit alongside these: the applicant must not have turned 45 at the time of invitation, must nominate an occupation that is both on the Minister's specified skilled occupation list at the time of invitation and named in the invitation itself, and must be nominated by a State or Territory government agency.

These federal criteria are fixed by the Regulations and do not vary. What does vary - and this is where the pathway differs fundamentally from subclass 189 - is the nomination criteria each state or territory sets for itself, covered below.

Points are calculated at the time of invitation to apply, under Schedule 6D of the Migration Regulations. The pool mark and pass mark for subclass 189, 190 and 491 applications made on or after 16 November 2019 is 65 points, set by section 6 of the Migration (LIN 19/210: Pool and Pass Marks for General Skilled Migration Visas) Instrument 2019. A 60-point mark applied under section 7 of the same instrument only to applications made before 16 November 2019 in response to invitations given before 1 July 2018; it does not apply to new applications.

Overseas and Australian employment points cannot both be claimed in full: where the combined total from Parts 6D.3 and 6D.4 would exceed 20 points, the Minister must instead give exactly 20 points for the combination, and no points are given separately under either part. A worked example: an applicant aged 29 at the time of invitation (30 points), with proficient English (10 points), a bachelor degree assessed as suitable for the occupation (15 points), 96 months of Australian employment experience in the nominated occupation (20 points), and South Australian nomination not withdrawn (5 points) reaches 80 points - well clear of the 65-point pass mark. Points are locked in at the time of invitation, not at the time of application or decision, so a change in circumstances afterward (a birthday moving the applicant into a lower age band, for instance) does not need to be re-assessed under clause 190.214 provided the invited score stood at the time it was issued.

Subclass 189 has no nomination requirement at all - it is assessed purely against the federal points test and occupation list. Subclass 190 requires, as a standalone primary criterion and as an item 1138 requirement, nomination by a State or Territory government agency. That nomination is what earns the applicant the 5 points under Schedule 6D item 6D121 and is also what makes the applicant eligible to be invited for this subclass in the first place.

Critically, nomination criteria are not set by the Migration Regulations. Each state and territory government publishes and administers its own occupation lists, eligibility rules and application processes, and these differ by jurisdiction and change over time. The Department of Home Affairs directs applicants to the relevant state or territory's own migration website for nomination requirements - for example, ACT's Migration site, NSW's Visas and Migration pages, Victoria's Live in Melbourne, Queensland's Business & Skilled Migration Queensland, Western Australia's Skilled Migration Western Australia, South Australia's Move to South Australia, and Tasmania's Migration Tasmania. A rule that applies in one state - an occupation list, a residency preference, an English threshold - cannot be assumed to apply in another.

New South Wales, as one example, states plainly that its nomination is assessed against the NSW Skills List (occupations mapped to ANZSCO unit groups) and that demand for NSW nomination is exceptionally competitive, to the point where the NSW government itself encourages applicants to consider other migration pathways rather than wait to be invited.

South Australia runs its own subclass 190 nomination pathway through Move to South Australia (migration.sa.gov.au). The state's own guidance states that nomination provides 5 additional points toward the Department of Home Affairs points test - consistent with the Schedule 6D item 6D121 nomination points described above - and that meeting the state nomination requirements makes the visa an opportunity to stay in South Australia indefinitely.

South Australia's process, as described on its own site, involves the following steps.

South Australia's own material is explicit that it summarises Department of Home Affairs criteria only in general terms and directs applicants back to the Department's subclass 190 page for the current position. That distinction matters for anyone comparing states: South Australia decides who it will nominate and on what occupation and evidentiary basis; the Department of Home Affairs decides whether the visa itself is granted once nominated and invited.

SkillSelect is the online system through which prospective applicants record their interest in skilled migration, and it is the mechanism through which states and territories identify candidates to nominate. Before submitting an EOI, the applicant needs to confirm they meet both the visa eligibility requirements and the nomination eligibility requirements of the specific state or territory they intend to target - these are assessed separately and an EOI that satisfies one does not automatically satisfy the other. An EOI does not itself constitute an application for the visa; it is the record a state or territory nomination team and, subsequently, the Minister use to decide whether to extend nomination and then an invitation.

Each program year, the Australian Government sets a nomination allocation for each state and territory - the number of new primary applicants that jurisdiction can nominate that year.

Allocations describe the ceiling on how many new primary applicants a state or territory can nominate that year - not how many visas are granted. The Department of Home Affairs states this explicitly: nomination allocations do not determine the number of visas granted in the program year. Nominations and visa grants are two separate counts governed by different processes - nomination is a state decision constrained by its allocation, and the visa grant is a federal decision governed by Schedule 2 criteria being met at decision time. A state reaching or approaching its allocation ceiling can affect how many EOIs it moves to nomination in that period, which is part of why NSW, for example, describes its nomination as exceptionally competitive.

No single fact - the 65-point pass mark, a state nomination, or both together - settles the outcome. Reaching 65 points under Schedule 6D and clause 190.214 is a precondition for the visa criteria to be capable of being met; it is not itself an instruction to the Minister to issue an invitation, and the Minister's invitation is a discretionary act described in the Regulations as occurring in writing at a time of the Minister's choosing. Separately, nomination by a state or territory operates within that state's own allocation ceiling for the program year, and the Department of Home Affairs is explicit that allocations are the number of new primary applicants each jurisdiction can nominate - they do not fix how many visas will ultimately be granted. A state assessing an EOI against its own criteria retains its own discretion over who it nominates from within the pool of eligible EOIs, just as the Minister retains discretion over invitations issued from the pool of nominated, points-eligible applicants.

Schedule 1 item 1138 sets out the visa application charge in two tiers depending on passport and combined-application status. For an applicant who holds a valid passport issued by a Pacific-region country, or whose application is combined with such an applicant's application, the first instalment base application charge is $5,035, with an additional applicant charge of $2,515 for each additional applicant aged at least 18 and $1,260 for each additional applicant under 18. For any other applicant, the base application charge is $6,140, with additional applicant charges of $3,070 (18 or over) and $1,535 (under 18).

A second instalment applies before grant: $4,885 for an applicant who was at least 18 at the time of application, is assessed as not having functional English, and does not fall within the family-violence provision at subclause 190.311(3), (4) or (5); applicants who do meet that family-violence provision pay a nil second instalment; and any other applicant pays nil. Check the Department of Home Affairs for the current charge amounts, since Schedule 1 charges are periodically indexed.

Family members can be included in a combined application. The additional applicant charge in item 1138 is specifically the charge paid by an applicant who claims to be a member of the family unit of another applicant and seeks to combine the application with that applicant's application. Secondary applicants - typically a spouse, de facto partner or dependent child - must separately satisfy the secondary criteria in clauses 190.311 to 190.314, including public interest criteria and special return criteria.

Subclass 190 is a permanent visa. Once granted, it permits the holder to travel to and enter Australia for 5 years from the date of grant. That 5-year figure describes travel facility validity for a permanent visa holder - it is not a temporary visa or a residency period the holder must complete.

Condition 8515 is not a blanket state-residency requirement. Under clause 190.611, condition 8515 applies only in a specific circumstance: where the applicant was outside Australia when the visa was granted, first entry must be made before a date specified by the Minister, and - only if the applicant satisfied the secondary criteria for the grant - condition 8515 may be imposed. It is a first-entry-related condition tied to secondary applicants granted while offshore, not an ongoing obligation to live in the nominating state for a set period. Any expectation about living in the nominating state beyond what clause 190.6 itself specifies is not something the Schedule 2 conditions establish, and a reader wanting the current position on any such expectation should check directly with the Department of Home Affairs or the nominating state or territory.

Clause 190.215 makes non-withdrawal of the nomination a standalone primary criterion: the nominating State or Territory government agency must not have withdrawn the nomination. Because this is assessed as a criterion at the time a decision is made on the application - not only at invitation - a nomination withdrawn after invitation but before decision means that criterion is no longer met. The points test carries the same dependency: Schedule 6D item 6D121 awards the 5 nomination points only where the nominating agency has not withdrawn the nomination, so a withdrawal after invitation removes both the points and the Schedule 2 criterion in one step. This is a procedural consequence built into the Regulations, not a penalty - but it means an applicant relying on state nomination should treat the relationship with the nominating agency as live and ongoing through to decision, not something that ends once the nomination letter is issued.

The choice between subclass 190 and subclass 189 turns on whether an applicant's occupation and profile fit within what a particular state or territory is currently prepared to nominate, since 189 carries no nomination step at all. Applicants already holding a Subclass 491 or 494 visa need to check the 3-year holding requirement in clause 190.215A before assuming subclass 190 is available to them at all. For anyone assembling a South Australian nomination file, checking migration.sa.gov.au's documentation checklist before lodging avoids a common cause of delay - incomplete supporting evidence against that state's own requirements, separate from the federal criteria. Readers weighing the Australian skilled migration options against their own occupation, points position and preferred state can find further guidance at Global Migrations.