Plenty of good news in February visa processing
February brought one piece of good news after another for visa processing.
- Good news #1: 887 finally started large-batch grants;
- Good news #2: 491, 190 and 189 are being granted steadily every day.
First, congratulations to everyone whose grant came through in February. Those still waiting are getting anxious — even more anxious than before — craning their necks and constantly asking how far processing has progressed. Today we’ll summarise the current processing status of most common visas.
But — there’s always a but — visa processing is always case by case.
01. Skilled category
190: Moving quickly now, with the latest grants reaching July 2022, across all occupations — there’s not much distinction between them anymore. But because 190 has a huge application volume, the progress only covers part of the pool, and quite a few people who lodged earlier still haven’t been granted. For instance, for a while the 190s being granted were mostly 2021 lodgements, some fast and some slow. By the end of January, the backlog of visa applications was around 21,000, and processing speed is roughly keeping pace with new lodgements.
189: Most grants are still from October or even December 2022 lodgements in priority occupations, with occasional November and December engineering and accounting cases. Overall non-priority grants remain extremely rare. The December flood round caused the 189 backlog to reach 36,000 by the end of January — the highest across all categories.
491: Also has a decent number of grants, slightly fewer than 190 but across all occupations. Progress has reached November/December 2021, with some 2022 lodgements also being granted.
887: Since the grant-rain in mid-February, grants have continued daily with no sign of slowing — 2020, 2021 and 2022 lodgements; family, spouse-included and single applicants are all being granted. This month’s backlog of 20,000 is expected to be cleared by at least half.
191: Regular 491-to-191 grants came through early this year, but have become rare again in the past month or two.
Employer sponsorship:
482 is fairly quick across occupations — sponsor approval + nomination takes around 3 months. Strictly speaking it’s not a PR/quasi-PR visa (like 491), so there’s no annual quota cap on 482 grants each financial year. 186 is slower — nomination + visa generally takes close to 1 year — but of course, once granted, you’re a PR.
02. Family category
143 parent migration: This week processing has just advanced to notifying applications lodged in early May 2017 (confirmation letters are dated mid-May).
Partner visas: 820 and 309 remain relatively quick, with a 6-9 month cycle. 100 and 801 are slower, with many waits of 1+ year.
870: Sponsor approval and the visa itself now take about 2 months each, so preparing six months ahead is very workable. Note that onshore lodgements must first apply for Permission-type sponsor approval, so leave extra time.
Other categories
GTI: Invitation wait is at least 1+ year, and visa processing is also very slow. A month or two ago you could see grants; in the past three months there’s often been no news, which is fairly normal.
188 and 888: Both very slow — some 888s lodged in early 2021 still have no news.
03. State-nomination processing
NSW: Processing has been very quick recently, with large numbers of late-January lodgements already receiving nominations — 3,500+ nominations approved in two months (see below).
VIC: Issued two pre-invitation rounds in January, with February’s only coming on the last day. This is all because processing slowed and the backlog is heavy. Currently processing is at around mid-January lodgements, with a large backlog from late January to February.
ACT (Canberra): Processing has slowed significantly too. Previously official nominations came through within 1-2 weeks of lodgement; now it takes roughly a month.
WA: The website says 28 days. In practice, we have several clients who received pre-invitations in October, lodged formal materials in November, and only received official nominations this week.
QLD: Has opened two rounds of priority processing; everything else isn’t particularly quick.
TAS: Processing is at around 20 January lodgements. The official site provides real-time progress updates.
NT and SA: No formal invitation rounds — they issue nominations on a rolling basis.
190/491 state-nomination issuance through end of February
On pre-invitations, everyone cares not just about past invitation scores and occupations, but also about upcoming issuance.
The Department of Home Affairs has just published state-nomination issuance figures through the end of February.
At the end of December, apart from SA, most states’ quota usage wasn’t keeping pace. Two months later, things look different. Eight of twelve financial-year months have passed, so a reasonable usage rate would be around 65%. Against that benchmark, the states split into three groups.
Plenty of room left — apply now: ACT, QLD and WA
ACT: Since January, onshore 190 Matrix invitations have increased significantly and invitation scores have dropped accordingly, but by the end of February 190 usage was still only 34%. Part of this is because recent nomination processing has been slow, but it also means there’s room for scores to drop further. For 491, ACT mostly issues to offshore applicants, with high issuance and decent acceptance! For offshore applicants with three years of experience in a nominated occupation, ACT has consistently shown good intent — contact us for an assessment!
WA: Both 190 and 491 usage rates have only just passed 30%. Quota is plentiful and policy and invitations are generous. WA’s problem is still that processing is too slow — the intent is there, but efficiency remains too low.
QLD: Has been issuing invitations sporadically. The state government has signalled major changes in March — hopefully the release comes quickly.
Enough room, still something to look forward to: NSW, VIC and TAS
NSW: The largest state has once again proven that when it wants to, it absolutely can. 190 has attracted huge application volumes, with two massive pre-invitation rounds in January paired with extremely efficient processing. The 190 data shows NSW processed 3,500+ nominations in two months — miles ahead of other states — reaching 65% usage. With the remaining 3,000+ quota spread across the coming months, that’s only about 800 per month, though it’s also possible they’ll concentrate issuance into one or two months and then save the end of the financial year for processing nominations. Overall, the chance of further large issuance rounds may be lower than before.
VIC: A few days ago VIC issued a smaller round than previous ones, and many worried quota was running low. The data shows VIC 190 actually has nearly 5,000 quota remaining, with 56.7% usage, and 491 usage is even lower at around 10%. So quota is still there — the state government just wants to clear the backlog because processing has slowed.
TAS: After switching to the new system, TAS issued plenty of invitations, and we’ve noticed the invitation threshold has been gradually lowered. 190 is at 58% usage, 491 at 41% — quotas remain ample, and hopefully scores keep dropping!
Usage spot-on or ahead of schedule: SA and NT
SA: 190 and 491 combined have 8,000 quota, and SA has used 80% and 75% respectively — the state government quietly gets on with it.
NT: The quota is small, so where it ends up doesn’t matter much as long as it covers MINT and local-graduate applicants.
491 is a different picture — only around 22% of the quota used. For offshore applicants who can’t reach a high score, this really is an excellent opportunity! Many common professions — engineering, IT, marketing and more — all qualify.
