Understand the step-by-step process to get Australia PR in 2023: Visas and Migration can seem complicated and overwhelming sometimes. But this is why we are here! This blog post will explain everything you need to know about the General Skilled Migration Program in Australia.
How to migrate to Australia in 2023? – Step by step to get the PR
To begin with, it is crucial that you understand the various types of migration visas available in Australia:
- Family visas: for people who are in a relationship with an Australian or permanent resident and want to apply for a partner visa; for parents or children of Australian citizens.
- Business and Investor visas: for those who intend to open a business and/or invest in the country
- Skilled visas: for people who have work experience and academic qualifications and are looking to migrate via their professional area. And these are the visas we will be talking about in this post – they are part of the Skilled Migration Program.
What is the Skilled Migration Program in Australia, and how does it work?
There are two pathways within the Australian Skilled Migration Program:
Employer Visas
Also called sponsorship visas, this pathway requires you to secure a job offer in a position relevant to your background in Australia, before you can apply for a visa.
There are two temporary visas under the Employer Visa stream:
- Temporary Skill Shortage Visa (Subclass 482)
- Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) Visa (Subclass 494)
And one permanent visa:
General Skilled Migration Visas
When people talk about Skilled Migration in Australia, they usually refer to the General Skilled Migration Visas, also known as the “points tested visas”. There are also three visas in this program:
The permanent ones are:
- Skilled Independent Permanent Visa (Subclass 189)
- Skilled Nominated Permanent Visa (Subclass 190)
And the temporary:
- Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (Subclass 491)
If you want to know more about each visas, please check this other blog post.
6 Steps to get Australian PR in 2023 – via the General Skilled Migration Program
1 – Check your eligibility
First, you need to identify what occupation you fall under, according to the Australian Immigration definition, and in which list this occupation is. There are different lists for each of the visas listed above, and it is important to make sure you find your occupation in the list that corresponds to the visa for which you plan to apply.
If your occupation is not on any of the lists for the three visas, that means you cannot apply for a General Skilled Migration Visa.
We know that this seems a bit complicated (and sometimes it is, indeed), but this is why we strongly recommend you to work with a registered and experienced Migration Agent like us at Bravo Migration. Only professionals who have worked on more than 7000 cases like us can identify small details and legal nuances and advise which visa and migration pathway is the most effective for your case.
2 – Skills Assessment
The second step to getting the PR in Australia is to find if you would obtain a positive Skills Assessment (also known as your “career validation or recognition”) with the organization that assesses your occupation.
Each occupation has its own Skills Assessment Authority. For example:
- Engineers – Engineers Australia
- IT Professionals – Australian Computer Society (ACS)
- Nurses – Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council
- Marketing professionals – VETASSESS
- And many others
And each Authority has its own requirements to approve your skills assessment, such as work experience, qualification, a certain level of English and so on. So it is crucial that you get familiar with the skills assessment authority for your occupation and what they require before you even start planning to apply for a visa and spend time and money on this project.
3 – Points test
The three Skilled Migration Visas we mentioned (189, 190 and 491) are points tested visas, which means that you will need to meet some criteria and receive points for each category. This is a way for the Department of Home Affairs to determine who has the skills and attributes they are looking for and make a selection.
The minimum points that will allow you to submit an Expression of Interest for one of those three visas is 65. The points are allocated in the following categories:
- Age: 0 to 30 points, 18 years of age minimum to 45 years of age maximum.
- Academic Qualifications: 0 to 20 points, depending on whether the person has a technical certificate/diploma, a Bachelor/Master Degree or a PhD.
- Work Experience: 0 to 20 points, depending on how many years of work experience one has, if the experience is in the nominated occupation for migration, and if the experience was in Australia or other countries
- Proficiency in English: all candidates must sit for an English exam and achieve a minimum score if seeking to claim points here. Points here are allocated 0-20 according to the English exam score.
- Study in Australia: 5 points if you studied in Australia for two years minimum and obtained a qualification that was at least at the level of a Diploma or a Trade Certificate.
- Study in Low Population Areas of Australia: 5 or 10 extra points if your studies in Australia were undertaken in one of the Designated Regional Areas of Australia, as defined by the Government
- Obtain accreditation in Australia as a translator of another language: 5 points
- Skilled Spouse: 5 to 10 points if the applicant’s Spouse has a Skilled occupation and/or a minimum level of Competent English, which can be evidenced in different forms
- Single Applicants: get 10 points to avoid being disadvantaged
- Professional Year: 5 Points
- Nomination/Sponsorship from an Australian State: 5 or 15 points, depending on the candidate’s profession, if a state or territory is seeking that profession, and if it is being sought for a temporary or permanent visa.
4 – English Test
Anyone looking for a PR in Australia and applying for any of these visas must show evidence of at least Competent English, which means 6 in each test component. The way to do that is by sitting for an English test. Australian immigration accepts IELTS, Cambridge, TOEFL and PTE. If you are from the UK, US, Canada, Ireland or New Zealand you are deemed to have Competent English and won’t need to undergo a test.
We have another blog post explaining all about English tests; you can check it out here.
If you need more than the minimum 65 points to be invited by SkillSelect, a way to achieve this is by bumping up your English score: if you take 7 in each component of the IELTS, you will receive 10 points; for a score of 8, 20 points.
5 – Expression of Interest
Even if you qualify, you can’t just apply for a visa in Australia. You have to be invited by the Government first, be it an Independent 189 visa or a regional 190 or 491 visa – which will involve states and territories as well.
The way to get invited is via submitting an Expression of interest via SkillSelect: a system that selects people automatically, based on the points test ranking. This is why you might need to aim for a higher score than the minimum of 65 if you are seeking a 189 visa, as the competition is very high.
6 – Applying for a Visa
Once you receive an invitation from SkillSelect, the next step to getting a permanent visa in Australia is preparing and lodging a visa application. That’s the time to show evidence of everything you claimed at the points test stage and Expression of Interest.
If you want to Migrate to Australia, the best decision you can make is to work with a Registered Migration Agent, and we would be happy if you chose Bravo Migration for that. We have worked on over 7,000 visa applications throughout our almost 14 years of experience.
In case you want to learn more, in this video, we explain how to get Australian PR in 2023 in much more detail. Please have a look and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you are planning to migrate to Australia:
If you want to find out if you qualify for any of the visas above, please email visas@bravomigration.com.au and we can organize a consultation for you.
