Correspondence Related To Skilled Independent (subclass 189) And Skilled Work Regional (provisional) (family Sponsored Stream) (subclass 491) Visas For 2025 To 2026 Program Year ​

Written by Claude Haiku 4.5 from the extracted text on 28 Feb 2026. It can miss or misread redacted and scanned pages. Check the source before relying on it.

This correspondence from June 2025 concerns Department of Home Affairs planning for Skilled Independent (subclass 189) and Skilled Work Regional (provisional) family-sponsored (subclass 491) visa invitation rounds for the 2025-2026 program year. An Assistant Director from the Independent Skills and Innovation Policy section of the Skilled Visa Branch circulated final cleared minutes and a proposal document outlining a new invitation round process and prioritisation model. The proposal notes that subclass 189 visa holders are the largest per capita contributors to GDP among skilled visa programs and discusses using the points-tested SkillSelect system to rank applicants. The Department indicates it departed from established invitation processes during the pandemic to target healthcare and teaching occupations, and now proposes designing an evidence-based, agile, transparent and accountable system that considers occupation-based selection to optimise economic outcomes based on lifetime earnings and skill indicators.