Category: Australia

A nurse registered in the UAE who wants Australian permanent residence has to clear two separate processes, and they run in a fixed order. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) must register you through Ahpra before ANMAC will assess your skills for migration; the visa and any state nomination come after that. Two things have changed recently: the NMBA’s minimum English test scores changed on 23 April 2026, and several state nomination programs were closed or not yet open when we checked in August 2026. This guide sets…

If an Australian employer is prepared to nominate you, the Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186) gives you permanent residence on grant with no points test. The conditions fall on both sides. The employer must meet nomination rules on salary, genuine need and cost; you must meet rules on occupation, skills assessment, English and age. The salary threshold for nominations rose on 1 July 2026, so anyone planning a nomination this year should work from the current figures. Below we set out the three streams, the rules that most often…

Home Affairs only accepts a skills assessment from the authority listed against your occupation, so the first decision in an Australian skilled visa application is which body assesses you, not which visa you apply for. For the points-tested visas the assessment must still be valid on the day you are invited, and each assessing authority sets its own procedures, timeframes and charges. This guide sets out who assesses what, as at August 2026, and which documents a UAE-based applicant needs to have ready before the application is lodged. At a…

Australia’s three general skilled migration visas, subclass 189, 190 and 491, share one points test and one set of age and English rules. They differ in who backs the application and in where you may live once it is granted; the 491 is also provisional rather than permanent. If you are in the UAE with a skills assessment in hand, or about to apply for one, this is the choice to settle before you lodge an expression of interest, because state nomination is a separate step that happens before Home…

The 189, 190 and 491 visas need no employer, only a skills assessment, 65 points and an age under 45. How they differ from the sponsored 482 and 186 visas.