Student Visa Changes October 2026: What the New Subclass 500 Rules Mean for You
October 8, 2026
What has changed, and why If you are studying in Australia or planning to, you
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Subclass 491
Subclass 494
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Sandeep Sharma applied for his Permanent Residence visa under subclass 186 Employer Nominated Sponsorship, after two years of being sponsored under a 457 Employer Sponsorship visa. His Permanent Visa was granted on August 2014.
I have been in Sydney, Australia for the last 6 years. I was referred to AustraliaMigrate by a friend of mine.
In the beginning, I was sponsored by my company under a 457 visa. As I would like to stay on in Australia, I applied for the visa Permanent Residence Visa (186).
The visa application process was complex and very challenging. AustraliaMigrate helped me to prepare and lodge my application in a limited time. My application was approved just within one week and my 457 long stay business visa was granted.
SANDEEP & ASHU SHARMA
What has changed, and why If you are studying in Australia or planning to, you
What the Subclass 494 visa is, in plain English Regional Australia is one of the
On 17 September 2026, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced the biggest package of Australian
An EOI is not a visa application, it is an application that you would like to be invited to apply for a skilled visa. It’s an online form, with no fee which asks you a series of questions about how you intend to score your points for a subclass 189, 190 or 491 visa application. It is imperative that your points are calculated accurately so that when a visa application is lodged after being granted an invitation, the points in the visa application are the same as the points claimed in the EOI. An EOI does not result in a bridging visa.
No, not necessarily. You must obtain a minimum of 65 points to lodge an Expression of Interest. The higher the points, the more likely it is that you will receive an invitation to lodge a visa application.
However, depending on the volume of applications with the same occupation received by the Department of Home Affairs, a higher score than 65 is usually required to be granted an invitation to lodge a visa application. As an example, accountants may require 90 points or more to be granted an invitation whereas high school teachers may only require 80 points. The way the Department of Home Affairs will issue an invitation depends on a lot of factors, which could be what occupations are in most need at that point in time, such as medical occupations in the covid – 19 era receive the most invitations.
If you are a holder of a subclass 491 or 494 you must have held that visa for at least 3 years before you can lodge an application for a subclass 189 or 190. You will have to meet all criteria of that visa subclass in order to be granted the new visa.
What has changed, and why If you are studying in Australia or planning to, you have probably seen headlines about the student visa changes in October 2026. Here is the …
Continue reading “Student Visa Changes October 2026: What the New Subclass 500 Rules Mean for You”
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