Study to Migration Pathway
to Australia — Every Route
from Student Visa to PR

All 13 Study-to-PR Route Combinations

Every workable chain from a Student visa to permanent residency, with realistic timing, the total visa charges you personally pay, and the single requirement most likely to stop you. Filter by what matters to you — then read the stage tabs for the detail behind each step.

🧩Which route fits your situation?

Student Visa Subclass 500 — the Foundation

Everything downstream depends on what you enrol in. The Student visa itself is comparatively straightforward; the consequential decision is the course and the occupation it maps to, because that determines your skills assessment, your 485 stream, and whether any permanent visa is available to you at all.

✅Core subclass 500 requirements

• ✓
  Confirmation of Enrolment (eCoE)From a CRICOS-registered provider, for each course you intend to study. No eCoE, no application.
• ✓
  Genuine Student (GS) requirementA structured written response explaining your circumstances, why this course, why Australia, and what you intend to do afterwards. Inconsistency between your GS statement and your later visa history is a common refusal trigger.
• ✓
  Financial capacity — AUD 29,710Twelve months of living costs for the primary applicant, plus course fees and travel costs. Additional amounts apply for a partner and each child.
• ✓
  English proficiencySet by the provider and the visa criteria. Direct entry to a degree typically needs IELTS 6.0–6.5; packaged ELICOS can bridge a lower score.
• ✓
  Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC)For the full duration of your visa, including all family members included in the application.
• ✓
  Health, character and no adverse visa historyMedical examination, police certificates where required, and Condition 8501 (maintain health insurance) among others.

📐The Australian Study Requirement — the rule that shapes your enrolment

To qualify for a Temporary Graduate visa later, your study must satisfy the Australian Study Requirement: at least two academic years of CRICOS-registered study, which is a minimum of 16 calendar months, completed in no less than that period, taught in English, and completed while you held a visa allowing study in Australia.

Temporary Graduate Visa Subclass 485 — the Working Window

This is the only stage where you hold full work rights with no employer tied to your visa. Everything the permanent visas will ask for — Australian work experience, a positive skills assessment, a competitive points score, an employer willing to sponsor — has to be built inside this window. Treat it as a deadline, not a holiday.

🚦The four hard gates on the 485

🎯What to actually do with your 485 years

1. Month 1–3 — lodge your skills assessment

   Most assessing authorities take 3–6 months, some considerably longer. A positive skills assessment is required for the 189, 190, 491, 494 and the 186 Direct Entry stream. It is the single longest lead-time item in the whole pathway, and it expires — so start early but not so early that it lapses before you need it.
2. Month 1–6 — get into relevant paid work

   The subclass 482 requires one year of relevant experience, the 186 Direct Entry stream and the 494 require three years, and Australian work experience earns points on the points test. Work that does not match your nominated occupation builds none of these. Take the relevant job over the better-paid one.
3. Month 3–9 — sit the highest English test you can

   Proficient English is worth 10 points and Superior English 20 points on the points test. Twenty points is the difference between an EOI that is never invited and one that is. Compared to another year of study or work, an English retest is the cheapest way to buy points.
4. Month 6–18 — lodge your EOI and open the sponsorship conversation

   Submit an Expression of Interest in SkillSelect for the 189, 190 and 491 as soon as your skills assessment and English are in hand — an EOI costs nothing and your position benefits from being in the pool early. In parallel, raise sponsorship with your employer well before your visa's final year.
5. Twelve months before expiry — decide your next visa

   A 482 nomination and visa, a 407 nomination and visa, a second 485, or a permanent application that generates a bridging visa. Each takes months to prepare and months to process. Leaving this to the final weeks is what forces people to leave Australia and restart offshore.

⭐Points boosters worth building into your 485 years

The Bridge — Training (407) and Employer Sponsorship (482)

This is where the pathway is won or lost. A Temporary Graduate visa expires; permanent residency requires either a competitive points score or an employer. With Employer Sponsored places rising to 58,040 for 2026–27 — the largest allocation in the skilled program — sponsorship is now the strongest statistical route for a graduate.

🛠️Subclass 482 — Skills in Demand visa

The workhorse of employer sponsorship. Up to four years of sponsored work, and two years with the same sponsor unlocks the subclass 186 Temporary Residence Transition stream — which requires no skills assessment and no occupation list.

• ✓
  One year of relevant work experienceFull-time equivalent within the last five years, genuinely matching the nominated occupation. This is the requirement that most fresh graduates cannot meet — and the reason the 485 or the 407 exists in the chain.
• ✓
  An approved sponsor and an approved nominationThe employer must be an approved business sponsor, must nominate the specific position, and must satisfy Labour Market Testing where it applies.
• ✓
  Salary at or above the threshold and the market rateBoth tests apply — meeting the CSIT is not enough if the market rate for the role in that location is higher.
• ✓
  The employer pays the nomination fee and the SAF levyThe Skilling Australians Fund levy is charged per year of visa sought and cannot lawfully be passed on to you. A sponsor unwilling to pay it is a sponsor to be cautious about.
• ✓
  No age limit on the 482 itselfBut the subclass 186 that follows generally requires you to be under 45, so the timing of the transition matters.

🎓Subclass 407 — Training visa

Structured, workplace-based occupational training for up to two years, with at least 70% delivered on the job. It solves two specific problems: the graduate who cannot yet meet the 482's one-year experience rule, and the graduate who needs Australian registration or licensing before they can practise.

📄Labour Agreements — when your occupation is not on the list

A Labour Agreement is a formal agreement between an Australian employer and the Government that permits sponsorship outside the standard occupation lists and, in some cases, with concessions on salary, English or qualifications. Both the 482 and the 186 have dedicated Labour Agreement streams at the same charges as the mainstream streams.

You cannot negotiate one yourself — only an employer can. What you can do is target employers who already hold one. This is often the only viable route for occupations in hospitality, aged care, meat processing and certain regional industries that the Core Skills Occupation List does not cover. Our Australia Labour Agreement company list names 5,771 approved sponsors.

Permanent Residency — 189 · 190 · 491 · 494 · 186 · 191

Six visas, three mechanisms: points-tested and independent, state-nominated, or employer-sponsored. Which one is realistic for you is determined less by preference than by your occupation, your points, and whether an employer will nominate you.

🎲The points test in practice

Sixty-five points makes your Expression of Interest valid. It does not make it competitive. The real threshold is set by each invitation round, occupation by occupation.

Minimum scores invited in the subclass 189 round of 4 June 2026, which issued 10,000 invitations with a tie-break date of 24 April 2026. Across the 2025–26 program year, subclass 189 invitations were issued in August (6,887), November (10,000) and June (10,000).

🧮Where a graduate's points actually come from

🌾The regional transition — subclass 191

Both the 491 and the 494 are provisional visas valid for five years, and both lead to the same permanent outcome: the subclass 191, at a charge of just AUD 630. To qualify you must have held the provisional visa for at least three years, complied with its conditions, and demonstrated a minimum taxable income of AUD 53,900 per year, evidenced by ATO Notices of Assessment for three income years.

The 191 is the cheapest permanent visa in the skilled program — but the three years of regional living, working and income evidence behind it are a genuine commitment, and the 2026–27 cut to regional places has made getting onto a 491 or 494 in the first place considerably harder.

What the Full Pathway Costs and How Long It Takes

Visa charges alone, for the primary applicant, from Student visa to permanent residency. Tuition, living costs, skills assessments, English tests, health checks and professional fees sit on top — and for most people they are the larger number.

💰Visa charges by stage — July 2026

🧾Total visa charges by route

📋Costs beyond the visa charges

• ✓
  Tuition — AUD 20,000–50,000 per yearThe largest single cost on the pathway. VET and TAFE qualifications sit well below university degrees and often map to trade occupations with the lowest points cut-offs.
• ✓
  Living costs — from AUD 29,710 per yearThe visa financial capacity figure is a minimum evidentiary threshold, not a realistic budget for Sydney or Melbourne.
• ✓
  Skills assessment — AUD 500–1,500Varies widely by assessing authority. Some occupations require a practical assessment or an interview at additional cost, and assessments expire.
• ✓
  English tests — AUD 400–500 eachMost people sit more than one. Budget for at least two attempts if you are targeting Superior English.
• ✓
  Health examinations and police certificates — AUD 400–900 per personRequired at multiple stages, and they expire — repeat costs across a long pathway are normal.
• ✓
  OSHC and later private health coverMandatory for the whole Student visa period, and generally required or strongly advisable on later temporary visas.

⏱️A realistic timeline for the most common route (R1)

1. Year 0 — planning and enrolment

   Choose the occupation, confirm the assessing authority and the occupation lists, choose the course accordingly, sit English, apply for the Student visa. Allow 4–8 months from decision to arrival.
2. Years 1–2 or 1–3 — study

   Complete at least two academic years. Work up to 48 hours per fortnight, ideally in a role relevant to your target occupation. Keep every payslip and reference — this is future evidence.
3. Year 3 — lodge the 485

   Within 6 months of your final results, onshore, aged 35 or under, with IELTS 6.5 and 5.5 in every band. Processing commonly takes several months; you hold a bridging visa meanwhile.
4. Years 3–5 — build the case

   Skills assessment, relevant full-time work, a higher English score, an EOI in SkillSelect, and an employer conversation about sponsorship. This is the decisive period.
5. Year 5 — sponsorship and the 482

   Sponsor approval, nomination and visa application. Allow 3–8 months across all three stages, and lodge well before your 485 expires.
6. Years 5–7 — two years with the sponsor

   The Temporary Residence Transition stream requires two years of employment with the nominating employer while holding the 482. Changing employers restarts this clock.
7. Year 7–8 — the subclass 186 and permanent residency

   Nomination and visa application. No skills assessment required in the TRT stream, and no occupation list restriction. Processing times vary considerably by occupation and employer history.

Study to Migration Pathway FAQ

The questions we are asked most often by Indonesian students and graduates planning a long-term move to Australia.