Australia Invitation Rounds & Cutoff Scores

Why there is no single 189 cutoff score any more

Because the department stopped publishing one. Up to the round of 25 May 2023 every result carried a single “minimum points score” per subclass — 65 in that last one. From 18 December 2023 onwards that figure is simply absent from the results, and it has not returned.

What did not change is the occupation detail. The department has named occupations — or occupation groups — in every round on this page, back to 11 Aug 2020, and published a minimum score against them wherever it invited any. What changed is only the single headline figure that used to sit above them. So a page quoting “the 189 cutoff” for any round since 25 May 2023 is quoting something that was never published, while a page saying the department publishes no per-occupation figures — as one page ranking for this term does — has it exactly the wrong way round.

The figure that has not changed is the pass mark. 65 points is what admits you to the pool, it is set by legislation, and it is not a cutoff — in the round of 4 June 2026 some occupations were invited at exactly 65 while others were not invited below 100. The two numbers answer different questions, and treating the pass mark as a target is how people end up waiting in a queue they were never near the front of. Score yourself against the points test first, then read your total against the table above.

Migration (LIN 19/210: Pool and Pass Marks for General Skilled Migration Visas) Instrument 2019, s 6 (opens in a new tab) verified 30 Jul 2026

When is the next invitation round?

The department has said this much, and no more:

“The next invitation round for the Skilled Independent (subclass 189) visa is expected to be held by 30 September 2026. Please ensure your Expression of Interest is up to date and that all the information you have provided is accurate.”

That is a date it is expected by, not a date it is scheduled for. There is no published round calendar, and the gaps between the 20 rounds above have run from 1 months to 9. What the statement does tell you is worth acting on: an expression of interest is invited on the score it holds at the moment the round runs, so a claim you have not yet added is a claim that does not count.

Department of Home Affairs — SkillSelect (opens in a new tab) verified 31 Jul 2026

What this page will not tell you

What the next round's cutoff will be. Nobody knows it — it is set by who happens to be in the queue on the day and how many places are released — and a projection printed in the same table as a published result is indistinguishable from one. Two of the pages ranking above this one do exactly that, with the invented rows styled like the real ones.

Also absent: an average cutoff across occupations, which describes nobody; and any figure we have not read off a departmental publication. When a round is held, this page gets the numbers the department publishes and the date we checked them, and nothing else. If a round is overdue, you will see a stale date here rather than a fresh guess — that is the trade, and it is deliberate. How we verify and correct this data, and how to tell us about a mistake.

The 491 and the 190 are not the same story

Departmental rounds cover two visas, and one stream of each: the points-tested stream of the subclass 189, and the Family Sponsored stream of the subclass 491 — the department labels its own columns exactly that way. The regional stream is small: its most recent published round, on 13 November 2025, issued 300 invitations against the 189's 10,000 in the same round.

The subclass 190 has no round at all, and neither does the state-nominated stream of the 491. In the department's own words, a state or territory views expressions of interest and decides whom to nominate, and the nomination itself “triggers an invitation to be issued” — so there is no queue to publish a cutoff for. Your points still decide whether a state looks at you; they are not read against a round.

Frequently asked questions