Australia is becoming one of the key immigration destination for the migrants who look up to Australia as their new home.

If you are a skilled worker and are looking to apply for Australia Permanent Residency under General Skilled Migration Program (GSM), you must first qualify for the required visa in which you are planning to apply.

As everybody knows that a point based immigration system is followed by Australia to migrate the potential applicants under general skilled migration program. There are three visa categories available under GSM.

  • Skilled Independent Visa 189 subclass
  • Skilled State Nominated visa 190 subclass
  • Skilled Regional Provisional visa 491 subclass

However, in order to apply for the above mentioned visas, you must score enough points to get your visa application to get selected by the Australian immigration department and in return, you receive an invitation to lodge an application.

Thus, Australia skilled Immigration program runs on Australia Point System and if you want to know whether you have a chance to qualify for one of the skilled migration visas mentioned above, you will have to check how many points you might get to apply for the same.

There are a lot of Australia Point Calculator available on the internet, out of those calculators only handful of them are appropriate, rest are quite complicated. Hence, here comes the need to explain what is Australia Point Calculator and how are the points calculated?

Australia is in highly need of the skilled and qualified workers who can contribute to the Australian economy. It follows a very systematic and selective process to migrate those people who are young and competent enough to contribute towards economy of Australia.

There are over so many different types of Australian visas having almost same eligibility requirement of age, educational qualification, language ability etc.

What are the minimum points required to apply for Australia Permanent Residency?

If we talk about the skilled migration visas where Australia Point System is followed, you must score a minimum of 60 points out of 100 to be able to apply for Australia PR.

Scoring 60 points doesn’t give you a surety that you will get an Invitation to Apply (ITA) from the government of Australia but it gives you the right to apply for Australian Permanent Residency Visa.

There are lot of factors which constitutes the overall Australia Point score. The points are calculated on the following basis:

  • Age
  • Educational Qualification
  • Work Experience
  • Skills
  • Language requirement
  • Other factors

Now, we will discuss the above mentioned points in brief:

  1. Age

Age plays a crucial role in deciding your fate for Australia Permanent Residency. The maximum age must be under 50 years to apply for Australia Pr.

The points which you get for your age are:

  • 18-24 years- you will get 25 points
  • 25-32 years- you will get 30 points (PS it is highest score which you can get under age category)
  • 33-39 years- you will get 25 points
  • 40-44 years- you will get 15 points

45-49 years- Unfortunately, there are no points awarded to the applicants falling under this age category

  1. Educational Qualification

Education is an important aspect in your point calculator.

  • If you have a doctorate degree from an Australian institute, you will get 20 points
  • A Bachelor’s or a Master’s degree will give you 15 points
  • Australian diploma or trade qualification will give you 10 points

 

  1. Work Experience

You do get points for your relevant work experience which is awarded on the basis of how much time you have spent being employed in your nominated skill. The total number of experience you have out of the last 10 years in your nominated skill. The year count may also be included of the work which you have done in your closely related occupation as well.

If you have an overseas work experience,

  • Of at least 3 years and less than 5 years, you will get 5 points
  • Of at least 5 years and less than 8 years, you will get 10 points
  • Of at least 8 years and up to 10 years, you will get 15 points

If you have a work experience in Australia,

  • Of at least one but less than 3 years, you will get 5 points
  • Of at least 3 years but less than 5 years, you will get 10 points
  • Of at least 5 years but less than 8 years, you will get 15 points
  • Of at least 8 years but up to 10 years, you will get 20 points

Thus, you do get additional points if you have a work experience from Australia

  1. Skills

You must have relevant skills to apply for Australia PR and should preferably select the occupation which is related to your profile or if by chance, your nominated occupation is not listed on Australia Occupational List, then in that case you may select an occupation which is closely related to your occupation.

Currently, Australia has the following occupational demand list which are considered by the applicants to check whether their nominated occupation is listed or not.

 

  1. Language Requirement

Australia is an English speaking country and thus, it is important that every applicant coming into Australia must have the Basic English language proficiency.

There are three language test which are basically considered for applying to permanent residency of Australia namely IELTS, PTE Academic and TOEFL.

All the language test have four categories: Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking.

The points which you get for your language test are:

  • For superior English, you will get 20 points
  • For proficient English, you will get 10 points
  • For competent English, you will get 0 points

Important note: If you are a passport holder from USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, or New Zealand, you automatically qualify as competent, that means you will still get 0 points. However, if you want to improve your Australia points, you will have to sit for the test.

  1. Other Factors:

There are several ways through which you may claim extra Australia immigration points:

  • If you study a course in Australia that meets certain requirements, it will give you 5 points
  • If you study in regional area of Australia that meets certain requirements, you will get 5 points
  • If your partner/spouse meets the basic requirements for a skilled migration visa, you will get 5 points

 

What if you don’t get enough points?

There is no need to worry if you are unable to score good points, there are many options for you to improve your overall point score. Except points for age, almost every other factor points can be altered.

And in the worst case scenario, if you are still unable to meet the minimum eligibility points, you may opt for other Australia PR visa like Australia Family Visa, Employment Sponsorship visa etc.

So, of you don’t score enough points, there may be other pathways you can go opt for!

Do you want to know how many points you have scored in your point assessment grid?

Calculating your immigration score based on the above key factors is quite simple, isn’t it? You just have to calculate your score using Australia Point Calculator.

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