Direction 119: the new processing order for skilled and sponsored visas

What this is, and what it is not

A Ministerial Direction under section 499 of the Migration Act 1958 tells departmental delegates how to do their job. Direction 119 tells them what order to work through the pile.

It does not change who is eligible. The Direction says so in terms: it does not change the composition of the skilled migration occupation lists, and applicants still have to meet every requirement in the Act and the Regulations. A priority occupation gets your application looked at sooner. It does not get it approved.

It also has no effect on processing times published for a subclass. Those are an observation of what has happened, not a commitment.

The five tiers

The same order applies to nomination applications and to visa applications.

Read tier 3 against tier 4 carefully. A healthcare, teaching or construction occupation only outranks an ordinary occupation when the person is already in Australia. There is no offshore tier for those three. An offshore nurse and an offshore accountant sit together in tier 5.

Which occupations actually count

The Direction defines each category by ANZSCO group rather than by a general description, so the boundaries are firmer than the headlines suggest.

Construction

Sub-Major Group 33 (Construction Trades Workers) and Sub-Major Group 82 (Construction and Mining Labourers), plus Construction Managers (1331), Architects and Landscape Architects (2321), Civil Engineering Professionals (2332), Architectural, Building and Surveying Technicians (3121), Safety Inspectors (3126), Other Building and Engineering Technicians (3129), Sheetmetal Workers (3222), Structural Steel and Welding Trades Workers (3223), Clay, Concrete, Glass and Stone Processing Machine Operators (7111), Crane, Hoist and Lift Operators (7121) and Earthmoving Plant Operators (7212). Electrician (General) and Electrician (Special Class) are named individually.

Healthcare

Sub-Major Group 25 (Health Professionals) and Minor Group 411 (Health and Welfare Support Workers), plus Medical Scientists (2346), Counsellors (2721), Psychologists (2723), Social Workers (2725) and Medical Technicians (3112). Aged or Disabled Carer, Nursing Support Worker and Personal Care Assistant are named individually.

Teaching

Minor Group 241 (School Teachers) and Child Care Centre Managers (1341), plus School Principal, Vocational Education Teacher, Child Care Worker and University Lecturer.

Law enforcement and defence

These two are narrower than they sound, because both require a specific sponsor.

Law enforcement covers ANZSCO Unit Group 4413 (Police) and only where the person is nominated or sponsored by the Australian Federal Police or a state or territory police force. Defence covers work relating to AUKUS Pillar I or Pillar II, and a short list of Defence Force roles where the sponsor is the ADF or the Department of Defence.

A security guard is not law enforcement for these purposes. A private engineering firm doing unrelated work is not defence.

Where the person has to be, and when

This is the part that is easiest to get wrong, because the test is fixed at a single moment.

• For a nomination, it is where the nominee was on the day the nomination application was made.
• For a visa application, it is where the primary applicant was on the day the application was made.
• Leaving the country afterwards does not change the tier. Neither does arriving afterwards. The clock stopped at lodgement.
• Family members combined with the primary application inherit the primary applicant's priority. Nobody is dragged down the list by their partner or children.

For an employer with a candidate already onshore on another visa, that is a meaningful advantage and it is worth not squandering it by lodging late.

The applications it leaves alone

Direction 119 does not apply to:

• Applications remitted by the Administrative Review Tribunal, or where the Tribunal set a decision aside and substituted its own
• Applications where it is readily apparent the criteria would not be met
• Family unit members who did not make a combined application with the primary applicant
• Nomination applications for a change of employer
• The Tribunal itself

The change of employer exclusion is worth knowing. If you are taking on someone already sponsored elsewhere, that nomination sits outside this order entirely.

Which visas are covered

Nominations for the 186, 187, 482 (both Skills in Demand and the older Temporary Skill Shortage) and 494.

Visa applications for the 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 482 (both streams), 489, 491, 494, 887 and 888.

Two related Directions commenced the same day or cover adjacent ground. Direction 120 deals with subclass 858, which includes the National Innovation visa. Direction 114 covers the closed 188 and 132 programs.

It reaches back

The Direction applies to nominations and visa applications made before 25 July 2026 that have not been finally determined, as well as everything lodged since.

So a file that has been sitting in the queue has already been reordered. If a candidate was onshore at lodgement and works in one of the named occupations, their position may be better than it was a fortnight ago. If they applied from overseas in an occupation outside the named groups, it may be worse.

What it means if you sponsor people

• The 482 is inside the framework for the first time. Under Direction 105 it was not covered at all, so the order was effectively a departmental matter. Now it is published, and you can reason about it.
• Where your candidate is at lodgement is now a planning decision, not an administrative detail. Onshore beats offshore in every band of the table.
• Check the ANZSCO code, not the job title. Whether a role lands in the construction or healthcare group turns on the code the nomination uses, and titles that sound close often are not.
• Priority is not speed. Being in tier 3 means your application is picked up before tier 4. It says nothing about how long the assessment then takes, and a file with gaps in it will still stall.
• A complete application still does most of the work. The fastest thing you control is not the tier. It is not giving the Department a reason to write to you.

If you have nominations already lodged, it is worth a short review of where each candidate was at lodgement and which occupation was nominated. That tells you which files have moved, and it is the sort of thing better known now than discovered in three months.

General information only, current at 18 July 2026. Not immigration assistance or advice for your circumstances. Visacorp Pty Ltd — MARN 0317382 · 1799004.