Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491) - Supporting information

Living and working in skilled employment in regional Victoria

Onshore applicants

To be eligible for Victorian nomination for a subclass 491 visa, you must be living and working in skilled employment in regional Victoria:

• Any earnings you are claiming must be from skilled employment in regional Victoria. Skilled employment includes any role that is at skill levels 1, 2 or 3 in the relevant ANZSCO classification.
• Your employer must have a physical presence in regional Victoria.
• You must support all your claims of earnings with documents in your application.
  • You will be required to provide a current employment contract, your most recent four weeks of pay slips, an extract from your superannuation account showing the most recent contribution from your employer, and a position description that describes your role.
  • If you are an independent contractor, you will be required to provide tax invoices, any relevant contracts or service agreements, your most recent notice of assessment, and your most recent tax return.
  • During our assessment of your nomination application, we may require additional supporting information. If so, we will ask for this during our assessment.
  • You can find more information on annual earnings on the Annual Earnings Estimation Guide page.

Living offshore

• If you are living offshore, you cannot claim annual earnings in your Registration of Interest.
• We are currently prioritising offshore candidates for 491 visas with skills in healthcare, social services and education.

Skills assessment

Your nominated occupation must be on the eligible skilled occupation list for this visa.

• Your nominated occupation in your Skills Assessment must match your Expression of Interest (EOI) with the Department of Home Affairs.
• When you submit your nomination application, we require that your Skills Assessment have at least 12 weeks validity remaining. This ensures we have enough time to assess your nomination application. We cannot nominate you if your Skills Assessment has expired.

Registration of Interest

• Your Registration of Interest (ROI) must be selected by us before you can apply for skilled visa nomination.
• If you have submitted a ROI but have not received an email inviting you to apply for Victorian nomination, you cannot apply.
• There is no guarantee that your ROI will be selected. View our Registration of Interest page for more information on our selection considerations.
• The information you provide as part of your SkillSelect Expression of Interest (EOI) with the Department of Home Affairs, will be used in the assessment of your ROI. This means we will only be asking a few questions for your ROI. It is important that you keep your SkillSelect EOI up to date, including years of experience in your nominated occupation and where you are currently living.
• You will be required to ensure you meet the minimum eligibility criteria at the time of application if your ROI is selected.

Live in regional Victoria

• Onshore applicants must be living in regional Victoria at the time of nomination.
  • Geelong, and parts of the outer Melbourne e.g., Mornington Peninsula and Pakenham, are designated regional areas of Victoria.
  • The conditions of the visa may require you and any secondary visa holders to live, work and study in a designated regional area of Victoria as a requirement of the visa.
• You may be required to show evidence of a lease, bond receipt, utilities or other documents that prove you are living in regional Victoria at the time of nomination.
  • We may ask for further evidence during assessment of your nomination application.
• If you live in a border community, you may be eligible if you can clearly demonstrate that you either live or work in regional Victoria.

Age

• You must be under 45 years of age at the time of nomination.

English language

• You must have at least Competent English.
• When you submit your nomination application, we require that your English test have at least 12 weeks validity remaining. This ensures we have enough time to assess your nomination application. We cannot nominate you if your English test has expired.

Points

• You must have at least 65 points on the Australian Government’s points test, including the 15 points for state and territory nomination.

Commitment to Victoria

• You must be committed to living in a designated regional area of Victoria
• State nomination cannot be transferred from one state to another.
• We will not be nominating onshore applicants living in Australian states and territories other than Victoria.

Declaration form

If you are nominated, you must meet the nomination obligations that you digitally signed in the Declaration Form.

Commitment to Victoria

You must be committed to living and working in regional Victoria. State nomination cannot be transferred from one state to another. You will be required to demonstrate that you are committed to living and working in regional Victoria through your employment and residence.

Surveys

If you are nominated, we will contact you at various times to complete surveys. These surveys provide us important feedback on our client services and policy settings.

Department of Home Affairs and SkillSelect

The Department of Home Affairs is responsible for all visa matters. This includes granting visas once you have been nominated by the Victorian Government and have submitted your visa application. Please check the subclass 491 visa processing times published by the Department of Home Affairs.

All SkillSelect and EOI issues should also be directed to the Department of Home Affairs.

Respond within 2 weeks

We may ask you for more information by email.

• You will have 2 weeks to provide the requested information.
• If you do not respond within 2 weeks, we may refuse your application. Please check your junk mail and ensure the email address no-reply-gems@liveinmelbourne.vic.gov.au is added to your list of valid email addresses.

Incomplete applications

You must submit a complete application, including all relevant evidence to support your eligibility claims.

Do not ask for updates on your application

Please do not ask for an update on your application. We assess all applications in order of when they were submitted.

The assessment team is also responsible for responding to enquiries and we prioritise assessment of applications. Unnecessary enquiries slow down application processing times.

Submit your application via the portal

You must submit your application and all documents via the Live in Melbourne portal. We will not accept any applications or documents via email.

Withdrawal

You can withdraw your subclass 491 nomination application at any stage before we finalise the nomination application. Please Contact Us to withdraw your nomination application.

For Registrations of Interest (ROI), you must withdraw your ROI using the Live in Melbourne portal only.

Nomination application fees

The Victorian Government does not charge any application fees for nomination.

Changes to eligibility requirements

All visa nomination eligibility requirements and priorities are subject to change throughout the year without notice.

Any changes made are effective immediately, regardless of when your EOI in SkillSelect was submitted (or amended). We strongly discourage changing your circumstances to meet the visa nomination criteria.

The Victorian Government endeavours to ensure all information on the Live in Melbourne website reflects the current eligibility requirements. The Live in Melbourne website is the authoritative source for information about our program.

False and misleading information

If you provide false or misleading information as part of your nomination application, you will be refused. We may also report it to the Department of Home Affairs who can conduct their own investigation.

We encourage you to submit all documents unaltered, including all PDF documents in their original form and not combined into one document.

We conduct verification checks on many of the documents provided and check that your employment matches the skill level of your nominated occupation that you outline in your EOI. This includes contacting employers and institutions directly to confirm whether the documents are genuine.

If you are aware of instances, or you are pressured to submit an application with false and misleading information, we encourage you to report this to the Department of Home Affairs.

Nomination refusals

Your nomination application may be refused for the following reasons:

• You do not meet the minimum eligibility requirements.
• You cannot provide sufficient evidence for the claims made in your Registration of Interest, including estimated annual earnings, partner points, years of experience, or residence in Victoria.
• You provide false or misleading information.
• You do not respond to our requests for further information in a timely manner.

If your application is refused, you will not be able to submit a new application for 6 months. This is to prevent repeat and low-quality applications.

Review of nomination decision

If you have been refused as you did not meet the eligibility requirements, you cannot request a review of your application.

If you believe that an error was made in assessing your nomination application, you can submit a request for us to review the application.

Renomination

We do not provide renomination in the following instances:

• You do not submit your visa application within 60 days.
• Your EOI was incorrect when we nominated you, including points claimed by you or your agent.

If an applicant has been nominated for any skilled subclass (either 190 or 491), they cannot be nominated again in the same program year.