The Australia PR Visa or Permanent Resident Visa allows Skilled and talented people from around the world to live, work and settle in Australia permanently. The PR visa in Australia provides you with the pathway to get Australian citizenship, if you have lived in the country for at least 4 years on Australia Permanent Resident visa.
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA), Australia usually admit 160,000 new immigrants every year, under various immigration categories, i.e. Skilled Migration, Family and Special eligibility stream, etc. However, for the program year 2023-2024, the Australian government has raised Australia annual immigration target to 190,000.
To meet the skill shortage and boost the economy after the global pandemic, the present Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese of the Australian Labor Party, has taken various measures to ease the immigration process to welcome increased number of skilled and talented people from overseas.
To apply for any of the above PR visa in Australia from India, you must check your eligibility for the relevant visa and accordingly obtain the required documents, i.e. Skill Assessment Report from an approved assessing authority, IELTS test result for English proficiency, etc. If you are applying for Subclass 189 visa submit Expression of Interest (EOI) in the online SkillSelect system and wait to get the ITA (Invitation to Apply) for visa from Department of Home Affairs (DHA), Australia. You can also apply for State nominated visa Subclass 190 through relevant state state government skilled migration program. The immigration authorities assess the submitted EOIs and accordingly issue the ITA (Invitation to Apply) for the visa. On receipt of the ITA, you must submit the complete PR application and documents within 60 days of receipt of the Expression of Interest (EOI). After verifying the received application and documents the authorities issue the visa approval letter to the applicant.
As already conveyed, Australia has the point-based immigration system. There are some
key requirements to follow the step-wise Australia PR process. Let us explore some
essential requirements to apply for Australian permanent resident visa
Here are the key requirements to qualify for an Australian Permanent residency:
To apply for Australia Permanent Resident visa, if you have checked your eligibility, you may follow the stepwise process. To apply for Australia immigration, you can follow the below steps:
To qualify for main Australia PR visas, i.e. Subclass 189/190, you need to score a minimum of 65 points out of 100 for the below-given factors:
The government of Australia provides various benefits and privileges to the permanent residents. The benefits of Permanent resident visa of Australia are as follows:
The Australian Permanent Residency visa provides you with the freedom to live, work or study in any part of Australia indefinitely with your family. If you wish to stay in Australia, there is no expiry date of the Permanent Residency visa and you can live indefinitely. However, to travel outside Australia, this visa has an expiry date of 5 years and after five years you can renew this to travel outside Australia.
The Permanent residents enjoy many rights and privileges just like Australian citizens, including access to free or subsidized education for kids andhealth coverage for the family, etc. These are absolutely vital welfare schemes for any immigrant in a new country. Apart from above, permanent residents also get benefits of other social welfare schemes such as, unemployment benefit, old age pension, parenting payment, maternity payment, etc.
You can sponsor your eligible relatives to Australia, subject to fulfilling residence criteria and assurance of support requirements. Australia has designed several visa categories, through which you can sponsor your spouse, children, aged parents, orphan relative, remaining relative, etc. to get Permanent Residency in Australia. Moreover, your children born in Australia (while you are on PR visa) get Australian citizenship automatically.
General Skilled Migration (GSM) of Australia depends on a point system. It has three main visa categories. Let us take a look.
Skilled Independent Visa Subclass 189 is one of the most popular Australian skilled permanent visa categories applied by tens of thousands of skilled worker applicants every year. Since it is an independent visa, therefore, you do not need any state nomination or employer sponsorship to apply for this visa. Your selection for this visa will purely depend upon your merit points scored based on age, education, work experience, English proficiency, etc. factors.
Skilled Nominated Visa Subclass 190 is a State nominated permanent visa, hence, to apply for this visa you must have the nomination from a state or territory in Australia. It is a point-tested visa and hence, you get the points for the state nomination received by you from an Australian state. To apply for this visa, you can check your occupation in the relevant list and find the suitable state nomination program of any of the Australian states, i.e. South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, ACT, etc.
Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) Visa Subclass 491 is the newest visa category among all General Skilled Migration Program (GSM) Visas. However, this is not a permanent visa, however, a temporary or provisional visa allocated by Department of Home Affairs, Australia for five years only. However, it offer the PR pathway as well after three years. To apply for this visa you must have a nomination from a regional territory of Australia or a family member in regional Australia must sponsor you for this visa.
Apart from the Australia PR visa fees, various other costs are involved, when you apply for Australia Permanent Resident (PR) Visa, such as, IELTS test fee, Skill Assessment fees, fee for Medical test and Police Clearance Certificate (PCC), etc.
The Australia PR Visa process comprises various stages right from receiving the ITA (Invitation to Apply) for PR visa to submission, verification and approval of visa. Overall, Australia PR processing time depends on the visa category you have chosen to apply. Find below the expected processing time of key General Skilled Migration Program (GSM) visa categories, which offer the PR visa through direct or indirect pathway.
This processing time is based on the most recent application processing (affected by global pandemic). Hence, the actual application processing time may vary depending on the various factors. The factors affecting the Australia permanent residence application-processing time includes the following:
