The Department of Immigration has published details of the number of skilled visas it will grant for each occupation under subclass 189 for the year to the 30th of June, 2016.

By way of background, an occupation ceiling is applied to invitations to apply to migrate to Australia under the points based skilled visas of the general skilled migration programme. There is a limit on how many invitations are issued in these subclasses for a particular occupation to ensure that the migration programme is not dominated by a small number of occupations.

Occupational ceilings do not apply to State or Territory Nominated skilled visas (subclasses 190 or 489), Employer Sponsored visas (subclass 186 and 187), or Business Innovation and Investment visas (subclasses 188 and 888).

The number of visas that are available for the 2015/16 program year for each occupation are shown at the Occupation Ceilings tab at this web page.

The start of a program year is a good time to progress a skilled visa application, as the number of visas already granted is re-set to zero.

Complete the enquiry form on this webpage if you would like to discuss your Australian visa options.