Tasmania 491
Commitment Statement

The four current pathways

Tasmania restructured its pathways for 2026–27, and the old names have gone. There is no “Overseas Applicant (Job Offer)” 491 pathway and no “Small Business Owner” pathway any more.

Beware the second set of pathway pages still live on Tasmania’s own website. Migration Tasmania has two parallel sets of pathway pages, and the older set — describing 2024–25 settings — still ranks in search and says on its face that it reflects a superseded program. It contains a six-month employment requirement and a list-based concession that appear nowhere in the current pathways. We work from the current pages and we check their dates. If you have been assessing eligibility against something that mentions a Tasmanian onshore occupation list, you are reading the old tree.

Tasmania does not run its own 491 occupation list

This surprises people, and it is good news. For the subclass 491, all four current pathways state that all occupations are eligible — subject only to the federal 491 occupation list and to occupational caveats.

Tasmania does publish a priority roles list of around sixty occupations, but it applies to the subclass 190 only. And the “Tasmanian onshore skilled occupation list” that still circulates appears only on the superseded 2024–25 pages.

On the federal side, a state-nominated 491 applicant can draw on all three skilled lists — the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, the Short-term Skilled Occupation List and the Regional Occupation List — which is the widest occupation pool in the General Skilled Migration program. A family-sponsored 491 applicant is restricted to the Medium and Long-term list alone.

The 491 still runs on ANZSCO, not OSCA. The points-tested visas — 189, 190 and 491 — remain on ANZSCO via the current occupation instrument, in the 2013 version. Only the employer-sponsored lists for the 482 and 186 use the 2022 version. Note, though, that Migration Tasmania’s own 491 drafting now measures qualifications and experience against an OSCA role definition where the job does not match the skills assessment — a state-level drafting choice, not a change to the federal list. Both can be true at once, and getting them the wrong way round is a real error.

Points, and the thing people get backwards

Two corrections worth making before anything else, because they change advice.

A 491 state nomination is worth 15 points, against 5 for a 190 nomination. And family sponsorship for a 491 is worth the same 15 points — the same item of the points table covers both routes, so there is no points advantage to either. The difference between them is the occupation pool, not the score.

The federal pass mark is 65 points. For a state-nominated 491 there is no Home Affairs points round to clear — the invitation follows the state’s nomination decision. Home Affairs invitation rounds matter only for the family-sponsored 491 and for the 189. So a published federal cut-off score is not the number to plan around; Tasmania’s weekly figures are.

How the Registration of Interest system works

Tasmania ranks candidates against each other and invites the most competitive. The sequence matters because several steps have their own expiry.

• Check federal eligibility — under 45, occupation on the eligible list, a valid positive skills assessment, at least Competent English, at least 65 points.

• Lodge a SkillSelect Expression of Interest nominating Tasmania.

• Lodge a Registration of Interest through Tasmania’s own Application Gateway. Free, and valid six months — if no invitation issues in that window it lapses and you register again.

• Apply for nomination if invited. The invitation is valid 28 days. The fee is A$387 plus GST — A$425.70 — and it is non-refundable.

• Apply for the visa if nominated. Tasmania emails the nominee, then a SkillSelect invitation issues, valid 60 days.

The avoidable failure that costs people a whole cycle. An unsuccessful 190 applicant may be considered for a 491 nomination — but only if 491 was included as an option on the SkillSelect Expression of Interest. If both options were not included, Tasmania will not support the 491. It is a tick box, it is done months earlier, and it is entirely avoidable. Tasmania also aims to process nomination applications within six weeks, and does not grant priority processing for an expiring visa or test except in one narrow case.

Commitment to Tasmania — what is actually asked for

This is where applications are won and lost, and Tasmania is more specific about it than most states.

The minimum across all four pathways is that you currently live in Tasmania and intend to keep living there, with a genuine intention to remain employed in Tasmania in your current industry for at least two years after nomination. The undertaking that follows nomination is to live and work in Tasmania for at least two years, to keep your contact details current, and to complete periodic surveys.

Tasmania recommends a one-page personal statement and says it is very important where ties to Tasmania are unclear, where you lived elsewhere in Australia for more than two years before moving, or where family members are overseas or have recently joined you. It should cover your reasons for living in Tasmania, your settlement and community support, your career or business prospects, and where your family members are and what they are doing.

The employment rules that catch people

If the pathway turns on employment, the hours and the nature of the work are examined closely, and Tasmania publishes the detail.

• The general test is an average of 20 hours a week across the qualifying period — nine months on the higher-paid route, twelve on the lower. The Graduate pathway asks for 9 hours a week during study and 20 after.

• The Gold attribute is different and strict — a minimum of 30 hours in every week, in a single job, over the last six months. No averaging, no combining jobs, and a short week has to be made up. The only exception is a structured fortnightly roster totalling at least 60 hours.

• Leave counts, but conditionally. Paid leave that is a normal job benefit counts while you are living in Tasmania. Short paid leave outside Tasmania counts up to four weeks, and only if you have lived and worked there for at least the last six months. Unpaid leave does not count, and nor do casual breaks longer than two weeks with the same employer — both have to be added to the qualifying period.

• A break of three months or more resets the clock, and gaps between different employers do not count.

• Generally only one current job may support a priority attribute. Concurrent jobs can be combined for hours and sequential jobs for experience, but every job counted has to meet the attribute independently — and for income attributes, every job has to meet the income threshold on its own.

• All current employment must be disclosed, including work that does not count.

Some work does not count at all. Not accepted on any pathway: unpaid internships, scholarships and stipends, volunteer work, taxi and rideshare driving, food and alcohol delivery driving, and massage therapy without a recognised skills assessment and a health fund provider number. Paid internships tied to professional registration, such as pharmacy, are accepted. And from 1 December 2026 the rules tighten further: massage therapy counts only in a health, allied health, or aged or disability care setting, and motor mechanic experience only in specific settings, with sales and vehicle preparation roles not recognised and service technician roles no longer accepted as matching occupations.

Employment created to secure a nomination

Tasmania publishes its own integrity indicators, which is unusual and extremely useful. The test it applies is blunt: employment that relies heavily on the State Nomination Program is not a priority — would the job continue without the program? Such employment generally does not count toward priority attributes.

The published indicators of concern are: a business that is new, has limited trading history or minimal physical presence; a role unusual for the business type; heavy reliance on temporary visa holders; payments between employee and employer outside normal arrangements, including circular payments; little genuine local recruitment, or social-media-only recruitment aimed at community groups; links to migration or education agents; high turnover among staff who sought nomination; pay inconsistent with bank records or well below industry standards; and missing skills assessments.

None of these decides an application on its own, but each can prompt further checks. The published mitigating factors are a verifiable trading history, prior compliance with Migration Tasmania, and positive engagement with Tasmanian government agencies — all of which are evidenced rather than asserted.

This is the same evidence a nomination file needs anywhere. Employer recruitment records, advertising evidence, demonstrated organisational need, pay-rate benchmarking and bank-record consistency are exactly the artefacts these indicators are testing — and exactly what we build for labour market testing and genuine position reports. Where an employer’s position may attract a question, the answer is the documentation, prepared before anyone asks for it.

Nomination can be withdrawn after it is approved

The commitment test has teeth after the fact, and this is rarely mentioned.

Migration Tasmania may withdraw a nomination at any time if it finds that false or misleading information was provided — including in the Registration of Interest. Checks can happen after approval, and the published example is leaving Tasmanian employment and moving interstate soon after nomination.

Before deciding, the nominee is emailed the reasons and normally has seven days to respond, with extensions possible. The factors considered include the reliability of the adverse information, compassionate matters and hardship to the nominee and family. Withdrawal may lead to the visa being refused, and the decision cannot be reviewed.

And a 491 nominee is not renominated for a 190 later. Tasmania states that 491 nominees will not be renominated for a permanent 190, and more broadly that holders of a subclass 489 or 491 visa cannot be renominated under a different pathway. The permanent pathway from a 491 is the subclass 191, after three years holding the provisional visa.

What the permanent pathway actually requires

The 491 is a five-year provisional visa, and the permanent step is the subclass 191. Two things about it are worth knowing now, because a great deal of what is written about it is wrong.

You must have held the regional provisional visa for at least three years, hold it when you apply, and have complied with its conditions. And you must provide three income years of ATO notices of assessment within the five-year period.

There is no minimum taxable income amount currently specified. The criterion contemplates an amount set by legislative instrument, and no such instrument appears to have been made — which is why the figures that circulate for this visa are either the old temporary skilled income threshold or invented. What is required is the income evidence, not a number.

The 191 is also one of the cheapest permanent visas in the program. The first instalment for the Regional Provisional Visas stream is A$630 for most applicants, with A$315 for an additional applicant 18 or over and A$160 under 18, from 1 July 2026. Set that against the 491’s own application charge and the arithmetic of the whole pathway looks very different from the way it is usually presented.

What we prepare

• The nomination pathway relied on, and the minimum requirements and priority attributes that attach to it

• A first-person commitment statement written to Tasmania’s four named content areas — reasons for living in Tasmania, settlement and community support, career or business prospects, and family members’ locations and activities

• The residence and settlement evidence pack, itemised against Tasmania’s mandatory list, with the gaps identified before lodgement

• The employment position set out against the hours, leave, gap and single-job rules, with the qualifying period calculated rather than asserted

• Where the pathway turns on an employer, the recruitment and genuine-need material the integrity indicators go to

• The interstate residence position, and the dependant location and relocation-timing position

• A consistency pass against the Registration of Interest, the Expression of Interest, the skills assessment, the points claim and the forms

Consistency is the first thing we check. The statement has to agree with the Registration of Interest, the Expression of Interest, the CV, the skills assessment and the points claim. Contradiction between a statement and the documents behind it is a common and entirely avoidable reason for a nomination to be refused — and in Tasmania it is also a route to a nomination being withdrawn after approval.

Turnaround and price

A$1,550 incl GST at 10 to 12 working days, or 5 to 7 working days for 30% more and 1 to 2 working days for 50% more — chosen on the form. Choose the pathway on the form and the statement is written to that pathway’s criteria.

If you are working to an invitation, tell us the date it was issued — an invitation to apply for nomination is valid 28 days, and that is the deadline that matters.

General information, current at October 2026. Tasmania’s program settings, invitation scores and priority attributes change during the program year, and its own figures are published weekly. We check the current pathway pages at the date we write and we date-stamp what we rely on. Zeolla Solutions prepares migration documentation, research and reports — we are not a law practice, we are not a registered migration agent, and nothing here is immigration assistance or immigration advice. We do not advise on which state to apply to; we write to the program you or your adviser has chosen.