Australia 190 Visa 2026: CRICOS Course Rule for Australian Qualifications

Yes — if your Subclass 190 skills assessment rests on a qualification you obtained in Australia while you held a student visa, that qualification must come from a course registered on CRICOS (the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students). Two conditions stack here: CRICOS registration of the course, and student-visa status at the time you obtained the qualification. This comes from the Department of Home Affairs’ official Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190) page, which also requires the skills assessment itself to be suitable and current; the details below reflect that page as at July 2026.

What exactly does the 190 page say about CRICOS?

The requirement is stated in a single sentence under the “Have a suitable skills assessment” section: “If your skills were assessed on the basis of a qualification you got in Australia when you held a student visa, the qualification must be from studying a course registered on CRICOS.”

Read it as three linked tests, all of which have to be true for the rule to bite:

• the skills assessment relies on a qualification obtained in Australia
• you held a student visa when you obtained it
• the qualification came from a course that was registered on CRICOS

If all three apply, the course’s CRICOS registration becomes part of what makes the skills assessment usable for this visa. If any one of them does not apply, the CRICOS condition on that page is not triggered by that particular qualification.

When does the CRICOS rule apply, and when doesn’t it?

Situation	Does the CRICOS condition apply?
Skills assessment relies on an Australian qualification obtained while you held a student visa	Yes — the course must be registered on CRICOS
Skills assessment relies on an Australian qualification obtained when you were not holding a student visa	The Subclass 190 eligibility criteria do not attach this condition
Skills assessment relies on overseas qualifications only	Not covered by this condition
Skills assessment relies on several qualifications, including one caught by all three tests	The caught qualification must meet the CRICOS requirement

This distinction matters because of what a skills assessment actually is: an assessing authority’s judgement that your qualifications and experience line up with your nominated skilled occupation. The CRICOS rule does not change your qualification’s academic standing — a course can be entirely legitimate and still fall outside this pathway. It limits which evidence can support the assessment that the Department will accept for a Subclass 190 application.

What else must that skills assessment satisfy?

CRICOS registration is one filter among several on the same eligibility item. According to the same official page:

• You must declare that you have a suitable skills assessment for your nominated occupation at the time of invitation; without that declaration your application is not valid, and you must provide a copy of the assessment with your application.
• The assessment must have been obtained within the 3 years before your invitation date. Where an assessment was issued for a shorter validity period, that period must not have passed.
• Following the decision in Thapa v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2021] FCCA 686, delegates will accept a suitable skills assessment obtained within the 60-day invitation period. The page notes the Minister administers the Migration Regulations 1994 in line with that decision while reserving the right to argue in court that Thapa was wrongly decided.
• For medical practitioners and lawyers, the page accepts alternatives instead of a skills assessment: full/unconditional/general or conditional specialist registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, or admission to legal practice in the relevant state or territory.

Where the page is silent, other requirements sit with the assessing authority rather than with the visa criteria, so treat the two as separate layers: one set of rules governs whether the visa accepts the assessment, another governs whether the assessing authority will issue it on your evidence.

Does the rule overlap with the Australian study requirement or state nomination?

No — keep them apart in your planning. The two extra layers work like this:

The Australian study requirement appears separately in the documents list for the Expression of Interest (EOI), alongside “Educational qualifications” and your skills assessment. Points claims made in the EOI have to be supported by documents when you apply, so your study history may need to be evidenced twice over: once for the skills assessment (where the CRICOS test applies) and once for any points claimed.

State or territory nomination adds a third layer. You can only apply for the 190 after a state or territory government agency nominates you, and every agency sets its own criteria and decides what it wants from applicants. Those criteria can be stricter than the visa criteria. One consequence worth knowing: if the agency that nominated you withdraws the nomination after you apply, your application becomes invalid.

What should you check before you enrol, rather than after?

Working backwards from this rule is cheaper than discovering it at assessment time. If the plan is to use an Australian qualification for a 190 skills assessment, verify before enrolling that the specific course — not merely the institution — is registered on CRICOS, and keep records that tie your enrolment to that registration and to your visa status during the study period.

A few failures are structural rather than accidental, and none of them can be fixed once the qualification has been granted:

• the course was not registered on CRICOS during the period you studied it
• part of the qualification was completed while you were not on a student visa, so the evidence chain for a visa-obtained qualification breaks
• the skills assessment was issued for an occupation other than the one you nominate in your EOI
• the assessment expires against the 3-year window before your invitation arrives

Assume an applicant completed a course at a registered Australian provider, but the particular course was never registered on CRICOS, and they studied it on a student visa. Under the sentence quoted above, that qualification cannot be the basis of the skills assessment used for the Subclass 190 — regardless of how the qualification is regarded by employers or by other institutions.

Worth stating plainly: this article is general information about how the published rule works, not personalised immigration or legal advice, and visa criteria do change; confirm the current wording against the official page and obtain advice tailored to your own record before relying on any of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Australian degree always have to come from a CRICOS-registered course for the 190 visa?

Not always. Under the official Subclass 190 criteria, the CRICOS requirement applies when the skills assessment relies on an Australian qualification obtained while you held a student visa. Where that combination does not exist, the condition does not arise from this page.

What if I studied part of my course on a student visa and part on another visa?

The page does not set out a formula for mixed study periods, so this cannot be answered from the published text alone. The rule is written around the qualification you obtained and your visa status when you obtained it, which suggests the dividing line is how the qualification itself was completed — verify against the official wording for your circumstances.

Can I use an Australian qualification obtained after I stopped being a student-visa holder?

If you were not holding a student visa when the qualification was obtained, the CRICOS condition tied to that qualification does not apply under the stated criteria. The rest of the skills assessment requirements — suitability for your nominated occupation and the 3-year timing rule — still apply.

How long is a skills assessment valid for a Subclass 190 application?

It must have been obtained within the 3 years before your invitation date, and any shorter validity period stated on the assessment must not have passed. Assessments obtained inside the 60-day invitation window are also accepted, following the Thapa decision.

Is the CRICOS rule the same thing as the Australian study requirement?

No. The Australian study requirement is a separate item in the EOI documents list, connected to points claims, while the CRICOS rule attaches to the qualifications underpinning your skills assessment. You may need to document both, from the same period of study.

Where can I check whether my course counts as CRICOS-registered?

Registration is recorded on CRICOS itself, per course and provider. The Department’s page sets the requirement but does not explain how to look a listing up, so rely on the register’s own record of your course and on the official text for how the requirement applies.

References

• Department of Home Affairs — Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190)