190 Skills Assessment After Thapa in 2026: Timing for Qualification Assessments

For a Subclass 190 (Skilled Nominated) visa, you must declare at the time of invitation that you have a suitable skills assessment for your nominated skilled occupation — but following the decision in Thapa v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2021] FCCA 686, Department of Home Affairs delegates will accept a suitable skills assessment that was obtained within the 60-day invitation period. The assessment must still have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation, and the 60 days cannot be extended. This reflects the Australian Department of Home Affairs “Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190)” official page as of the version current in July 2026.

Do you need a skills assessment before you are invited?

On the official page, the requirement is framed as a declaration, not as a document you must already hold: for your application to be valid, you must declare that you have a suitable skills assessment at the time of invitation. What changed after Thapa is the department’s approach to when that assessment can have been obtained. Delegates will now accept a suitable skills assessment for your nominated occupation that was obtained within the 60-day invitation period.

Two other conditions sit alongside this and are unaffected by Thapa. First, your skills assessment must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation; if it was issued for a shorter period, that period must not have passed. Second, you must provide a copy of the assessment with your application. The flexibility is about the issue date relative to your invitation, not about whether an assessment exists at all by the time you lodge.

This article is general information only and is not personalised migration or legal advice; the Department’s own page should be your final reference, and anything specific to your occupation, qualifications or history is worth checking with a qualified professional.

What, exactly, did the Thapa decision change?

The change of approach is administrative, and the official page is explicit about its limits. The Home Affairs page states that the change is made as a result of the decision in Thapa, that the Minister will administer the Migration Regulations 1994 in accordance with that decision, but that the Minister reserves the right to make submissions in a Court that Thapa was wrongly decided.

Read that as it is written: it is a current administrative approach recorded on the official visa page, not a guarantee written into the regulations themselves. Practically, it means you should plan on the basis that an assessment obtained inside the 60-day window can be accepted, while treating the official Home Affairs visa page as the source you check before you rely on it.

What does the 60-day window actually require from your assessing authority?

The 60 days is a visa-application deadline first and an assessment deadline second. The page states that once invited you have 60 calendar days to apply for the visa, and that this time cannot be extended. Because your skills assessment has to be provided with your application, whatever your assessing authority needs from you has to happen inside that same window.

That makes the 60 days a throughput question rather than a paperwork question. Suppose an applicant receives an invitation on day 0 and has requested a skills assessment that has not yet been decided: the assessment must be issued, delivered, and uploaded along with the rest of the application before day 60. There is no mechanism on the official page for extending the period because an assessment is still pending.

The 60-day deadline to apply also shapes the rest of your evidence, because the documents supporting your EOI claims — your skills assessment, English language skills, Australian and/or overseas skilled employment, educational qualifications, and any Australian study requirement claim — are requested with the application, and the official page notes that if you did not attach all documents when you applied, you should attach them as soon as you can.

Where does a qualification assessment sit in that chain?

For most skilled occupations, the skills assessment is not a single judgement about your job history — the assessing authority has to form a view about the qualification behind it. That means your qualification assessment is upstream of your skills assessment: it has to be complete before the skills assessment can be issued, and the skills assessment has to be issued before you lodge.

Working backwards, the practical consequence is that the date you request a skills assessment matters less than the date your qualification evidence is ready to be assessed. If the qualification assessment stage is still open when an invitation arrives, it consumes part of the 60 days before the skills assessment clock has even started.

One qualification rule is set out directly on the official page: if your skills were assessed on the basis of a qualification you obtained in Australia while you held a student visa, that qualification must be from studying a course registered on CRICOS. If your Australian qualification does not meet that condition, the assessment resting on it is not the “suitable” assessment the visa page refers to — and no amount of timing flexibility fixes that.

How does the three-year validity rule apply once Thapa is in play?

The 3-year rule is measured from the date of invitation, not from the date you lodge or the date your EOI was submitted. The page states that your skills assessment must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation, and that if the assessment was for a shorter period, that period must not have passed.

The two rules sit side by side on the official page without either being explained as a consequence of the other: the page says delegates will accept a suitable skills assessment obtained within the 60-day invitation period, and separately that the assessment must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation (or within any shorter period stated on it, which must not have passed). Nothing on the official page says that an assessment obtained inside the 60 days automatically satisfies the 3-year test, so both dates should be checked against your actual invitation date.

What else has to be true at the moment of invitation?

The skills assessment timing rule does not operate on its own. At the time of invitation, the official page also requires that you are aged under 45 (you can still apply if you turn 45 after invitation, but you will not be invited if you turn 45 after submitting your EOI and before invitation), that you have at least competent English, and that your occupation is on the relevant list of eligible skilled occupations for the 190 visa.

Your EOI also has to have produced an indicative score of at least 65 points, and your invitation will state the number of points you must score when the application is assessed — which may be higher than 65 depending on your claims. At least competent English is likewise tested at the time of invitation. Separately, you can receive an invitation up to 2 years after submitting an EOI, and if you do not apply after two invitations, your EOI is removed from SkillSelect.

Moment	What the official page requires
EOI submitted	Indicative score of at least 65 points; occupation on the relevant skilled occupation list; no fee for the EOI itself
At invitation	Under 45; at least competent English; declaration that you have a suitable skills assessment; assessment obtained within 3 years before the invitation date
Within 60 calendar days	Lodge the application — the period cannot be extended — and provide a copy of the skills assessment, which may be one obtained within this period
After lodgement	Evidence supporting every EOI claim; health and character requirements; points score stated on the invitation

How can you plan backwards from an invitation you cannot predict?

Because you cannot choose your invitation date, the useful planning question is which pieces of evidence are ready before it arrives and which are genuinely safe to leave open:

• Settle the qualification layer early. Anything your assessing authority needs about your degree — transcripts, award certificates, CRICOS-registered course evidence where your assessment rests on an Australian qualification obtained on a student visa — should be complete before you submit your EOI, because this is the stage that cannot be compressed inside 60 days.
• Track issue dates, not decision dates in your head. The 3-year rule runs from the invitation date, so record the exact issue date of any assessment you hold and the date any shorter validity period ends.
• Treat the 60 days as the whole project. The window covers assessment issue, document gathering for every EOI claim, and lodgement — not just the day you press submit.
• Recheck the official page before you lodge. The Thapa approach is recorded as a current administrative position, and the page notes the Minister reserves the right to argue in a Court that Thapa was wrongly decided.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to already hold a skills assessment when I submit my EOI?

The official page requires that you declare at the time of invitation that you have a suitable skills assessment for your nominated skilled occupation. The page does not present a held assessment as a precondition for submitting an EOI in SkillSelect, and there is no fee for submitting an EOI.

Can the 60-day invitation period be extended if my assessment is still pending?

No. The Department’s page states that once invited you have 60 calendar days to apply for the visa and that this time cannot be extended. Because a copy of your skills assessment must be provided with your application, a pending assessment has to be resolved inside that same window.

Does Thapa mean I can lodge with no skills assessment at all?

No. The accepted position recorded on the page is that delegates will accept a suitable skills assessment obtained within the 60-day invitation period — the assessment still has to exist and still has to be provided with your application. What Thapa shifted is the permitted timing of the assessment relative to your invitation, not the requirement to have one.

When does the three-year validity of my skills assessment start running?

From the date of your invitation. Your skills assessment must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation, and if it was issued for a shorter period, that period must not have passed. The reference point is the invitation date, not your EOI date or your lodgement date.

My assessment is close to expiring — what does the 60-day window do for me?

It can help only where the assessment’s issue date is still inside the 3 years before your invitation. An assessment nearing the end of a 3-year or shorter validity period needs to be checked against your actual invitation date: the page states the 3-year rule and the 60-day rule separately and does not explain how they interact, so neither one overrides the other on the face of the page.

Does my Australian degree need to be from a CRICOS-registered course?

If your skills were assessed on the basis of a qualification you obtained in Australia while you held a student visa, then yes — the qualification must be from studying a course registered on CRICOS. This condition comes from the visa eligibility page and applies regardless of when the assessment was obtained.

Do doctors and lawyers need a skills assessment in the usual sense?

The page lists specific alternatives that are accepted as proof of a skills assessment for medical and legal practitioners: full, unconditional or general medical registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, conditional specialist registration with that agency that allows you to practise in your speciality with no further training or supervision, or admission to practice law in the relevant state or territory. The official page also states that medical practitioners must be registered, and barristers and solicitors admitted to practice, at the time the Department invites you to apply — so unlike the Thapa-style flexibility for a skills assessment obtained after invitation, this evidence has to be in place on the invitation date itself.

References

• Australian Department of Home Affairs — Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190)
• Australian Government SkillSelect — Submit an expression of interest