What each AU/NZ authority requires your university to send — and the four document rules that decide more applications than the criteria do

Most unsuccessful applications are not refused on the criteria. They are delayed, or decided on thin evidence, because a document was issued by the wrong body, arrived without unit detail, or was not there at all — and because two of these authorities state, in writing, that they will decide on what you gave them and will not chase you.

VETASSESS: “We are under no obligation to seek further information from you and can make a decision based on the evidence you provided with your application.” ACS: “Submissions with missing, incorrect or unnecessary documentation will delay the processing of your application and may result in an unsuitable outcome.” Note unnecessary in that sentence — ACS treats over-submission as a defect too.

The four rules that decide more applications than the criteria

Rule 1 — the award certificate must come from the body legally entitled to award it, not from the college that taught you. VETASSESS: “If you attended a college affiliated to the awarding institution, the award certificate must be issued by the awarding institution permitted to award the qualifications.” This is the single most common structural problem for applicants from affiliated-college systems, and no amount of correspondence from the teaching college fixes it. The underlying distinction is set out in awarded by versus taught by.

Rule 2 — a thin transcript needs a syllabus, and you should send one without being asked. VETASSESS: “If your transcripts do not provide sufficient information regarding the units of study undertaken, please provide additional evidence, such as a course syllabus, to clarify this. You can also detail major projects and other significant features of your studies in your CV.” Where an authority is assessing whether your major is highly relevant, or whether a unit covers a required competency area, the syllabus is the document doing the work. The transcript is a list of titles.

Rule 3 — statutory declarations do not prove a name change. VETASSESS: “If you have changed your legal name, you must provide official documents that clearly show the change from your previous legal name to your current legal name. Please note that statutory declarations are not accepted as evidence of a legal name change.” A statutory declaration is accepted for other purposes at VETASSESS — for self-employment duties, and in place of an organisational chart — so the exclusion is specific rather than general.

Rule 4 — some documents are only valid for weeks. CA ANZ requires from professional-body members “A letter from the accounting body confirming your current membership status, including regulatory and disciplinary information (dated within the last 3 months).” Order that one last, not first.

VETASSESS, professional and general occupations

The most detailed published list of the group, and the one to model your file on even if you are applying elsewhere.

Category	What VETASSESS asks for
CV	required for a formal skills assessment; should describe “the major focus of your studies, including providing details of any major projects” and the employment history “in your own words”
Photograph	“One recent passport-sized colour photograph… no more than six months old… (self-taken photographs are not acceptable)”
Identity	three documents: “2 primary documents + 1 secondary document or 1 primary document + 2 secondary documents”; primary = passport bio page or birth certificate; at least one must be “a current and valid… government-issued identity document with the applicants photograph and signature”
Qualification	award certificate plus academic transcripts; a provisional certificate or an official statement of completion from the registrar is accepted if the certificate has not issued
Employment	a Statement of Service on company letterhead, signed “by your direct supervisor or the manager of the human resources department” — nine specified contents including exact dd/mm/yyyy dates, hours per week, duties per position and salary
Payment evidence	at least two payslips, or taxation records, or bank statements showing at least two salary payments, or employment-linked insurance/superannuation records
Self-employment	business registration or accountant/solicitor statement, a statutory declaration of duties, payment evidence, plus supplementary evidence such as contracts or client testimonials
Organisational chart	required for managerial occupations and specifically for “Management Consultant, Marketing Specialist, Internal Auditor and Program or Project Administrator”
Project / activity lists	required for Management Consultant, Construction Project Manager, Program or Project Administrator, Conference and Event Organiser, several Sales Representative codes and ICT Account Manager, on VETASSESS templates

Two conditions apply to everything: “All documents must be high quality colour scans of the original documents”, and where documents are not in English you must submit “scans of both the original language documents and English translations made by a registered translation service.”

Referees will be contacted. “Please note that your referee may be contacted for further information.” And references from peers do not count: “references from colleagues at the same level or below will not be accepted.”

The country-specific paragraphs

These appear in one place on one page, and each one changes what you have to produce.

China. “If you hold qualifications that have been awarded by educational institutions from China, you will be required to have your qualification documents verified by VETASSESS. For Priority Processing, you must have a completed VETASSESS Chinese Qualification Verification before applying.” That verification is its own product with its own timeline — VETASSESS publishes 8 to 10 weeks, “with a small number of cases taking longer (for instance, any qualifications awarded before 1995).”

Europe. “Applicants with European qualifications should supply Diploma Supplements for these if available… A Diploma Supplement will be accepted in lieu of an award certificate and transcript if it includes all the necessary information.”

Philippines. “Please supply evidence of passing the Professional Regulation Commission’s (PRC) Licensure Examinations if this is applicable to your degree qualification… If you do not submit evidence of holding PRC licensing, we will assume it is not applicable to your skills assessment and complete your application without making further enquiries.”

Lebanon. “Most qualifications awarded by University Colleges and Institutes in Lebanon require evidence of approval by the Equivalence Committee of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.”

Nigeria and Pakistan. The verification rule was relaxed but not abolished: “We no longer require applicants to provide verified copies of qualifications from HEC Pakistan or the registrar’s office of the awarding body in the case of Nigeria. However… we may, during the assessment process, ask you to provide verified copies if an assessor identifies this is necessary” — and where Priority Processing is in play, “the request for verified copies may delay the assessment process beyond the standard 10 business days.”

The others, in brief

ACS. Two forms of photo ID plus proof of any name change; evidence of overseas IT or data science qualifications; two kinds of employment evidence — documentary evidence from employers, and evidence “to verify your paid employment and that your pay is commensurate with the skill level for your position”. Where you were placed through an agency, “the employment reference letter must be provided by the employer they contracted you into, known as a host company”. Vendor certifications are optional and accepted only for DevOps and Cyber Security codes.

CA ANZ. Academic records are mandatory regardless of membership: “membership in a recognised accounting body does not exempt you from presenting tertiary qualifications.” From members it also wants the membership certificate, “Examination results or mark sheets”, and the three-month-old good-standing letter described above.

CPA Australia. Where a professional body qualification is relevant it asks for the “Official membership certificate” and “Official examination results/marksheets, including transcripts from prior studies if you’ve received exemptions for any of your professional body examinations. Please provide examination results for all levels you have completed or have been exempted from.” The exemptions clause is the one people miss — the underlying study behind an exemption has to be documented too.

Nursing Council of New Zealand. Verification is outsourced and comes first: “All nurses are required by the Council to have their documents verified and authenticated by TruMerit, an external company. You must do this before you can apply for registration to the Nursing Council.” Identity goes directly to TruMerit — “notarised/certified colour copies of your current passport and one other form of identity document” — and “All identity documents provided in support of the application for registration must be current at the date of application to TruMerit.” A separate international criminal history check is required through an accredited provider.

Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. The NZQA assessment is a document you must obtain before applying: “Provide a certified copy of your NZQA International Qualifications Assessment (IQA) confirming your qualification is equivalent to a New Zealand Initial Teacher Education (ITE) qualification, along with certified copies of your overseas teaching qualification(s) and any supporting qualifications.” And NZQA will not assess everything — its published exclusions include “incomplete programmes of study”, “programmes of study not leading to the award of a qualification”, “certificates of attendance”, and “professional registration, permits, licenses or certifications”. A licence is not a qualification, and NZQA says so.

What to ask your university for, in one list

Order these once, in a single request, and you will cover every authority on this page:

1. The award certificate, issued by the awarding institution — not the affiliated college — with your legal name as it appears on your passport.
2. The complete academic transcript, all years, all units, with grades and credit values.
3. The syllabus or unit outlines for every unit that might be relevant to your occupation’s field or to a required competency area. Ask for the version that applied in your years of study, not the current one.
4. A statement of the qualification’s structure — nominal length, mode, entry requirement, and what it leads to in that country. This is the evidence that speaks to three of the four factors VETASSESS weighs.
5. Where teaching and awarding were split, written confirmation of the relationship between the two institutions.
6. Where your programme was professionally accredited at home, evidence of that accreditation for your entry year, since accreditation runs by cohort.

Employment documents are on your employer, not your university, and they are the half of the file most often left until last: statements of service with exact dates and duties, payment evidence for every claimed period, and an organisational chart where the occupation requires one.

So what should you actually do

Build the file before you choose the authority, because the overlap is large and the specific extras are few. Start the slow items first — Chinese qualification verification at 8 to 10 weeks, TruMerit verification before a New Zealand nursing application, an NZQA IQA before a New Zealand teaching application — and leave the short-dated items, like a three-month good-standing letter, until the end. Then read your own authority’s country paragraph, because that is where the requirement that applies only to you will be hiding.

What this page does not do

It is not a checklist that substitutes for the authority’s own. Every one of these bodies publishes a current document checklist and updates it without notice; VETASSESS’s own page carries a standing instruction to “download the Application Document Checklist for Professional Occupations before starting your application.” Nothing here is a prediction of an outcome. All quotations were read on 3 September 2026. For visa document requirements — a separate list set by a different body — go to the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent.