VETASSESS fees and published processing times, by assessment type — read on 3 September 2026, six days before the fees change

Three things are worth knowing before you read any fee table for VETASSESS, including this one.

First, the fee schedule we read on 3 September 2026 carries a notice on the same page saying the professional fees rise on 9 September 2026 — six days later — and the notice does not state the new amounts. Second, almost every fee is published twice, at a GST-inclusive figure and a GST-exclusive one, and which figure applies to you turns on tax residency, not on where you are sitting when you click. Third, the single most expensive mistake in this table is not a fee at all: it is missing the 90-day review window and paying nearly triple for the same argument.

What VETASSESS published on 3 September 2026

Amounts are as printed on the VETASSESS fees page for professional occupations, read 3 September 2026. The left-hand figure is what the page labels “Applying from within Australia (includes GST)”; the right-hand figure is “Applicant is not a resident of Australia for tax purposes (excludes GST)”.

Application type	Incl. GST	Excl. GST
Full Skills Assessment (qualifications + employment), online	AUD 1,205.60	AUD 1,096.00
Priority Processing (in addition to the above)	AUD 907.50	AUD 825.00
Points Test Advice only (non-VETASSESS occupations), qualifications online	AUD 342.10	AUD 311.00
Post-Vocational Education Work (subclass 485) assessment	AUD 457.60	AUD 416.00
Review — Post-Vocational Education Work (subclass 485)	AUD 291.50	AUD 265.00
Reassessment — Post-Vocational Education Work (subclass 485)	AUD 416.90	AUD 379.00
Post-485 assessment of employment, same occupation	AUD 937.20	AUD 852.00
Review of outcome — qualification only (all groups)	AUD 374.00	AUD 340.00
Review of outcome — employment only (all groups)	AUD 669.90	AUD 609.00
Review of outcome — qualification and employment	AUD 1,004.30	AUD 913.00
Reassessment within 12 months — Full Skills Assessment	AUD 819.50	AUD 745.00
Appeal of a Not Suitable outcome	AUD 1,190.20	AUD 1,082.00
Reissue of outcome letter	AUD 82.50	AUD 75.00
Renewal within 3 years	AUD 520.30	AUD 473.00
Renewal outside 3 years	AUD 1,205.60	AUD 1,096.00
Withdrawal before assessment commences	administration fee AUD 171 retained	administration fee AUD 171 retained

For Designated Area Migration Agreement assessments the page prints its own schedule at the same headline numbers — skills assessment AUD 1,205.60 / 1,096.00, qualification review AUD 374.00 / 340.00, employment review AUD 669.90 / 609.00, renewal within three years AUD 520.30 / 473.00 — with one discrepancy noted below.

Trade occupations are not on this schedule. VETASSESS publishes trade fees separately, and the trade assessment is delivered under Trades Recognition Australia programmes rather than under the professional criteria. Read the trade fee page for your programme; do not carry a professional figure across.

The published processing times

From the Current Processing Times page, read the same day. VETASSESS calls these “approximate”.

Service	Published time	What the page adds
Professional occupations, full skills assessment	7 weeks	“may take longer, depending on the complexity of the application and if the required documents and information submitted are not sufficient”
Trade occupations	no figure published	points you to the “relevant Applicant Guidelines” for each TRA programme
Priority Processing	10 business days	starts only “after an application is confirmed as eligible”; not offered for trade occupations
Post-Vocational Education Work (subclass 485)	1–2 weeks
Post-485 assessment, same occupation	7 weeks
DAMA	2–3 weeks	“also applies to applications for a review of a DAMA assessment outcome”
Industry Labour Agreement	2–3 weeks
Points Test Advice	2–4 weeks	longer “if the qualification claims require further research”
Renewals	2–5 weeks	Priority Processing available
Outcome review, professional	7 weeks	Priority Processing not available
Reassessment	7 weeks	Priority Processing available only for a different occupation
Appeal	12 weeks	no priority option
Qualification Comparison Service	2–3 weeks
Chinese Qualifications Verification	8–10 weeks	longer for qualifications awarded before 1995
Australian Technical Competencies Statement	15 weeks
Psychotherapy and Counselling Qualifications Assessment	6–8 weeks
Complementary Health Therapies Assessment	4–6 weeks

How to read this table without getting it wrong

The clock on the cheap option is 90 days, and it runs from the decision date. VETASSESS’s review page states: “Your review request must be lodged within 90 days of the issue date of the original assessment decision.” After that, and up to twelve months, the same complaint costs the reassessment fee rather than the review fee. Past twelve months, it costs a fresh full assessment. The fees page says it plainly: “Review applications lodged outside of the 90-day timeframe will incur full skills assessment fees.” The difference between arguing about a qualification on day 89 and on day 91 is AUD 374.00 against AUD 819.50.

A review is not an appeal, and only one of them is final. VETASSESS runs three separate things. A review is a second look by “a different team of assessors who were not involved in your initial application”, within 90 days. An appeal comes after a review, must be lodged “within 90 days of the review outcome decision”, is submitted on a form by email rather than through the portal, takes 12 weeks, and — in VETASSESS’s words — “The appeal outcome is final, and there is no opportunity to re-appeal.” A reassessment is not a challenge at all; it is a fresh look, available within twelve months, and it is the only one of the three that lets you change occupation.

The refund conditions on review and appeal fees are narrower than they look. Both pages say the fee may be refunded case by case where the outcome is overturned to Suitable and “No new information or evidence is considered during the review process”. In other words, the refund is for cases where VETASSESS got it wrong on the material it already had — not for cases you won by producing something new. Since VETASSESS also invites you to submit new evidence at review, most successful reviews will fall outside the refund condition by construction.

Priority Processing does not buy ten days; it buys ten days once accepted. The page says the ten business days start after VETASSESS “confirmed your application meets the eligibility criteria”, which “normally takes up to two business days”, and after the fee has cleared. If the application is rejected for priority, the fee comes back “less an administration fee of AUD $171.00” — and the same AUD 171 deduction applies if VETASSESS itself fails to finish in ten days. Priority is also closed to two groups: applications for review and appeal, and returning applicants “if they received a Not Suitable outcome for a previous full skills assessment for the same occupation”.

There is a separate, free lever that most people miss. VETASSESS’s FAQ answers the question about invitations directly: if you have received an invitation to apply for a visa or state nomination with a short deadline, “you may request urgent processing of your VETASSESS skills assessment if it has expired. This request can be made without Priority Processing.” That is urgent handling at no extra fee, by email, with evidence of the invitation.

Renewal is a deadline, not a discount. The renewal page states: “A suitable full skills assessment outcome is usually valid for three years from its issue date… Once your skills assessment outcome letter has expired, it cannot be renewed.” Renew at AUD 520.30 while it is alive; let it die and the same document costs AUD 1,205.60. Note also that renewal is not automatic: “you must demonstrate that your skills meet the current criteria for your nominated occupation”, and the criteria may have changed since your first assessment.

Four places where VETASSESS’s own published numbers do not agree

We are recording these because a fee table that pretends to more precision than the source has is worse than no table.

1. The fee schedule changes on 9 September 2026 and the new amounts are not on the page. The notice reads: “From September 9, 2026, application fees for Professional Skills Assessments will increase in line with movements in inflation.” Everything in the first table above is therefore a six-day quantity as at our reading date. Check the live page before you pay.
2. The DAMA reassessment fee is printed at AUD 819.00 in the DAMA block and AUD 819.50 in the professional block. Same product, fifty cents apart, same page.
3. Validity is described two ways in the same set of FAQs. The renewal page says a suitable outcome is “valid for three years from its issue date”, and then, answering how long a renewed outcome lasts, says VETASSESS assessments “are currently valid for three years from the original issue date”. Those two sentences give different expiry dates for a renewed letter. We are not going to decide which one VETASSESS means; ask VETASSESS in writing and keep the answer.
4. The occupation count does not settle. One VETASSESS page says “we assess more than 341 professional and other non-trade occupations”; another says “The Australian Government has authorised us to provide skills assessments for 341 professional and other non-trade occupations”. The published sitemap on 3 September 2026 lists 363 pages under professional occupations, one of which is named test-profession and three of which carry a -0 duplicate suffix. On the trade side, the trade landing page says “each of the 25 trade occupations we assess” and then lists 28 on the same page, while the sitemap carries 29. None of this changes any fee. It does tell you that headline counts on this site are marketing copy, and the legally operative list of occupations lives in the migration legislative instrument, not on a web page — see which Australian authority assesses which occupation.

So what should you actually do

Diarise the 90-day date the moment an unsuccessful outcome arrives, before you decide whether to fight it. Decide what you are contesting before you pick a product: a qualification-only review is AUD 374.00, adding employment takes it to AUD 1,004.30, and there is no partial refund for over-buying. If you are close to an expiry date and hold an invitation, ask for free urgent processing before you reach for the AUD 907.50 priority fee. And if your nominated occupation is in the accounting cluster, none of this applies to you — a skills assessment and membership are two different assessments, and the assessing authorities there are CPA Australia, CA ANZ and IPA.

What this page does not do

It does not price your application, and it does not predict an outcome. Every figure here is a reading of VETASSESS’s own pages on one day, and one of those pages says the numbers change on 9 September 2026. VETASSESS is the only body that can tell you what you owe and the only body that can assess you. For visa questions, go to the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent; this site summarises published education and assessment rules and is not a migration adviser.