Australia's Skills Assessment Fees Are Rising From 9 September... What Skilled Visa Applicants Need to Know

If you're working towards an Australian skilled visa and your occupation needs a skills assessment from VETASSESS, there's a date worth putting in your diary: 9 September 2026. From that date, VETASSESS is increasing its fees for professional skills assessments, and because a positive skills assessment is a building block for several of Australia's most popular skilled visa pathways, this is worth understanding now rather than after you've paid.

What's changing

VETASSESS (the Vocational Education and Training Assessment Services) announced on 7 August 2026 that application fees for Professional Skills Assessments will increase from 9 September 2026, along with related fees including Priority Processing, Skills Assessment Support, Chinese Qualification Verification, non-migration skills assessments, and administration fees. VETASSESS has said the increase reflects movements in inflation (linked to the Consumer Price Index).

A couple of details worth flagging:

• Trade occupations are excluded from this round of increases... it applies to the professional (non-trade) assessment stream.

• If you lodge your application before 9 September 2026, VETASSESS has indicated you'll be charged at the current, lower fee. Applications submitted from 9 September onward will be charged the new rate.

  
  

Why this matters if you're planning a move to Australia

VETASSESS is one of the main assessing authorities used to confirm that a person's qualifications and work experience meet the standard required for a nominated occupation. A positive skills assessment is typically a prerequisite for:

• Subclass 189 (Skilled Independent) and Subclass 190 (Skilled Nominated) visas — both points-tested pathways where a positive assessment is required before you can even submit an Expression of Interest for many occupations.

• Subclass 491 (Skilled Work Regional) visas, which follow the same skills assessment requirement as 189/190 for most nominated occupations.

• In some cases, employer-sponsored pathways such as Subclass 482 (Skills in Demand) and Subclass 186 (Employer Nomination Scheme), where the nominated occupation calls for a positive assessment as part of the nomination.

In other words, for a lot of prospective migrants working through a professional (not trade) occupation, VETASSESS is a step you can't skip, so a fee increase, even a modest one, is a genuine cost consideration as you plan your application timeline and budget.

What this practically means for you

If you already have your qualifications and employment evidence together and are occupation-matched to a role that requires a VETASSESS professional assessment, there may be a case for lodging before 9 September to lock in the current fee, provided you're not rushing the application at the expense of accuracy or completeness. A skills assessment that comes back with queries or a negative outcome because it was rushed will cost you far more in time than the fee increase will in money.

If you're not yet ready, this isn't a reason to panic, it's simply a cost that's changing, not a tightening of the assessment criteria themselves as far as I've been able to establish. It's a good moment, though, to check which assessing authority applies to your specific occupation (not every profession goes through VETASSESS) and to get a clear picture of the total cost of your pathway before you commit to timelines.