National Innovation visa

This is a permanent visa and the holder becomes a permanent resident on the day it is granted.

For citizenship purposes, permanent residence starts on the grant date if the holder is in Australia, or on the date of first entry on the visa if the holder is outside Australia.

The visa allows the holder to live permanently, work and study, enrol in Medicare and sponsor relatives; newly arrived residents may have to wait before getting certain government payments.

The 2026-27 permanent Migration Program is set at 185,000 places, announced on 12 May 2026, with the Skilled stream at 132,240 places.

The Talent and Innovation planning level includes 20 places reserved for the Business Innovation and Investment visas, so the share left for talent visas is slightly smaller than 3,500.

Home Affairs says the Talent and Innovation category counts the National Innovation visa together with the closed Global Talent, Distinguished Talent and Business Innovation and Investment visas, and that existing Global Talent and Distinguished Talent applicants will not be adversely affected.

The Global Talent Employer Sponsored (GTES) program is a separate employer-sponsorship route in which approved businesses sponsor workers for highly skilled niche roles through a Skills in Demand visa; it is not the National Innovation visa.

The NSW Government runs its own nomination for the National Innovation visa, and a NSW nomination gives the applicant Priority 2 consideration with Home Affairs.

Candidates nominated by the Queensland Government are treated as priority two by Home Affairs; Queensland's Registrations of Interest for 2025-26 were closed at the time of reading and are to reopen for 2026-27.

If the nominator is not an Australian organisation, citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen, Form 1000 warns the visa application may be refused.

As an alternative to the achievement criteria, an applicant can qualify if, in the Minister's opinion acting on advice from the Director-General of Security or the minister responsible for an intelligence or security agency, they have provided specialised assistance to the Australian Government in security matters.

For the exceptional-benefit test, the benefit should be ongoing, sustained and realised shortly after migration; examples include creating jobs for many Australian residents or driving research and innovation in sectors of national importance.

The area of achievement and the achievements stated in the invitation must be the ones the applicant relies on in the visa application.

Under the regulations, a National Innovation visa applicant must have received a written invitation from the Minister to apply, which makes the invitation a precondition of a valid application.

A valid application must be made within the period stated in the invitation.

An applicant in Australia must hold a substantive visa or a Bridging visa A, B or C when applying; someone outside Australia needs no particular visa but must not be in immigration clearance.

The applicant may be in or outside Australia when applying, but not in immigration clearance.

Decision makers are told not to treat the listed indicators as a checklist; they weigh the applicant's circumstances as a whole against the exceptional and outstanding achievement criterion.

If the applicant is under 18 or 55 or older, extra evidence of exceptional benefit to Australia is needed, for example a senior leadership job offer, contracts with prominent Australian organisations, or a business plan for a highly innovative organisation.

The applicant and family members who apply with them must meet the health requirement, and family members not travelling to Australia may need to as well.

The applicant and family members aged 16 or over who apply must meet the character requirement, including family members who will not come to Australia.

The applicant and every family member, even those not applying, must not owe money to the Australian Government, or must have a payment arrangement before the visa can be granted.

Applicants aged 18 or over must have read, or had explained to them, the Life in Australia booklet and sign an Australian Values Statement.

Home Affairs takes immigration history into account, so an earlier visa cancellation or refusal may affect eligibility.

The main applicant must satisfy public interest criteria 4001, 4002, 4003, 4003B, 4004, 4007, 4009, 4010 and 4021 at the time of decision, plus 4019 if aged 18 or over when applying, and 4020 unless relying on the security-assistance route.

Family unit members can be included in the application; an applicant under 18 can include only parents and members of a parent's family unit.

Family members can be added to the application at any time before a decision is made (after lodging, by attaching Form 1436 in ImmiAccount), except that an applicant under 18 can include family members only when applying.

The Talent and Innovation category, which counts the National Innovation visa and the closed Global Talent, Distinguished Talent and BIIP visas, drops from 5,300 to 3,500 places in 2026-27, including 20 reserved for the Business Innovation and Investment visas.

The regulations describe the visa as a permanent visa permitting travel to and entry into Australia for 5 years from the date of grant.

For NSW nomination an applicant may hold only one active Registration of Interest at a time, and it stays valid for six months.

A second instalment of AUD 4,890 is charged for each applicant who was 18 or over at application and is assessed as not having functional English, apart from limited family-violence-related exceptions; it is paid only when Home Affairs asks, and only if the visa is about to be granted.

The first instalment is payable when the application is made and the second instalment is payable before the visa is granted.

If no invitation arrives within 2 years the EOI expires, Home Affairs emails a notice, and a new EOI must be submitted to be considered again.

A second EOI should not be lodged unless there has been a significant change in circumstances or there are new achievement claims that strengthen alignment with the priority indicators.

An EOI can be withdrawn at any time before it expires or before an invitation is issued, by emailing the National Innovation mailbox with name, date of birth and EOI reference number.

Having an EOI on file gives no right to a bridging visa; anyone who needs a visa to stay or travel while waiting must apply for a different visa.

Applications lodged without an invitation, or outside the invitation period, are not accepted.

Anyone who misses the 60-day window must submit a new EOI to be considered for another invitation, with no guarantee of being invited again.

The invitation email carries a unique reference identifier and invitation code to use when applying, and it names the achievements that formed the basis of the invitation; evidence of those achievements must be provided.

From 1 July 2026 eligible Pacific Island and Timor-Leste citizens who lodge a valid application are charged the lower visa cost automatically in ImmiAccount, based on the passport used in the application.

Family members get the lower visa cost too, and eligibility is judged from the primary applicant's passport.

Applicants aged 18 or over must give evidence of at least functional English, or else pay the second instalment; they can choose to pay it instead by telling Home Affairs through ImmiAccount.

Home Affairs does not charge anything to process a nomination, and Form 1000 states that no fee may be paid to the nominator for completing it.

The visa application must be lodged online through ImmiAccount, and an applicant relying on the achievement criteria must submit the completed Form 1000 from the nominator with it.

The nominator must sign Form 1000, and the applicant must answer every relevant question on it according to the form instructions.

Documents submitted with the visa application must show the achievements claimed in the EOI that earned the invitation.

Evidence of the ability to establish in Australia can include a statement on Australian opportunities in the field, nominator information and letters about future employment or business opportunities; income from work outside the field cannot be counted.

Police certificates are required for any country where the applicant spent 12 months or more in the last 10 years since turning 16; for Australia only a complete-disclosure National Police Certificate from the Australian Federal Police is accepted.

Non-English documents must be translated into English, and both the originals and the translations are submitted; certified copies are not needed.

For a child under 18 applying, consent to migrate is needed from anyone who has the legal right to decide where the child lives and is not coming to Australia with the child, for example on Form 1229 or a statutory declaration.

A New Zealand passport holder should tell the border officer they hold this visa and do not want a Special Category visa (subclass 444); otherwise a non-permanent 444 may be granted, which might reduce citizenship eligibility.

The applicant may be in or outside Australia when the visa is decided, but not in immigration clearance, and the second instalment must be paid before grant.

Among research indicators, Direction 120 mentions national research grants such as Australian Research Council grants, a research-based degree from a top-100 world university, a high h-index for career stage (14 given as an example for an early-career researcher) and recent top-journal papers.

The Pacific-regional countries for this concession are the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Evidence of achievement can include top international awards, a national research grant, a research PhD from a leading university, recent top-journal publications, patents, keynote talks, earnings at or above the Fair Work high income threshold and international media coverage.

People who had already applied for a Global Talent visa keep being assessed under the rules that applied when they lodged, not under the new invitation-based rules.

Home Affairs lists the Distinguished Talent visa as closed in November 2020 and the Global Talent visa as closed in December 2024, both being earlier names of the Subclass 858 class now covered by the National Innovation visa.

An earlier regulation change, commencing 27 February 2021, had already renamed the Subclass 858 Distinguished Talent visa as the Global Talent visa, so the 858 class has carried three names.

The Visas for innovation overview describes the National Innovation visa as an invitation-only permanent visa and sets beside it only the Global Talent Employer Sponsored program.

The Government announced the new National Innovation visa on 11 December 2023 as part of the Migration Strategy, and the 2024-25 Budget then announced its implementation.

Ministerial Direction 120 took effect on 25 July 2026 and sets the order in which Subclass 858 (Class BX) applications are considered, covering National Innovation applications and undecided former Global Talent and Distinguished Talent applications.

Direction 120 revoked Direction 112, which was dated 6 December 2024.