Australia's VETASSESS Skills Assessment Fees Rise Today, Affecting Most Skilled Migration Applicants

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Fees for one of the most common steps in Australia's skilled migration process went up today, with VETASSESS confirming that its Professional Skills Assessment charges have increased in line with inflation, effective from September 9.

For anyone who hasn't gone through the process, VETASSESS is the body the Australian government designates to assess whether a person's qualifications and work experience meet the standard required for their nominated occupation, for occupations outside the trades.

It's often one of the earliest and most consequential steps in a skilled migration application, well before a visa is ever lodged, because a positive assessment is usually required to support pathways like the Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189), Skilled Nominated (subclass 190), Skilled Work Regional (subclass 491), employer-sponsored routes, and Designated Area Migration Agreements.

Quick facts

• Effective date: 9 September 2026
• Applies to: Professional (non-trade) Skills Assessments
• Does not apply to: Trade occupation assessments
• Applications submitted before today keep the old fees

The increase touches a fairly wide slice of what VETASSESS charges for, from the standard assessment through to review and appeal fees. Figures below are in Australian dollars and exclude GST, per VETASSESS's published schedule.

Service	Current Fee	New Fee
Full Skills Assessment (incl. DAMA/ILA)	$1,096	$1,146
Priority Processing (supplementary)	$825	$863
Points Test Advice (non-VETASSESS occupations)	$311	$325
Post-485 Assessment	$852	$891
Post-Vocational Education Work Visa (Subclass 485)	$416	$436

Trade occupation assessments are not part of this change and remain at their existing fees.

The timing detail that matters most for anyone mid-process: VETASSESS has confirmed that applications received before today are still charged under the old fee schedule, while anything submitted from today onward falls under the new one. For applicants who were sitting on a completed application waiting to press submit, that window has now closed.

It's a modest increase in dollar terms, somewhere in the range of $12 to $50 depending on the service, but it fits a pattern seen elsewhere in Australia's migration system this year, where visa application charges and skills assessment costs have both been adjusted upward for inflation rather than held flat. For people already juggling visa fees, English testing costs, and migration agent charges, every additional line item adds up, and it's a reminder that the cost of migrating rarely stays fixed for long, even for the steps that feel more administrative than political.

If you're partway through a skilled migration application right now, how much has the shifting cost of each stage, visa fees, assessments, testing, changed your overall budget or timeline? Let us know in the comments.

Sources: VETASSESS, "Change in Assessment Fees for Professional Skills Assessments", official notice; McKkr's Migration News, "VETASSESS Announces Fee Increase from September 2026".