Tasmania 491 Visa: Nomination Requirements and the Gold-Green-Orange Tier System

Tasmania runs the most complex scoring system of any state for 491 nominations. Rather than a simple occupation list or a points threshold, Migration Tasmania uses a tiered prioritization framework — Gold, Green, and Orange-plus — to rank applicants and determine how quickly they receive invitations. Understanding which tier you fall into is the first step in deciding whether Tasmania is a viable target state for your application.

The entire state of Tasmania qualifies as a designated regional area for the 491 visa. Hobart — the state capital, with a functioning deep-water port, an expanding creative and technology sector, and a university — is classified as Category 2 regional. Outside of Hobart, the rest of Tasmania is Category 3, which carries a slightly different set of study-related benefits for international graduates but the same geographic compliance rules.

The Three Tiers: What They Mean

Gold pass is the fastest track. It is reserved for two categories of applicant:

The first is onshore candidates who are already working in Tasmania in a critical occupation — specifically health and allied health professions, and teaching — earning a minimum base rate of $28.85 per hour or an annualized salary of $57,000. They must have been working in this directly related role for at least three to six months before applying.

The second is all overseas applicants selected for a Registration of Interest. Offshore applicants automatically receive a Gold pass status when they are selected, regardless of occupation or income — though they still need to meet the underlying occupation and experience requirements.

Gold pass applicants are prioritized at the top of each invitation round and typically receive nominations significantly faster than other applicants in the same round.

Green pass applies to candidates who have been working in Tasmania in their assessed occupation for up to two years and also meet the $57,000 annual income benchmark. Green pass applicants are invited after Gold pass applicants in each round.

Orange-plus is the lowest priority tier. Migration Tasmania uses income as a direct proxy for skill level. A salary at or near the National Minimum Wage — regardless of job title — is treated as inconsistent with a genuine skilled role and places the applicant in the lowest invitation priority bracket. If your salary is low, Tasmania will interpret that as evidence your role does not meet the skilled threshold, and your application will be deprioritized accordingly.

The Practical Message on Income

The income threshold in Tasmania's system is different from what used to apply to the subclass 191 PR transition. Tasmania uses salary to validate whether your employment genuinely qualifies as skilled under the ANZSCO framework — it is not a visa compliance condition imposed after grant, but a nomination assessment tool.

This creates a specific challenge for applicants whose occupations technically appear on the Tasmanian occupation list but who are employed in junior or trainee-level positions at lower wage rates. Being formally employed as a nurse or teacher but earning $40,000 per year because you are in an entry-level or part-time role may result in a Green or Orange-plus tier ranking, slowing or preventing nomination.

If you are targeting Tasmania, understanding where your salary sits relative to the $57,000 threshold before submitting an ROI is important. If you are below threshold and in a critical occupation, consider whether increasing your hours or moving to a different employer with a higher pay scale would improve your tier before you apply.

The Graduate Pathway

Tasmania operates a separate pathway for recent graduates alongside the standard employment stream. The Tasmanian Skilled Graduate (TSG) pathway is designed for people who completed their qualifications in Tasmania and want to remain there after graduation.

Graduate stream applicants are assessed differently from workers, with the qualifying criteria focused on study completion at a Tasmanian institution and the relatedness of the qualification to the nominated occupation, rather than the salary-based tier system used for employed applicants.

What Hobart Looks Like as a Destination

Hobart is the smallest capital city in Australia by population, with approximately 250,000 residents. Its size is both its limitation and its advantage: the job market in most occupations is smaller than in Perth, Adelaide, or Canberra, but so is the cost of living relative to most other capital cities.

Living costs in Hobart sit approximately 25% lower than in Sydney on a comparable standard of living. Housing, while no longer as cheap as it was a decade ago due to sustained internal migration from the mainland, remains significantly more accessible than Melbourne or Sydney.

Hobart's economy is built around government, healthcare, education, tourism, and a growing arts and technology sector anchored around the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) precinct. For health workers, teachers, and allied health professionals — the exact categories Tasmania prioritizes most heavily for Gold pass status — the local job market has consistent demand.

School Fees: The Tasmanian Exception

Tasmania is the one state in Australia that charges partial school fees for 491 visa holders' dependents. The standard public school tuition fee runs around $7,600 per year, and Tasmania provides a 50% discount for 491 holders, leaving approximately $3,800 per child per year in out-of-pocket tuition costs.

This is an important financial consideration for families with multiple school-age children. For a family of two children spending three years in Tasmania before PR, the total school fee cost would be approximately $22,800 — a non-trivial amount. In comparison, Queensland, WA, SA, Victoria, and the NT all exempt 491 visa holders' children from public school tuition entirely.

If children's education is a significant factor in your state selection, this Tasmanian fee structure deserves weight in your decision alongside the nomination competitiveness factors.

Nomination Fees

Tasmania charges an assessment fee of AUD $396 including GST for the state nomination application. This is separate from the federal visa application charge of AUD $4,910 for the primary applicant. Tasmania's fee is higher than WA's $200 nomination processing fee, but lower than the cost of nominee medical examinations and other mandatory ancillary expenses.

After Three Years: The 191 Transition

Three years of living and working in any part of Tasmania — including Hobart — satisfies the geographic compliance requirement for the subclass 191 permanent residency application. The territory qualifies under the standard designated regional area framework.

As with all 491 holders, you need three ATO Notices of Assessment covering separate income years during the visa period, along with documented continuous regional residence. The minimum income requirement for the 191 has been abolished — your actual earnings on those tax returns do not affect the PR outcome.

Visa condition 8111 applies during the Tasmania residency period: your employer must be physically located in a valid Tasmanian postcode. Virtual offices and remote work arrangements for mainland employers do not satisfy the condition, even if you are physically present in Tasmania.

For the full Tasmanian tier scoring breakdown, the current state occupation list, and the Gold pass fast-track conditions, see the Australia Skilled Work Regional Visa (491) Guide.