Tasmania State Nomination for the 190 Visa: Priority Tiers, Salary Threshold, and the TSE/TSG Pathways

Tasmania operates one of the most structured — and most misunderstood — state nomination programs in Australia. With 1,200 Subclass 190 places for the 2025–26 program year, Tasmania manages its limited quota through a color-coded priority system that ranks applicants by their immediate economic value to the state. Understanding where you sit in that system determines not just whether you'll receive a nomination, but how long you'll wait.

The Two Core Pathways

Tasmanian nominations flow through two distinct pathways for onshore applicants:

Tasmanian Skilled Employment (TSE)

The TSE pathway is for skilled workers already employed in Tasmania.

For occupations on the TSE Priority Occupation List, the minimum employment duration before lodging an ROI is nine months of work in a role closely related to your skills assessment.

For occupations not on the priority list, the threshold increases substantially — applicants must demonstrate 15 months of local employment before the application is eligible.

This distinction matters significantly when planning your timeline. Moving to Tasmania for a role in a non-priority occupation means committing to 15 months of employment before even submitting an ROI, with no guarantee of nomination afterward. Checking whether your specific occupation appears on the TSE Priority List before relocating is not optional — it's a prerequisite to making the Tasmania pathway realistic.

Tasmanian Skilled Graduate (TSG)

The TSG pathway is for international graduates who completed their qualifications in Tasmania.

Requirements:

• Completion of a CRICOS-registered tertiary course of at least 92 weeks in duration
• Minimum two years of physical residency in Tasmania

The 92-week course duration requirement is the strictest graduate threshold of any Australian state. SA requires 46 weeks; many others require shorter periods. This means shorter postgraduate programs (one-year master's degrees, graduate certificates) typically do not qualify. The TSG pathway is primarily designed for students who completed full bachelor's degrees or equivalent multi-year programs in Tasmania.

The Priority Attribute System: Gold, Green, and Orange

Once you establish basic eligibility, Tasmania's ROI process evaluates your application against its priority attribute system. Think of it as a scoring system layered on top of the federal DHA points test.

Gold attributes represent the highest priority and result in rapid processing — typically within days of a program opening round. To access the Gold tier, an applicant must meet all of the following:

• A skills assessment in health, allied health, or teaching
• Currently working in Tasmania in a role directly related to the skills assessment
• Base salary of at least AUD $57,000 per annum, or AUD $28.85 per hour

The $57,000 salary threshold applies to base salary only. Overtime, penalty rates, allowances, and casual loading are excluded from the calculation. A nurse working significant overtime may gross substantially more than $57,000 per year but still not meet the threshold if their base salary falls below it.

Green attributes represent the second tier. Applicants who meet some but not all Gold criteria — for example, health workers earning below $57,000, or priority occupation workers who don't fall into health or teaching — may be eligible for Green designation. Green applicants are processed after Gold allocations are distributed.

Orange attributes cover applicants in non-priority occupations or those who don't meet the salary or employment thresholds for higher tiers. These applications are typically considered only after Gold and Green places are exhausted, and in program years with limited quota, Orange applicants may not receive nominations at all.

Who Tasmania Is Right For

Tasmania makes compelling strategic sense for a specific profile: a health professional, allied health worker, or teacher who is already working in Tasmania (or willing to relocate), earns at or above $57,000 base salary, and has been in their role for at least six months.

For this profile, Tasmania's Gold tier provides one of the fastest nomination-to-application timelines in Australia. There is no extensive waiting period, no points-only competition with hundreds of high-scoring applicants, and the small state's genuine shortage of health and education professionals means the state actively wants to retain qualified workers.

For applicants outside health, allied health, and teaching, Tasmania's priority system makes the pathway substantially harder. Lower tiers face genuine uncertainty about whether quota will remain after Gold and Green allocations are processed.

The 2-Year Residency Commitment in Tasmania

Tasmania's geographic isolation amplifies the usual 190 two-year state commitment in practical terms. Committing to Tasmania means committing to Hobart, Launceston, or regional towns — not Sydney or Melbourne. Applicants should assess genuinely whether the lifestyle, employment market, and career trajectory in Tasmania are acceptable for a two-year period before targeting this state.

That said, Tasmania's cost of living is substantially lower than Sydney or Melbourne, and the state has been growing its technology and creative industries alongside the traditional health and education sectors. The commitment is real, but it's not the hardship that mainland applicants sometimes assume.

If you're a health or education professional currently working in Tasmania or willing to relocate there, the Australia Skilled Nominated Visa (190) Guide covers the complete TSE/TSG eligibility matrices, the Priority Occupation List, and how to position your ROI to maximize your priority tier. For other occupations, the guide maps whether any other state offers a stronger pathway given your specific profile.