Subclass 190 Skills Assessment 2026: 3-Year Validity and the Thapa Rule
How the 3-year skills assessment rule and the Thapa 60-day concession apply to a Subclass 190 invitation, and what happens if yours lapses.
Yes — for the Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190), your skills assessment has to be in force at the time you are invited, and per the Department of Home Affairs "Skilled Nominated visa (Subclass 190)" page (as at the July 2026 official page), it must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation. There is one important qualification, and it comes from a court decision rather than from the regulations: following Thapa v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2021] FCCA 686, delegates will also accept a suitable assessment that was obtained during the 60-day invitation period itself. Everything below is general information about published criteria, not advice on any individual case, and the criteria that apply to you are the ones on the Department's current page at the time you are invited.
Does the assessment have to be valid when I'm invited, or when I lodge?
Both, in practice, but the invitation date is the one the criterion is written around. The Department's page states that for your application to be valid, you must declare that you have a suitable skills assessment at the time of invitation, and you must provide a copy of that assessment with your application. The same page then records the change of approach following Thapa: delegates "will now accept a suitable skills assessment for an applicant's nominated skilled occupation which has been obtained within the 60 day invitation period".
So the working rule is: the assessment must be suitable for your nominated skilled occupation, and it must exist either before the invitation or within the 60 calendar days that follow it. Once you are invited, the Department's step-by-step page is explicit that you have 60 calendar days to apply and that "we cannot extend this time". That makes the 60-day window a hard outer boundary, not a flexible one.
How is the 3-year validity actually measured?
The official wording is that your skills assessment "must have been obtained in the 3 years before the date of your invitation", and that if the assessment was for a shorter period, that shorter period must not have passed. Two consequences follow:
- The clock is tied to the invitation date, not to the date you submitted your EOI and not to the date you lodge the visa application.
- If your assessing authority issued the assessment with its own shorter expiry, that expiry governs you, and it must not have passed.
PAM3 frames the same point as three years from the date the assessment letter was issued unless a shorter period is stated. Because that point comes from PAM3 rather than the official visa page, treat the official wording above as controlling and confirm any detail you rely on against the Department's current publication.
What did Thapa change, and what did it leave alone?
Thapa is a 2021 decision of the Federal Circuit Court (as it then was): Thapa v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2021] FCCA 686. The Department's response, stated on both the eligibility and step-by-step pages, is administrative: delegates accept a suitable assessment obtained inside the 60-day invitation period.
It did not remove the 3-year rule. The assessment still has to be suitable for the nominated occupation and still has to be current in the sense the regulations require; Thapa relaxes the timing question by letting the assessment be obtained after the invitation rather than strictly before it.
One caveat is worth reading in the Department's own words. The page states that the Minister "will administer the Migration Regulations 1994 in accordance with the decision in Thapa, but the Minister reserves the right to make submissions in a Court that Thapa was wrongly decided." In plain terms: this is the current administrative approach, and the Department has not conceded the legal point. Plan on the basis of the published approach while keeping your assessment as early and as clean as you can.
What happens if my assessment expires while my EOI is sitting in SkillSelect?
This is the scenario most readers are actually in, and the answer depends entirely on where you are in the sequence.
| Situation | Where the assessment sits | Result under the published approach |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment in hand, obtained within 3 years before the invitation date | Valid at invitation | Criterion met at invitation |
| Assessment expires after the EOI but before the invitation | Not valid at invitation | Criterion not met at invitation, but an assessment obtained inside the 60-day invitation period is accepted under the Thapa approach |
| No assessment at all when invited, obtained on day 20 of the invitation window | Obtained within the 60-day period | Accepted under the Thapa approach |
| Still no assessment when day 60 arrives | Outside the invitation period | The 60 days cannot be extended; the validity requirement is not satisfied |
The practical reading: an expiring assessment is not automatically fatal, but it does put you in the position of needing a fresh assessment to land inside a 60-day window that the Department will not extend. That is a narrow margin for something that depends on an assessing authority's turnaround.
Assume an applicant holds an assessment due to expire in March, submits an EOI in January, and is invited in June with nothing renewed. At the June invitation date the old assessment has passed its shorter stated period, so the criterion is not met at that moment. It becomes met only if a suitable assessment for the nominated occupation is issued before the 60 days run out.
Does it have to be the "right kind" of assessment?
The official page's requirement is a "suitable skills assessment" for your nominated skilled occupation, and your occupation must be on the relevant list of eligible skilled occupations for the 190 visa. It does not, on its face, spell out the distinction between a full assessment and a provisional one.
PAM3 is more specific: it states that the assessment must be a full assessment for permanent migration purposes rather than a provisional or 485-style assessment, and that it must come from the assessing authority relevant to the nominated occupation. Because that distinction appears only in PAM3, verify it with your assessing authority and against the Department's current guidance before relying on it.
There is one related rule that is on the official page: if your skills were assessed on the basis of a qualification you obtained in Australia while holding a student visa, that qualification must come from a course registered on CRICOS.
Do doctors and lawyers need an assessment letter?
No, not in the usual sense. The Department accepts the following as proof of a skills assessment for medical and legal practitioners:
- full, unconditional or general medical registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA);
- conditional specialist registration with AHPRA, where it allows you to practise only in your specialty with no further training or supervision;
- admission to practise law in the relevant state or territory.
The step-by-step page adds the timing element for these two groups: you must be registered, or admitted to practise, at the time the Department invites you to apply.
Where does this sit alongside the other invitation-time criteria?
The skills assessment is one of several requirements that the 190 visa tests at the moment of invitation rather than at lodgement. On the same official page, you must be under 45 when invited (though turning 45 after the invitation does not stop you applying), you must have at least competent English at the time of invitation, and your invitation will state the points score you must meet, with 65 points the indicative threshold for being invited at all. A state or territory government agency must also nominate you, and the page notes that each agency sets its own nomination criteria.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a valid skills assessment before I submit my EOI?
The Department's criterion is framed around the time of invitation, not the time you submit an EOI. The step-by-step page also notes that an EOI is not a visa application and that there is no fee for submitting one. That said, each state and territory agency sets its own nomination criteria, so their timing expectations can differ from the visa criterion.
If my assessment expires before I'm invited, is my EOI dead?
Not automatically. The criterion is not met at the invitation date if no valid assessment exists then, but delegates accept a suitable assessment obtained within the 60-day invitation period following Thapa. The risk is timing: the Department states that the 60 calendar days cannot be extended.
Can I get more than 60 days to obtain the assessment?
No. The step-by-step page states that once invited you have 60 calendar days to apply for the visa and that the Department cannot extend this time. The Thapa concession operates inside that same 60-day window.
Does the Thapa approach mean the 3-year rule no longer applies?
No. The 3-year requirement is still expressed on the official page as the assessment having been obtained in the 3 years before the date of invitation, with any shorter stated period also having to be unexpired. Thapa affects when the assessment may be obtained relative to the invitation, not whether it must be current.
My assessment is for a different occupation than the one I want to nominate. Is that enough?
No. The official page requires a suitable skills assessment for your nominated skilled occupation, and your occupation must appear on the relevant skilled occupation list for the 190 visa. The Thapa wording repeats the same "nominated skilled occupation" limitation.
Is a provisional or 485-style assessment acceptable for a 190 application?
The official page says "suitable skills assessment" without defining the distinction. PAM3 states that a full assessment for permanent migration purposes is required rather than a provisional or 485 assessment, but because that requirement comes from PAM3 rather than the official visa page, confirm it against the Department's current guidance and your assessing authority.