Methodology & data sources

Every number on this site comes from one of two places: official SkillSelect data published by the Department of Home Affairs, or timelines reported by Skilled Visa Tracker app users. This page says which is which, how each figure is calculated, and where the numbers stop being reliable. Skilled Visa Tracker is not affiliated with any government entity; the official source for everything is immi.homeaffairs.gov.au.

1. SkillSelect EOI snapshots (official)

The Department publishes an EOI data dashboard showing, for every month, how many expressions of interest are in the SkillSelect pool by visa subclass, occupation (ANZSCO code), points score, nominated state and status (SUBMITTED, INVITED, and so on). We ingest the SUBMITTED and INVITED rows for subclasses 189, 190 and 491 into a table of monthly snapshots.

Cadence

The Department updates the dashboard roughly monthly, usually a few weeks after month end. We run our collector when a new month appears; it re-reads the most recent six months and replaces each month wholesale, so late corrections by the Department flow through. Every data page shows the snapshot month it is built from and an “Updated” date that is the day of the last successful ingestion.

What the snapshot numbers mean

EOIs waiting / in pool is the count of SUBMITTED EOIs for that occupation, subclass and (where shown) state in the snapshot month. Invited is the count of EOIs with status INVITED in the same snapshot — EOIs holding a live invitation, not the number of invitations issued that month. Invited down to N points is the lowest points score with at least one INVITED EOI for that occupation in the snapshot; it is a floor observed in the data, not a published cut-off. Pool movement is this month’s SUBMITTED count minus last month’s.

Masking

The Department’s dashboard masks cells with fewer than 20 EOIs as “<20”. We ingest the unmasked measure, store real counts and mirror the convention in charts (bars under 20 show “<20”) while totals and the key-facts sentences use the real aggregate.

2. Invitation rounds (official)

Round dates, invitation counts and minimum points per subclass are entered by us from the Department’s invitation rounds page as each round is published. They are shown as published; we do not estimate rounds.

3. Community timelines (self-reported)

How they are collected

App users add their own timeline: subclass, occupation, points, nominated state, lodgement location and dated milestones (EOI submitted, invited, lodged, medicals, case-officer contact, granted). Timelines added in the app appear in the community feed and in these statistics without any identifying details. Some historical timelines were collected from public Reddit and Facebook posts in which applicants shared their own dated milestones; each one is labelled with its source and is only published after an admin has checked it against the original post.

Validation

A grant only counts towards wait-time statistics when the timeline has both a lodgement date and a grant date and the grant is not before the lodgement. Anyone can report a timeline from the app or the community feed; reports are reviewed and a timeline that is implausible, duplicated or abusive is hidden from every listing and statistic. We cannot verify a timeline against the Department, so treat every community figure as self-reported.

Anonymisation

No names, email addresses or user ids are published. A timeline on the web shows subclass, occupation, state, points, lodgement location, the MD-122 queue and milestone dates only. Wait times are reported in days and medians, never tied to a profile.

4. How each figure is calculated

Queue position

For a points score P in a pool (subclass, optionally occupation and state), queue position is the sum of SUBMITTED EOIs with a points score of P or higher in the latest snapshot. “Top X%” is that sum divided by the total SUBMITTED EOIs in the pool. It counts EOIs, not people, and ignores date of effect within a score.

Invite rate

Invite rate on an occupation page is INVITED ÷ SUBMITTED for that occupation across the three subclasses in the latest snapshot, expressed per snapshot. It is only shown when at least 20 EOIs were invited, so a single invitation never produces a misleading percentage.

Processing days and percentiles

Wait time for a grant is the number of days from the lodgement milestone to the grant milestone. The 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles are computed over every listed grant for the subclass by sorting the waits and interpolating linearly between the two nearest ranks; “median” elsewhere is the middle value of the sorted waits. Journey medians (medicals, case-officer contact) are days from lodgement to that milestone over timelines that recorded it. Per-state and per-queue medians use the same wait definition on the filtered cohort. Days are shown as months of 30 days (for example 4m 12d = 132 days).

Points calculator

The SkillSelect and Victorian Points Test calculators apply the published points tables for the current program year. They are estimates; the official score is whatever SkillSelect and the nominating state assess from your evidence.

5. Known limitations

EOIs are not people. One applicant can lodge several EOIs (different subclasses or states), so pool sizes overstate the number of competing applicants and queue position is a ceiling, not a count of people ahead of you.

Multi-state EOIs. A 190 or 491 EOI can nominate “any state” or be counted under each nominated state; per-state totals therefore do not add up to the subclass total, and a busy state column partly reflects applicants hedging across states.

Snapshots lag. A snapshot describes the end of its month and is published weeks later; invitations issued since are not in it.

Self-selection in community data. People who share timelines are more likely to be engaged applicants with recent grants; small cohorts (fewer than 20 cases) are labelled as indicative and should not be read as processing standards. The Department’s own global processing times remain the official benchmark.

Not advice. Nothing here accounts for your individual circumstances. Use a registered migration agent or lawyer for advice.

6. Update schedule

SkillSelect snapshots: ingested as soon as we see the Department has published a new month; pages rebuild within minutes of a successful ingestion and otherwise every 12 hours. Invitation rounds: entered when the Department publishes them; the home and EOI pages rebuild immediately. Community grants and processing times: pages rebuild at least hourly (grants feeds) or every 6 hours (processing-time pages). The visible “Updated” date on a page is the date its data last changed.

Questions about any figure? See how to get in touch.