VETASSESS: the qualification floor and the experience maths that decide your outcome

You trained outside Australia, and now your whole skilled-migration case rests on one check: does VETASSESS accept your qualification and your work history against the occupation you nominate. VETASSESS assesses the widest range of jobs of any single authority: its own professional occupations page says more than 341 professional and other non-trade occupations, plus a separate trade stream of 27 trades. If your job has no specialist assessor, there is a good chance VETASSESS is yours.

This is information about how the assessment works, not visa advice and no promise of any result.

VETASSESS checks two things, and you need both

A VETASSESS skills assessment looks at your qualifications and your employment together. Your qualification is compared against the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) to find its Australian level; your employment is checked for relevance and skill level. Both must pass.

Here is the rule that catches the most people, in VETASSESS’s own words: “Highly relevant employment cannot compensate for lack of qualification at the required educational level for the nominated occupation.” The qualification level is a hard floor you cannot buy back with extra years of work.

The five groups, and the floor each one sets

VETASSESS sorts its professional occupations into Groups A, B, C, D and E by indicative ANZSCO skill level, and the group sets your qualification floor:

• Group A and Group B are ANZSCO skill level 1. They need a qualification comparable to an Australian Bachelor degree or higher (Bachelor, Master or Doctoral).
• Group C and Group E are ANZSCO skill level 2. They need a qualification comparable to an AQF Associate Degree, AQF Advanced Diploma or AQF Diploma.
• Group D is ANZSCO skill level 3. It needs an AQF Certificate III (with additional years of employment) or an AQF Certificate IV.

These criteria apply to every occupation in the group, unless it has its own special criteria (VETASSESS names Diver and Beekeeper), which then take precedence. So check your exact occupation, not just its group.

The experience baseline is the same for every group

Whatever your group, the employment floor is one shape: at least one year of post-qualification paid employment, highly relevant to your nominated occupation, at the appropriate skill level, 20 hours or more per week, in the last five years before the date of your application.

Two details decide real cases. If you hold more than one relevant position at once, VETASSESS lets you combine the hours to reach 20. And the five-year window is firm: “Employment that is outside of the last five years cannot be accepted and will not meet the skills assessment requirements.” Strong work from six years ago does not count here.

How the pathways escalate, by group

The baseline is one year, but your years rise when your degree is not in a highly relevant field. The worked examples show it (each still under the rules above):

Group A, the simplest. Mathematician (224112) is Group A with one pathway only: an AQF Bachelor degree or higher in a highly relevant field, plus at least one year of post-qualification highly relevant employment. No “wrong field” way in.

Group B opens four pathways. Information and Organisation Professionals nec (224999), in group Other Information and Organisation Professionals (2249), needs an AQF Bachelor degree or higher, then steps up by field relevance: a highly relevant field needs at least one year; the next at least two; the next at least three; and no relevant field at all needs at least six years, with a minimum of one year highly relevant.

Group C, a lower floor. Office Manager (512111) is Group C, so the floor is an AQF Diploma or higher. The first two pathways need at least one year; the next at least two; and the field-mismatch pathway at least four years, with at least one year highly relevant.

Group D shows the Certificate trade-off. Diversional Therapist (411311) is Group D. A Certificate IV or higher in a highly relevant field needs at least one year; a Certificate IV in a field that is not highly relevant needs at least two; a Certificate III in a highly relevant field needs at least three. The no-qualifying-field pathway needs at least four years, with at least one year highly relevant.

The FAQ states it generally: in a non-relevant field, Group B adds five years and Groups C and D add three, on top of the baseline one year.

The part most people miss: the Date Deemed Skilled

A suitable outcome is not the finish line for your points. After it, VETASSESS works out, within a ten-year period, the Date Deemed Skilled: the date your qualification and employment first met the criteria together. Only employment after that date counts for points; the years used to reach the criteria are consumed. So a field mismatch onto a longer pathway pushes the Date Deemed Skilled later, and that is points you do not get.

After that date, though, the test widens. For points, VETASSESS counts both highly relevant work and “closely related” work, within the last ten years before you apply. “Closely related” means a career-advancement move, usually a promotion to a more senior role: wider than the qualification stage, which counts highly relevant work only. This advice is an opinion; Home Affairs makes the final call.

If your job is a trade, the rules are different

The trade stream sits apart from the professional groups, with its own experience floors: on Pathway 1, a licensed trade needs six years with no formal training, or four with relevant training; a non-licensed trade needs five years, or three with training. Every pathway also needs at least 12 months in the occupation, full-time or part-time equivalent, in the last three years.

Where you trained changes the first hurdle

The group floor is the same for everyone, but the friction before it differs by country.

China. China is the one source country with an extra mandatory gate. For PR-China qualifications issued after 1981, VETASSESS says: “We cannot conduct your Skills Assessment without first receiving a Chinese Qualifications Verification report from the Center for Student Services and Development (CSSD) in China.” This confirms your award is genuine before any AQF comparison, and VETASSESS is the only Australian authority permitted to liaise with CSSD directly. The common gap here is time and document authenticity, not the qualification level.

India. India is a major source country for VETASSESS, and the usual friction is the qualification-level comparison against the AQF, where the hard floor bites. Australia and India signed a Mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications, but that governs academic admission, not the migration assessment, which still compares level, field and employment. How a specific Indian degree compares depends on the occupation and the qualification, so do not assume a fixed result.

Philippines. Philippine qualifications are assessed against the AQF under the same group criteria. The common gap is again the educational-level comparison of the local bachelor degree, plus the field and last-five-years employment tests. No China-style verification applies.

United Kingdom and Ireland. UK and Irish degrees usually compare cleanly to an AQF Bachelor or higher, so the qualification floor is rarely the blocker. The binding tests are the field and one-year employment rules, with no verification pre-step.

On the lists, in shortage: two separate questions

Being assessable by VETASSESS is not the same as being on a visa occupation list, and neither is the same as being in shortage. List membership is set by Home Affairs. Shortage is a separate, dated read by Jobs and Skills Australia on the Occupation Shortage List; as at 2026-03-21, the current edition is the 2025 list. Check each on its own source.

Which authority is yours?

Your assessing authority is tied to your occupation code: you do not pick VETASSESS, your occupation points to it. So the first step is finding your code. Browse the ANZSCO codes, and each occupation page shows its assessing authority, the lists it sits on, and the source behind every fact. Not sure which code fits? Our CV matcher finds the closest matches from your CV, then get started.

We surface facts; we do not tell you what visa to apply for or whether you will succeed. For advice on your situation, talk to a registered migration agent.