How to find your ANZSCO code (and why the number matters)

Your job has a number. In Australia and New Zealand, that number is your ANZSCO code, and it decides more than you would expect: which occupation lists you appear on, which skills assessment you need, and which visa pathways are even open to you. Get the number right and the rest lines up. Get it wrong and you can waste months on the wrong path.

Here is how to find yours.

Find your code in four steps

1. Start with what you actually do, not your job title. Titles are loose. Codes are not. A Cook (351411) and a Chef (351311) sound similar, but they are two different ANZSCO occupations with two different codes, and two different answers on the lists. Describe the real work first.
2. Search the occupation on anzscofinder. Type the work, the title, or a keyword. You will see the matching 6-digit codes, with the official occupation names, and you can move up to the group they belong to.
3. Read the code and its skill level. Every ANZSCO occupation has a skill level from 1 (highest) to 5. The level tells you the kind of qualification or experience the occupation usually expects.
4. Confirm on the official source, then keep the link. Click through to the government page for your occupation and save it. When a number matters this much, you want the source, not someone’s summary.

Why the number matters

The code is the key the whole system turns on. Occupation lists are written in codes, not job titles. So is your skills assessment, and so are the rules for each visa. If you tell an assessor or a system the wrong code, you are answering a different question than the one you meant to ask.

This is exactly why we built anzscofinder. The lists are public, but they are spread across many sites and written in code, not plain language. Finding your own code should not take a law degree.

One change worth knowing about

Australia is moving to a new occupation classification called OSCA, the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 6 December 2024. In the ABS’s own words, OSCA replaces ANZSCO for use in Australia. For now, skilled migration still runs on ANZSCO, so the ANZSCO code is still the one most migration pages use. We link both the ANZSCO and the OSCA sources so you can see where your occupation sits in each.

Where to go next

Once you have your code, you can check which lists it is on and which pathways use it. For whether that code makes you eligible for a particular visa, that is a question for a registered migration agent, not a finder. We will show you the code and the source. The advice is theirs to give.