Subclass 191 — Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional)

1. What the Subclass 191 Actually Is

The Subclass 491 is provisional. It gives you five years in regional Australia, and it was never meant to be the destination — it is the bridge. The Subclass 191 is the destination: a permanent visa which, in the words of the regulation, is a “permanent visa permitting the holder to travel to and enter Australia for 5 years from the date of grant” (cl 191.511).

It is deliberately a simpler visa than the one that got you here. By this point the Department is no longer assessing your points, your occupation or your English. It is checking one thing: that you actually did what the 491 required of you.

2. Eligibility — the three tests that matter

a. You held an eligible regional provisional visa, and you complied with it

You must have held a Subclass 491 (or another regional provisional visa named in the regulations) and have complied substantially with its conditions (cll 191.221, 191.231).

In practice this means condition 8579 — live, work and study only in a designated regional area. Substantial non-compliance is fatal to the 191, and it is not curable at application time. This is the single largest avoidable failure on this pathway: people take a job in a capital city “for a few months” and quietly destroy their permanent residence.

b. Three years of residence

The regulation is unambiguous:

“The applicant had been usually resident in Australia for a continuous period of at least 3 years immediately before the date of the application.”
— Migration Regulations 1994, Schedule 2, cl 191.232

“Usually resident” is not the same as “physically present every day”. Ordinary travel — a holiday, a work trip, a family emergency overseas — does not break it. Relocating the centre of your life away from the region does.

c. The income requirement — and why there is no number on this page

Clause 191.222 requires you to provide notices of assessment for 3 relevant income years, and your taxable income in each of those years must be “at least equal to the amount specified in an instrument”.

That amount is set by a separate legislative instrument, not by the regulation itself — and it changes. We will not print a figure here that may be wrong by the time you read it. Check the current amount with the Department of Home Affairs.

Two things worth understanding about this test. It is taxable income, not turnover and not gross salary — it is the figure on your notice of assessment. And it must be met in each of the three years, not on average: one weak year cannot be rescued by two strong ones.

3. What the 191 does not require

• No points test. Your score got you the 491. It is not re-run.
• No new skills assessment.
• No new state nomination. The state nominated you once, for the 491.

This is the most misunderstood part of the regional pathway. People spend their 491 years anxious about a points score that no longer applies to them, and not anxious enough about the two things that actually decide the outcome: staying in the region, and meeting the income requirement in every one of the three years.

4. Charges

The 191 has two streams, and their charges are very different — so the “191 fee” you may have seen quoted elsewhere depends entirely on which one applies to you:

Source: Department of Home Affairs visa pricing. Processing time: DHA does not publish a processing time for this subclass, so we do not state one — check the Department.

5. Where this fits in the pathway

The 191 only exists at the end of a regional provisional visa. If you are earlier in the journey, start with the Subclass 491 guide — the decisions that determine whether you get the 191 are made there, three years before you apply for it.

Source: Migration Regulations 1994, Schedule 2 — in-force compilation No. 287 (compilation date 1 June 2026). Charges: DHA visa pricing.