Update, 5 August 2026: Migration Tasmania has now published the opening date. The program opens to new ROIs on 17 August 2026, with weekly invitation rounds from 20 August, and the 2026–27 priority attributes have been rebuilt. The withdraw-or-wait analysis below is superseded by the published settings — see Tasmania reopens on 17 August.
On 27 July 2026, Migration Tasmania confirmed its 2026–27 nomination allocation: 2,050 places, split 1,250 for the Skilled Nominated (subclass 190) visa and 800 for the Skilled Work Regional (subclass 491) visa. The program will reopen to new Registrations of Interest “in the coming weeks”. No date has been published.
Three things in that announcement affect live files: where the extra places went, what happens to a pending 491 nomination application, and which ROIs are still sitting in the Gateway.
Where the extra places went
Set the new allocation against what Tasmania delivered in 2025–26. The state nominated its full allocation of 1,200 places for the 190 and 650 for the 491, then closed both the ROI Gateway and the nomination portal.
The 190 is effectively flat: +50 places, up 4.2%. The 491 is up 150 places, or 23.1%. Total program growth of 10.8% is almost entirely regional.
That runs against the federal direction. The 2026–27 Migration Program cut the Regional stream from 33,000 places to 14,110, a fall of 57%, while lifting employer-sponsored and onshore allocations. We covered that shift in the 2026–27 planning levels.
On those figures, Tasmania’s 491 allocation moves from roughly 2% of the national Regional planning level to roughly 6%. Treat that as an indication of relative position rather than a precise share: the Regional planning level also covers subclass 494 and 191 grants, so it is not a pool that state 491 nominations draw down one-for-one.
The practical reading is that in a year when regional pathways tightened nationally, Tasmania’s regional capacity grew in absolute terms. If a client’s regional strategy was built on 2025–26 numbers, Tasmania’s position on that shortlist has changed.
Pending 491 applications cannot be converted
Migration Tasmania has set out the position plainly:
Applications for subclass 491 nomination that have been lodged but not yet decided will not be considered for subclass 190 nomination. If you wish to be considered for subclass 190 nomination you will need to withdraw your current application and register for subclass 190 when the 2026-27 program opens.
For a client sitting on an undecided 491 nomination application who would rather have permanent residence, there is no conversion path. The options are to withdraw and re-register, or to keep the application as lodged.
Both carry weight:
- Keep the pending 491. Migration Tasmania will continue to process lodged applications against the requirements in place at the time of lodgement, and nominate approved applicants in SkillSelect. That is a known ruleset and a position the client already holds. The cost is a provisional visa: regional living and work conditions, then a 191 down the track.
- Withdraw and re-register for the 190. The client gives up a lodged application assessed under settings that are already published, and re-enters as a new ROI under 2026–27 settings that have not been released. Migration Tasmania states that a new 190 invitation “will depend upon the level of interest and the number of pro-rata places available at the time”.
The difficulty is sequencing. Withdrawal is most attractive before the opening rush, but the guidelines that show whether the client remains competitive arrive at the opening itself. A withdrawal recommended today is made without sight of the settings it will be judged against, and Migration Tasmania has advised reading the 2026–27 settings for changes rather than assuming continuity.
For most files the defensible position is to hold until the 2026–27 guidelines are published, then reassess in the first days of the program. The exception is a client whose 190 case is strong under any plausible settings and for whom a 491 approval would produce a worse practical outcome than a short delay.
Two dates to audit your caseload against
The six-month ROI hold. ROIs not invited before the program closed are held in the Application Gateway for six months and considered for an invitation when the 2026–27 program opens. A live ROI from earlier this year may still be in the queue; one submitted late in 2025 has likely aged out. That is a two-column audit worth running now: which client ROIs remain inside the window at the likely reopening date, and which need resubmitting from scratch.
The maintenance window. Migration Tasmania closed both the ROI Gateway and the nomination application portal to carry out maintenance, and has stated it has no projected timeframe for reopening them. Read alongside “coming weeks”, that places the opening date behind a system rebuild rather than a policy decision. It is the reason no firm date can be given to clients, and it is worth saying so directly when a client asks whether to wait for Tasmania.
One piece of housekeeping will show up in your files in the meantime: Migration Tasmania is using the HA EOI Not Confirmed status internally as a placeholder for applications it has processed but not yet communicated an outcome for. That status does not indicate a refusal.
What this means for your practice
Three things to do before the opening is announced:
- Flag every pending Tasmanian 491 nomination and record whether the client’s actual objective is permanent residence. That list becomes your first-week work queue once the guidelines land, not a decision to make today.
- Date-check every uninvited ROI against the six-month hold, so you know which clients need to resubmit and which do not.
- Reassess the regional shortlist. With the national Regional stream down 57% and Tasmania’s 491 up 23%, the relative ranking of state options has shifted for any client whose plan predates May.
None of that is difficult work. It is difficult to do quickly if the answer to “which clients have a pending Tasmanian 491, and when did each ROI go in?” is spread across an inbox, a spreadsheet and someone’s memory. When occupation, state, lodgement date and visa objective sit on the same client record, it becomes a filter you run in a minute. Keeping the caseload in one workspace is what turns an announcement like this into a morning’s work.
This is general information, not migration or legal advice. Details and dates were accurate at publication and can change — always confirm against the primary source before relying on them. Questions about a specific ROI or nomination application go to Migration Tasmania at skilled@migration.tas.gov.au.
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