What is the Australian Migration Program?

The migration program is the mechanism by which the Australian Government determines how many applicants it will allow to settle permanently in Australia in any given year - and is sub-divided into two programs: the Migration Program and the Humanitarian Program.

The Migration program is further divided into family, skilled and special eligibility migration. The Humanitarian Program also has further categories such as refugees, special humanitarian migrants and special assistance.

The largest component of the migration program is the family reunion stream, where preference is given to a spouse, child, adoption, parent and preferential family. There is also a residual class — the Skilled-Australian-sponsored class — whose numbers may be controlled by the operation of a ‘pool’ of potential applicants who may be processed to meet the targets set for the migration program in any particular year.