You've probably spent time on this already. You found one list on a government page, a different list on a state website, and then someone mentioned DAMA — and suddenly there were more lists, some of them behind a paywall or buried in a regional agreement document that takes twenty minutes to find. By the time you've cross-referenced three sources, you're not sure which list is current, which one applies to your occupation, or whether your occupation even appears on any of them.
That confusion is not your fault. The information genuinely is scattered. This page explains what the main lists are, why they differ, and how to check your occupation across all of them without paying for the privilege.
Why There Are So Many Lists
Australia does not have one occupation list for skilled migration. It has several, maintained by different bodies, updated on different schedules, and serving different visa programs. A name that appears on one list may be absent from another — and that absence changes which visa pathway is open to you.
The main federal lists feed programs like the points-tested General Skilled Migration stream. State and territory governments run their own nomination programs, each with its own occupation list — and those lists differ from the federal ones. Then there are the DAMA regions: thirteen of them across Australia, each operating under a separate labour agreement with the federal government, each carrying occupations that may not appear on any state or federal list at all.
If your occupation is not on the federal list, it may still be on a state list. If it is not on a state list, it may be in a DAMA region. If it is in a DAMA region, the sponsoring employer must be in that region and must be a party to the agreement. These are not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable is one of the most common mistakes people make when researching their options.
The Federal Lists
The federal skilled occupation lists set which occupations are eligible for points-tested visas and employer-sponsored visas at the federal level. Occupations are identified by their ANZSCO code — a standardised classification system used across Australian migration and employment data.
Whether an occupation appears on a given list, and under which stream, determines which visa subclass you can apply for and which skills assessment body you need to approach. The assessing body is not the same for every occupation: a cook, an accountant, and an electrician each go to a different authority, and each authority has its own evidence requirements and processing approach.
The lists are updated by the Department of Home Affairs. When an occupation is added or removed, the change takes effect from the date the instrument is registered — not from when you last checked the page. Checking once and assuming it is still current months later is a real risk.
State and Territory Nomination Lists
Each state and territory runs its own skilled nomination program. Nomination adds points to a points-tested application and, in some streams, is the only way to receive an invitation to apply.
Every state publishes its own occupation list. Some states open and close occupations based on local labour market conditions, sometimes with little notice. An occupation that is open in one state may be closed in another, or may be open but subject to additional requirements — a minimum salary, a local job offer, or a period of residence in that state.
This is where the information starts to fragment. There is no single page that shows you, for your occupation, which states currently have it open, what the additional requirements are in each, and how the state list compares to the federal list. You have to visit each state's migration page separately, and the pages are not formatted consistently.
DAMA: Thirteen Regions, Thirteen Agreements
DAMA stands for Designated Area Migration Agreement. There are thirteen DAMA regions across Australia. Each is a separate labour agreement between a regional authority and the federal government, negotiated to address specific workforce shortages in that area.
DAMA regions can include occupations that do not appear on the standard federal or state lists. They can also offer concessions on the usual requirements — for example, on English language scores or on salary thresholds — though the specific concessions differ by region and by occupation within each region.
To use a DAMA pathway, three things need to align: your occupation must be listed under that specific DAMA agreement; an employer in that region must be willing to sponsor you; and that employer must be an approved DAMA sponsor or be willing to become one. The regional authority facilitates the agreement, but the employer is the one who nominates you.
Because each of the thirteen agreements is negotiated separately, the occupation lists, concession levels, and employer requirements differ across regions. An occupation covered under one DAMA may not be covered under another. A concession available in one region may not exist in a different one. Comparing them requires reading thirteen separate documents — or having a system that has already done that.
Industry Labour Agreements
Beyond DAMA, some industries have their own labour agreements — negotiated between industry bodies and the federal government — that cover occupations and conditions specific to that sector. These sit alongside the DAMA framework rather than within it, and they add another layer to the picture.
Whether an Industry Labour Agreement covers your occupation, and what it requires, depends on the specific agreement. Like DAMA, these are not visible on a single summary page.
Skills Assessment: The Step Before the Visa
For most skilled migration pathways, a skills assessment is required before you can lodge a visa application. The assessing body, the evidence required, and the processing approach are set by the body responsible for your occupation — not by the Department of Home Affairs.
Some occupations have a straightforward assessment pathway. Others require a combination of qualifications and work experience, and the acceptable qualifications are specified by the assessing body, not by the visa rules. If your qualification is not on the assessing body's recognised list, the assessment outcome may not be positive — and that affects every pathway downstream.
The course-to-occupation-to-assessment chain matters. Choosing a course without checking whether it leads to a positive skills assessment for your target occupation is a common and costly mistake. The right question is not just "does this course exist" but "does this course lead to an assessment outcome that opens the pathway I am aiming for."
What the Paywall Problem Actually Costs You
Some of this information is genuinely hard to access. Certain occupation lists and agreement documents are not presented in a reader-friendly format. Some third-party services charge for a compiled view of the lists — which is understandable as a business model, but it means people without the budget to pay are working from incomplete information.
Incomplete information leads to real decisions: choosing a course that does not connect to an assessable occupation, targeting a state that has closed the relevant list, or overlooking a DAMA region where the occupation is available and the employer pool is active. These are not small errors. They affect years of planning.
What We Have Built
We have compiled the complete picture — every federal list, all thirteen DAMA regions, Industry Labour Agreement coverage, and the course-to-occupation-to-assessment mapping — into one system. You do not need to visit thirteen separate agreement pages or cross-reference state lists manually.
The check is free. You tell us your occupation and your situation. We check it against the federal lists, the state lists, all thirteen DAMA regions, and the relevant skills assessment pathway. You get a clear picture of where your occupation sits and which pathways are open to explore — without paying for the information.
This is not migration advice. It is an information check against the official lists. For advice on your personal situation — what to do with that information, how to structure an application, whether a particular pathway fits your circumstances — a registered migration agent (MARA) is the right professional. We can point you to one.
A Note on How Lists Change
Every list on this page — federal, state, DAMA, Industry Labour Agreement — is subject to change. Occupations are added and removed. Concessions are adjusted. State programs open and close. DAMA agreements are renegotiated.
We update our system when the official sources change. But the right habit is to check your occupation against the current lists before making any decision — not once, and not from memory of what you read months ago. The list that was current when you started researching may not be the list that is current when you are ready to act.
The Honest Summary
There is no single government page that shows you, for your occupation, every pathway that is currently open — federal, state, DAMA, and Industry Labour Agreement — alongside the skills assessment requirement and the course that leads to it. That is the gap. It is not a gap anyone created deliberately; it is the result of a system built across multiple agencies, multiple agreements, and multiple update cycles.
We built the consolidated view so you do not have to piece it together yourself. The check is free, it covers all thirteen DAMA regions and the full federal and state picture, and it takes minutes.