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EOI Insights
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Monthly movement

What changed in the EOI pool: August 2026

The subclass 189 submitted pool rose by 5,401 EOIs in the month to August 2026, to 180,651. This page sets out what moved in the latest SkillSelect release — the pool as a whole, the occupations that gained and lost most, and where the nominated pool is pointed — and it is rewritten every time new figures are published.

Key terms. SkillSelect is the Australian government’s online system for skilled migration. An Expression of Interest (EOI) is the form you lodge in it, and it is not a visa application. An EOI counted as submitted was still sitting in the pool when the monthly snapshot was taken; one counted as invited was holding an invitation at that moment. ANZSCO is the occupation-code list SkillSelect uses. Every figure on this site counts EOIs rather than people, because one person can lodge more than one.

Not migration advice. Visa eligibility, nomination criteria, occupation lists and the points test all change, and only the Department of Home Affairs can tell you where you stand. The Cyclopedia explains how these subjects appear in the SkillSelect EOI statistics the government publishes, and links into the EOI Insights dashboard so you can check the figures for yourself.

What moved in August 2026

180,651EOIs in the 189 pool+5,401 on the month · +29.4% on the yearSee it month by month 414,019EOIs in the 190 pool+23.4% on the yearSee it month by month 75Median score in the 189 pool54.3% of submitted EOIs sit at or above itPlace your score in the laddersign in 85Occupations with full published data26 months of record, to August 2026Rank them in the dashboard

The subclass 189 submitted pool rose by 5,401 EOIs in the month to August 2026, to 180,651. Between July 2026 and August 2026 that is a change of +5,401; against the same month a year earlier the pool is +29.4%, or +40,992 EOIs.

The subclass 190 pool is counted separately and stood at 414,019 in the same snapshot. The two are never added together: one EOI can appear in both, because a person may lodge for more than one subclass.

Biggest movements this month

Measured as the change in submitted 189 EOIs between the two most recent snapshots, for occupations holding at least 300 EOIs. Small pools are excluded because a dozen lodgements moves them further, in percentage terms, than anything happening to a large one.

Grew most

Shrank most

See net monthly change for any occupationMonthly Flows draws the same up-and-down bars for whichever occupations you pick.

Biggest movements over twelve months

The same measurement against the snapshot a year earlier. Twelve months is the span that survives a single busy invitation round, so this is the list to read if you want the direction rather than the news.

Rising fastest

Falling fastest

Rank the whole stream by momentumsign inMomentum is this list for every occupation at once, over 3, 6 or 12 months.

Where the 190 pool is aimed

Every subclass 190 EOI names the jurisdiction it wants nomination from, so the pool splits cleanly by state and territory. Subclass 189 has no such field.

Jurisdiction190 submitted EOIsShare
New South Wales96,80921.4%
Victoria87,79619.4%
Western Australia86,35319.1%
South Australia60,81013.4%
Queensland43,1619.5%
Australian Capital Territory34,7417.7%
Tasmania23,0605.1%
Northern Territory20,3544.5%

Open State Mix in the dashboardsign inState Mix follows these shares month by month, and splits them by occupation as well.

In the dashboard

This page is one month against the last. The dashboard holds every month at once, so you can see whether a movement is a step or a trend.

Example snapshot, not live counts. Use the buttons above for the current submitted pool.
Open Occupation Trends for 189 and Accountant (General) How to read Occupation Trends

The guest trial covers subclasses 189 and 190 plus five occupations. Opening 491 asks you to sign in.

Every published month

The whole record we hold for the subclass 189 submitted pool, newest first. Rows are linkable, so a specific month can be cited directly.

Month189 submittedChange on the month
August 2026180,651+5,401
July 2026175,250+3,042
June 2026172,208−8,234
May 2026180,442+828
April 2026179,614+4,195
March 2026175,419+3,761
February 2026171,658+4,815
January 2026166,843+6,991
December 2025159,852+3,410
November 2025156,442−314
October 2025156,756+9,993
September 2025146,763+7,104
August 2025139,659+2,530
July 2025137,129+7,780
June 2025129,349+6,343
May 2025123,006+7,726
April 2025115,280+8,112
March 2025107,168+8,655
February 202598,513+8,237
January 202590,276+13,203
December 202477,073+8,899
November 202468,174+4,881
October 202463,293+11,188
September 202452,105+11,215
August 202440,890+21,778
July 202419,112—

See which occupations make up that totalTop Occupations breaks any month in this table into the largest pools behind it.

Method and sources

Every figure comes from the Expression of Interest tables the Department of Home Affairs publishes for SkillSelect. Nothing is modelled, smoothed or forecast: a change here is the difference between two published snapshots. Counts under 20 are suppressed at source, so occupations whose totals fall below that threshold in any month are left out of the movement lists entirely rather than shown with a gap.

The page is rewritten with every SkillSelect release. It currently reflects August 2026. A machine-readable version of the same movement is at whats-changed.json, and the monthly summaries are also published as an RSS feed.

Common questions

Did the EOI pool go up or down in August 2026?

The subclass 189 submitted pool rose by 5,401 EOIs, ending the month at 180,651. Over twelve months it is +29.4%.

Which occupations moved most this month?

The largest movements in the latest release are listed above, measured as the change in submitted 189 EOIs between consecutive snapshots for occupations holding at least 300 EOIs.

Does a falling pool mean invitations went up?

Not on its own. A snapshot falls when invitations, withdrawals and two-year expiries together clear more EOIs than arrive, and the published tables do not separate those three. Invitation round results are announced separately.