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PR Points Gap Finder
Come up short? Put your current total in and the tool lists every lawful route left to you, ordered by what each one really costs — in dollars per point and in weeks per point, not by what we would prefer you to buy.
Your target
65 gets an EOI into the pool. Real invitation cut-offs in competitive occupations often sit higher.
Which visa are you scoring for?
What have you already claimed?
Tick anything you already hold, so it drops off the list below — there’s no point suggesting something you can’t claim twice.
Ranked by $ per point, the top 2 options below would close a 10-point gap on their own.
Every remaining option, ranked
Costs and timeframes other than the CCL fee and the points values are our estimates, not published figures.
Another qualifying year of skilled employmentcounts toward closing your gap
+5 ptsNo fee — but a full year, and only if it crosses into the next band. Overseas and Australian experience are added together and capped at 20 points combined, so time already banked toward that cap is worth nothing extra.
Retest English to superiorcounts toward closing your gap
+20 ptsThe highest English tier. A meaningful share of fluent, working-professional English speakers do not clear it on a given attempt — cheap on paper per point, but the ceiling is real.
Check the exact score you'd need →Retest English to proficient
+10 ptsAssumes you're currently at competent (0 points). Not available to everyone, and a retake is not guaranteed to land — see the converter for exactly what score you need in each of the four skills.
Check the exact score you'd need →Pass the NAATI CCL
+5 ptsOne sitting, one result. The fee is exact; the 8weeks is our estimate of prep time plus NAATI’s typical 4–6-week wait for the result. You still have to pass — a re-sit is the fee again, in full.
Price in the chance you don't pass first time →Get your partner a positive skills assessment
+5 ptsOnly worth this if your partner already has competent English but no assessment — the step up from that to a full skilled-partner claim.
Complete a professional year in Australia
+5 ptsAt least 12 months, in your nominated or a closely related occupation, within the last 4 years. Course fees only — most people also need to live on something for the year.
Complete a Masters by research or doctorate (STEM)
+10 ptsIncluded for completeness. Nobody should start a PhD for 10 points — three-plus years and tens of thousands of dollars for a points gain that a single CCL sitting can beat outright.
Meet the Australian study requirement
+5 ptsAt least two academic years of study in Australia towards a recognised qualification. This is a multi-year commitment, not a top-up — include it for completeness, not as a quick fix.
How the ranking actually works
Each remaining option is given the same pair of numbers: its estimated cost divided by the points it pays, and its estimated duration divided by the same points. A toggle above the results switches which of the two does the sorting, and the order you see is whatever that division returns — nothing is held at the top by hand. Score a 491 with a nomination available and you will often find the nomination sitting above the CCL on cost, because one modest application fee spread across fifteen points is very cheap indeed.
What no division can capture is control. A nomination has to be granted by a state or territory that has chosen you; it is a decision, not a purchase, and preparing well does not make it certain. Moving up an English tier means clearing a band that a lot of fluent professional speakers never reach, however many times they sit the test. The CCL’s honest claim lives underneath both of those: it is usually the cheapest point available that turns on nothing except how you perform, in a language you already use, in one sitting.
Why stacking beats chasing one big option
People who are ten or fifteen points down tend to hunt for the one thing that fixes it all, fail to find anything affordable, and stop there. In practice the way through is usually two or three smaller options together — a CCL pass alongside a professional year, say, or a CCL pass alongside a partner’s skills assessment. The marker above walks the ranked list from the top and shows which combination first covers your gap, in whatever order the current sort has produced.
If you want the CCL side of that picture in more depth — what it comes to once the possibility of a second attempt is priced in, and how that compares with the other rows here — this explainer goes further than a tool page can, and how the points work across the 189, 190 and 491 covers the nomination question properly.
What this tool will not tell you
It cannot say whether a state will nominate your occupation, whether an assessor will accept your experience as “closely related”, or what your genuine chances are of reaching a higher English band — those belong to an assessing authority, a state government, or an honest conversation with yourself. It also assumes each option is lawfully open to you, and occupation lists, visa conditions and individual eligibility rules can close one off entirely no matter what it would have cost. This is a planning tool, not migration advice, and we are not registered migration agents.
Frequently asked questions
What's the cheapest way to gain PR points?+
That depends on what is actually available to you. Where a state or regional nomination is on the table it often wins on pure dollars per point — but a nomination is granted, not purchased, and no amount of preparation makes one certain. Narrow the question to the things you can set in motion by yourself and the NAATI CCL usually comes out in front: 5 points for a single $814 sitting fee, with nobody else's decision in the way.
Is this tool just trying to sell me the CCL?+
Run it and look at the order. On raw dollars per point or weeks per point, a nomination or an English retest will often sit above the CCL depending on the visa and the toggles you set, and the list shows that rather than quietly reshuffling itself in our favour. The claim we do stand behind is a narrower one: the CCL is the option that rests entirely on your own performance, with no state's discretion and no unusually high English band to clear.
I'm short by more points than any single option gives me — what then?+
Then you stack them. The list covers everything you have not already claimed and marks how far down you would have to go, from the top, to cover your particular shortfall. If adding up every option on the list still leaves you under your target, the tool says that outright instead of hinting that some combination exists.
Why does the tool ask what I've already claimed?+
Because points cannot be banked twice. Recommending a professional year to somebody who has already completed one, or superior English to somebody who already holds it, would be worse than useless. Ticking off what you have takes those rows off the list rather than counting them a second time.
Does 491 or 190 change which options are worth it?+
It does. There is no nomination attached to a 189 at all, so those rows vanish. A 190 brings a state nomination worth 5 points and a 491 a regional nomination worth 15 — but the 491 is a provisional visa with a five-year regional commitment behind it, and the tool flags that as a decision about your life rather than a line in a sum.
Are the costs and timeframes here official?+
The points are. They come from Schedule 6D, the same source the main calculator uses. The dollars and weeks attached to everything except the CCL's published fee are our own estimates and are labelled that way, because none of these routes publishes a single fixed price or duration. Read them as a planning range, never as a quote.
Related tools
Australia PR Points Calculator
Age, English, experience, qualifications, nomination — added up live and checked against the pool minimum.
NAATI CCL Cost Calculator
One sitting fee is the sticker price. This works out what it tends to cost in practice.
Read the detail
- The 5 PR Points Don't Care Which Language Got You There
5 points, same value on the 189, 190 and 491, in any recognised community language — Tamil included. The points system gives you no reason to second-guess sitting the language you already speak.
- NAATI CCL vs PTE: Sometimes the Honest Answer Is Just PTE
5 points, pass/fail, once, versus 0/10/20 by band. Most readers here should do both — but if Tamil interpreting under time pressure genuinely isn't your strength, PTE alone can be the smarter bet. Here's how to tell.
- NAATI CCL Points for the 189, 190 and 491 Visas: Where the 5 Points Actually Sit
The same 5 points behave differently depending on whether you are chasing a 189, a 190 or a 491. Here is where they sit in the points table, and the honest limits of what they buy you.
- Is the NAATI CCL Tamil Test Worth It? The $814 Question, Honestly Answered
The $814 fee, the hours of prep, the value of 5 PR points — and the hidden cost of preparing in textbook Tamil when the exam scores the spoken register instead.
Every tool here is free and ungated — see all of them.
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