Will NAATI CCL Points Be Removed in July 2027?

The information in this article is accurate as of 29 August 2026. Immigration policy and NAATI fees change — please check immi.homeaffairs.gov.au and naati.com.au for the latest details. We will update this article when the Department of Home Affairs publishes more.

A NAATI CCL pass still earns 5 points on the skilled-migration points test for the subclass 189, 190 and 491 visas, and nothing official has been announced about removing them. What has been announced, in the May 2026 Budget, is a reform of the points test itself, with no design and no start date. Migration agencies expect the new test from 1 July 2027 and expect the community language points to go with it. Our read is that they are probably right. If so, the CCL result you can earn in the next few months may be the last one that carries 5 points, and the earlier it sits in your EOI, the better its chance of being counted.

If you'd rather watch than read, here's the short version in seven minutes:

What has been officially announced about the points test?

One paragraph. Budget Paper No. 2 for 2026–27, under a Home Affairs measure titled "Boosting Productivity – better selecting migrants and recognising their skills", says the government "will reform the permanent migration points test to better identify migrants who drive productivity and Australia's long-term prosperity", and that the test "will be optimised to select better educated, higher-skilled and younger migrants overall". The same one-line commitment appears in Budget Paper No. 1, the Budget overview and the Treasurer's media release. The Budget speech didn't mention the points test at all.

That is the whole announcement. There is no design, no draft table, no list of categories to be cut, no consultation timetable and no start date. Law firms writing that week said so; Baker McKenzie's Budget-day note read "specific changes to the points test have not yet been announced", and the ABC's pre-Budget report said the details were "unclear and will be subject to consultation". The government describes the test as not substantially changed since 2012, though the pass mark rose from 60 to 65 in July 2018 and points were added in November 2019.

The paper trail is longer than the announcement. The December 2023 Migration Strategy listed "explore a reformed points test" as an area for future reform. Home Affairs released a discussion paper on 24 April 2024: sixteen pages, six open questions, submissions closed on 24 May 2024, 204 received. Since Budget night nothing official has been added. Home Affairs' review of the points test page still describes only the 2024 consultation, the department's "Engage us – Consultations" page (updated 28 August 2026) lists no points-test consultation, and the migration package expected in September is reported to be about student, visitor, secondary and working-holiday visas and the humanitarian intake.

Meanwhile the current table is in force. The Home Affairs points tables for the subclass 189 (last updated 11 June 2026), 190 and 491 (both 16 July 2026) each carry the same row: hold a recognised qualification in a credentialled community language, 5 points. The 65-point floor is unchanged. On the NAATI side the test is as it was: AUD $814 including GST under the 2026–27 fee schedule, a pass at 63 out of 90 with at least 29 on each dialogue, and a credential valid for five years from issue. One rule matters for everything below: almost every item on the points test, the community language points included, is assessed against your circumstances at the time of invitation.

What do migration agencies and commentators expect?

Agencies have filled the gap the government left. Their forecasts overlap without agreeing on every point, none of them is official, and the table says where each comes from.

The expert case for removal is real and easy to find. The Migration Strategy says the current test "includes factors which are likely to be poor predictors of success in the labour market, such as regional study or community language skills". The 2024 discussion paper repeats the Migration Review's finding that, because so many applicants max out the core criteria, "criteria of less obvious benefit (such as regional study and community language skills)" have become "the primary determinants of individual rankings", and its first question asks which criteria should be removed. Peter Varela and Robert Breunig of the Australian National University, whose earlier research the government commissioned for the review, published a working paper in March 2026 finding that community language, regional study, Professional Year and specialist qualification points don't predict a migrant's earnings, and recommending they be dropped. In The Conversation on 15 June 2026 they listed community language credentials first among the categories to cut and wrote that the Budget changes "move in this direction". The Migration Institute of Australia's 2024 submission recommended the same.

Not everyone agrees. The Grattan Institute's June 2024 report abolishes the Australian study, regional study, Professional Year and specialist education points but keeps the community language points, proposing 20 of its 500 for a credentialled language. Grattan also measures what is at stake: almost one in four successful expressions of interest claim the community language points.

What is the likely scenario?

Our position: the community language points are more likely than not to disappear from the new test, and July 2027 is a sensible working assumption for when. The government's own documents single the category out as a poor predictor, the economists it commissioned recommend removing it, the Budget wording ("better educated, higher-skilled and younger") says nothing that would keep it, and the one major proposal to keep it has not been cited in any government document. On timing, 1 July is when the migration program year starts and when the 2018 pass-mark rise took effect, and most agency forecasts land on it.

We also expect the bar to rise. Every figure put forward for a new minimum sits above today's: Grattan proposed lifting the floor from 50 to 60 per cent of available points, agent sites quote 70, and in the 4 June 2026 round the lowest invited score was already 80 to 90 for many occupations. A harder test makes 5 points that cost $814 and a couple of months of practice worth more. If the agencies are right, this is the last window in which a bilingual candidate can buy those points at all.

If we are wrong and the points survive, the credential is not wasted: it is valid for five years. If we are right, the window closes in the middle of next year.

If you pass before the change, will your 5 points still count?

Probably, if you are invited before the new test commences. Nothing official says so. Under the current rules your points are assessed at the time of invitation, so a CCL credential in your EOI when you are invited is counted, and one that arrives afterwards is not. Two exceptions: partner points are assessed later, and the pass mark that applies is the one in force when your score is assessed rather than when you were invited. When the pass mark last rose, from 60 to 65 on 1 July 2018, the instrument that made the change set out that people invited before that date kept the old mark. The November 2019 changes were applied to everyone not yet assessed, which nobody minded because every 2019 change added points.

The government has acknowledged the problem without solving it. The 2024 discussion paper notes that migrants "make choices in their lives based on their prospects for permanent residence", that around 80,000 individuals had a subclass 189 EOI lodged at the start of 2023–24, and that reform should "try where possible to honour" those choices. Its sixth question, "How should transition arrangements for the points test reforms work?", is still open. Whether EOIs sitting in the pool without an invitation are re-scored, re-ranked or grandfathered is undecided; it will turn on the transitional rules in the amending regulations and on how SkillSelect is set up to apply them, and nothing on either has been published.

The safe reading: a result in your EOI when you are invited is likely to count. A result that arrives after the change is a bet on rules nobody has written.

Why is sooner better?

Work back from invitation rounds, because the invitation is what fixes your score. Rounds for the subclass 189 are not monthly: Home Affairs' published rounds for 2025–26 fell on 21 August 2025, 13 November 2025 and 4 June 2026, and its invitation rounds page says the next is expected by 30 September 2026. NAATI runs each language at least four times a year, monthly for high-demand languages, closes bookings a week before the test date and emails results within four to six weeks. From booking to a result you can enter in your EOI, allow two to three months.

Put those two calendars together. If the new test arrives on 1 July 2027, the last sittings whose results can reach an EOI in time fall in early 2027, and only a handful of invitation rounds sit between now and then. Every round your 5 points are already in the pool for is a round they can be counted in. Sit in the next couple of months and your points are live for every round from late 2026 through the first half of 2027; leave it until early 2027 and you are relying on results timing and a single round lining up.

If you are near the score that won recent invitations in your occupation and 5 points would put you over, book now; the points guide shows where the other 5-point levers are. If you are mid-preparation, keep going and get a date in the diary through the booking guide. If your application is realistically 2028 or later, the CCL is a bet that the current table survives that long, and you should weigh it against the things every version of the reform rewards, which our CCL vs PTE and IELTS comparison sets side by side.

How to prepare now

The fee is $814 per attempt with no retake discount, and the test is marked by deduction: you start with 90 marks and lose them for each error, with accuracy first among NAATI's criteria (how scoring works). Fluent bilinguals can fail it by preparing with word lists instead of full, timed dialogues, and with results taking four to six weeks a failed first attempt can cost you a whole invitation round. The preparation guide lays out a four-to-eight-week plan.

Lingo Copilot CCL is built for this run-up: full two-dialogue tests in your language under test timing, scored segment by segment, with AI feedback that flags omissions, additions and distortions so you know what to fix before you pay NAATI. The free Starter tier gives you one complete practice test and one practice session, and no card is required. Sit it this week, see where you stand, and book your NAATI date while the 5 points are still on the table.