Australia English Tests 2026 — IELTS, PTE (New Aug 2025 Scores), TOEFL, OET, Cambridge

Yes, with a date split. Home Affairs recalibrated PTE Academic thresholds for tests taken on or after 7 August 2025 (Competent is now L47/R48/W51/S54; Proficient 58/59/69/76; Superior 69/70/85/88) after Pearson published a new concordance with IELTS and TOEFL. Tests taken before that date are assessed against the previous thresholds and remain usable for three years from the test date. The practical traps: study materials quoting the old flat '79+ for Superior' are obsolete for new sittings, and the writing and speaking targets rose substantially — check the Department's English-language pages, not coaching-site charts, before booking a retake.

Not at the Competent level — holding a valid passport from one of those five countries is itself evidence of Competent English, which satisfies the eligibility floor for the points-tested skilled visas and many employer-sponsored streams. But passports earn zero points. If your invitation maths needs the 10 points for Proficient or 20 for Superior — and in current rounds it usually does — you must sit one of the five accepted tests and hit 7.0 or 8.0 in every IELTS component (or equivalents). Many native speakers fail the writing band on a first attempt; treat the test as a format exercise, not a formality.

Functional English is the lowest level on the Home Affairs scale — an average IELTS band of 4.5 overall, equivalents in the other accepted tests, or non-test evidence such as completing schooling or a degree where instruction was in English. It matters for money, not eligibility: on permanent skilled and employer-sponsored visas, each applicant aged 18 or over who cannot demonstrate Functional English must pay the second visa application charge instalment — several thousand dollars per person — before grant. A modest test result or documentary evidence of English-medium education is almost always cheaper. Check the second-instalment amount for your subclass in the Department's Visa Pricing Estimator.

All five accepted tests are equivalent in the Department's eyes, so choose on logistics and your profile. PTE Academic offers fast computer-marked results but post-August-2025 thresholds set high speaking/writing targets; IELTS is the most widely accepted by skills assessing authorities and professional regulators, so one sitting can serve both purposes — but confirm whether your assessor wants Academic rather than General Training; TOEFL iBT counts only for tests from May 2024; OET is the rational pick for doctors, nurses and other clinicians because regulators accept it too. Whatever you choose, sit it before lodging your EOI so every claimed point is already evidenced.

Generally three years from the test date for visa purposes, and the result must be valid at the moment it is assessed — for points-tested visas, that means at the time of invitation, not just when you created the EOI. A test that expires while you wait in the SkillSelect pool invalidates the points claimed on it, and an invitation you cannot substantiate ends in refusal with no refund of the AUD 4,910 charge. Diarise your test expiry against your EOI (itself valid two years); if the dates will collide, retest before the invitation round, not after. Skills assessing authorities and registration boards apply their own, sometimes shorter, validity rules.

Home Affairs accepts OET results for visa purposes, with grades mapped to the proficiency levels in the Department's published tables. The test is built around healthcare scenarios — listening to patient handovers, writing referral letters — so it only really makes sense for practitioners. Its advantage is double duty: the Australian health regulators (the Ahpra national boards, and assessing bodies like ANMAC for nurses) accept OET for registration-standard English, typically requiring B grades, so one test can cover both the visa and the professional registration. Non-clinicians should sit IELTS or PTE instead; the clinical framing makes OET harder, not easier, for them.