Functional English for Australian Visas: Tests, Exemptions, and Evidence

To meet the functional English requirement for Australian visas, you have three options: pass an approved English language test at or above the required score, show you completed enough of your education in English, or hold a valid passport from Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, or the United States. The requirement itself is defined in Regulation 1.15C of the Migration Regulations 1994, and the Department of Home Affairs updated its approved test list and minimum scores on 7 August 2025, so anyone preparing evidence now should work from the current thresholds.

Who Has to Prove It

Functional English is not a universal requirement. It applies most often to secondary applicants (dependents) aged 18 or older on skilled migration and business visas, and to main applicants on certain business and investment subclasses. Whether it applies to you depends on the specific visa subclass, so check your visa’s page on the Department of Home Affairs website before you start gathering documents.

If the requirement does apply and an adult applicant cannot demonstrate functional English, the visa is not automatically refused. Instead, the Department charges a second installment of the visa application fee, and the amount is large enough that testing or documenting your education is almost always the cheaper path.

Approved Tests and Minimum Scores

For any test taken on or after 7 August 2025, the Department accepts these tests and minimum results:¹

IELTS Academic or General Training: average band score of at least 4.5
PTE Academic: overall band score of at least 24
TOEFL iBT: total score of at least 26
CELPIP General: overall band score of at least 5
Michigan English Test (MET): overall band score of at least 38
LANGUAGECERT Academic: overall band score of at least 38
Occupational English Test (OET): overall band score of at least 1020

The OET is designed for healthcare professionals and is most relevant if you work in a health-related occupation. Its scoring system switched from alphabetical to numerical on 7 August 2025.¹

Several thresholds dropped in the August 2025 update. PTE Academic previously required a 30 and TOEFL iBT required a 32. CELPIP General, MET, and LANGUAGECERT Academic are new additions. Cambridge C1 Advanced, which used to require at least 147, is no longer accepted for tests taken after 6 August 2025.¹

Results from tests taken on or before 6 August 2025 may still be accepted until 6 August 2026, depending on the visa subclass, and are assessed against the older thresholds. Cambridge C1 Advanced paper-based results from before 7 August 2025 can still be used during this transition window. For tests taken on or after 7 August 2025, results must generally be from the 12 months immediately before the visa application date. Confirm the validity window on your specific subclass page.¹

Rules That Catch People Off Guard

The Department does not accept results from any English language test delivered entirely online. That rules out IELTS Online, TOEFL iBT Home Edition, OET@Home, CELPIP Online, MET Digital (at-home), and LANGUAGECERT Academic Online. You must sit the test at a secure, in-person test center.²

TOEFL iBT has an easy-to-miss registration step. When you book, you must select “Taking TOEFL for Australia,” or the Department may not accept the resulting score report.²

One helpful change: the Department now accepts IELTS One Skill Retake results for both Academic and General Training. If you miss the 4.5 average because of a single weak component, retaking just that section is cheaper and faster than sitting the full test again.²

Proving It Through Your Education

If you studied in English, you may not need a test. The Department accepts several combinations of schooling, and every one of them requires that all instruction was conducted in English.¹

All years of primary education plus at least 3 years of secondary education at a school in or outside Australia where all instruction was in English.
At least 5 years of secondary education at a school in or outside Australia where all instruction was in English.
At least 2 years of full-time study toward a degree, higher degree, diploma, or trade certificate at an institution in or outside Australia where all instruction was in English.
At least 1 year of full-time study (or the part-time equivalent) toward a degree, higher degree, diploma, or associate diploma at an Australian institution where all instruction was in English.

That last option is often overlooked. Even one year of full-time tertiary study in Australia is enough, so applicants who came here on a student visa but didn’t finish a longer qualification may already satisfy the requirement.

Proving education takes more than a transcript. A standard diploma rarely states “all instruction was in English,” and the Department needs that language explicitly. Ask the registrar at your former institution for a formal letter confirming your enrollment dates, full-time status, and that all coursework and exams were delivered in English. Overseas schools can take weeks to produce these letters, so contact them early. Keep enrollment records, graduation certificates, and correspondence organized. Discrepancies in your attendance dates or the nature of your qualification can lead to a request for more information, or a refusal.

Passport From an Exempt Country

Citizens of five countries meet the requirement automatically, with no test and no education evidence needed. You qualify if you hold a valid passport from:¹

Canada
New Zealand
The Republic of Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The United States of America

The exemption is tied to citizenship of those countries, not residency in them, and the passport must be valid when you lodge the application. A British National (Overseas) passport does not qualify, because the exemption covers UK citizenship specifically. If your passport is close to expiring, renew it before you apply, and upload a clear color scan of the biographical page showing your passport number, expiry date, and citizenship.

What Happens If You Can’t Prove It

On visa subclasses that require functional English, missing evidence does not trigger an automatic refusal. It triggers a second installment of the visa application fee, charged per applicant aged 18 or older who cannot demonstrate functional English. The amounts vary by subclass but run into the thousands of dollars, and on the Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional) visa (subclass 188) the second installment reaches AUD 9,795 for a main applicant.³ For a family with several adult secondary applicants, the total climbs fast, which is why the lowest-threshold test almost always pays for itself.

Uploading Your Evidence

All evidence goes through the Department’s ImmiAccount portal. Categorize each document correctly so the processing officer can find it without hunting through your file. The system accepts common formats including PDF, JPG, and PNG, with a 5 MB limit per file, and rejects encrypted or password-protected PDFs.⁴

ImmiAccount only holds uploaded documents for 30 days before submission. If you don’t lodge within that window, the uploads are deleted and you’ll have to re-attach everything.⁴

Have your functional English evidence ready when you first submit. Submitting without it on a relevant subclass is what triggers the second installment fee. After submission, the Department verifies documents against testing organizations’ databases or with educational institutions directly. If your evidence is insufficient or expired, expect a request for more information through ImmiAccount, and respond inside the given timeframe: failing to do so can result in refusal.

1
Department of Home Affairs. Functional English
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Department of Home Affairs. English Language Visa Requirements
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Department of Home Affairs. Fees and Charges for Visas
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Department of Home Affairs. Attach Documents to Your Application