Partner Points for Australian PR: 10, 10, 5 or 0

Part 6D.11 of Schedule 6D is worth up to 10 points, and it is the part of the points table most people get arithmetically wrong. The two highest-scoring outcomes are having no partner at all, and having a partner who meets every condition of the top tier — they score identically. Everything in between is where a real, fixable cost quietly sits.

The four tiers

Here is the complete table, exactly as Schedule 6D sets it out — conditions on the left, points on the right, nothing weighted or averaged.

This factor sits alongside every other row of the points test in the full points table, factor by factor, and if you would rather see the number than read the table, the points calculator scores this row live alongside everything else.

Single scores the same as skilled

The same 10points apply if your partner is already an Australian citizen or permanent resident — the logic being that a partner who already has the visa outcome you are seeking doesn’t affect the migration test the way an unassessed, non-English-speaking partner does. Both situations land on the same row, item 6D112.

Each tier’s exact conditions

The top tier, item 6D111, is worth stating in full because every condition has to be met — there is no partial credit:

• Your partner is under 45 years of age at the time of invitation.
• Your partner has at least competent English.
• Your partner holds a positive skills assessment in an occupation on the same relevant skilled occupation list as your own nominated occupation.
• That skills assessment was not obtained for the purpose of a subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) visa — a 485-purpose assessment does not count here.

Drop the skills assessment condition and keep the English, and you are on item 6D113 — 5 points, with no age or occupation-list requirement attached. Meet neither condition and you score 0 for that partner, full stop.

The order worth chasing

If a couple is starting from zero on this row, the sequence that actually gets to 10 points fastest is:

1. Competent English first. One test, and it immediately unlocks 5 points under item 6D113 on its own — the full threshold table for every accepted test shows exactly what “competent” requires test by test.
2. Then the skills assessment. This is the slower, costlier step, and it only converts the extra 5points if English is already sorted and the assessed occupation sits on the same list as the primary applicant’s.

Doing it in the reverse order — chasing a skills assessment before confirming English — risks finishing an assessment that still can’t convert into points until the English condition is also met, which is wasted time on the more expensive step.

The de facto evidence question

Everything above assumes the relationship itself is straightforward to evidence. For a married partner it usually is. For a de facto partner, the points test relies on the same kind of relationship evidence the Department uses for partner visas generally — joint finances, a shared residence, social recognition of the relationship, and the nature of the couple’s commitment, typically demonstrated over twelve months unless the relationship is formally registered. Where that evidence is thin, contested, or the relationship is recent, this stops being a points-table question and becomes a genuine evidentiary one — worth a registered migration agent’s input rather than an assumption either way.

Your partner’s own CCL earns nothing here

This is worth being completely direct about, because it surprises people who have read about the community language points elsewhere on this site: the credentialled community language row, item 6D91, is the primary applicant’s factor. It scores 5points on the primary applicant’s own total. There is no equivalent line anywhere in Part 6D.11 for a partner’s CCL pass — your partner passing the test does not add a single point to your combined position under partner points, because partner points are only ever about English and a skills assessment.

In a two-speaker household, who should sit it?

This is the genuinely useful, under-written consequence of the fact above. If both partners speak a community language NAATI tests, the5 points are only available at all if the primary applicant is the one who sits and passes it. A household where the more fluent speaker happens to be the partner, not the primary applicant, is leaving those points on the table entirely unless the roles are reconsidered or the less fluent primary applicant prepares properly for the test themselves.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a partner's degree alone helps. A qualification is not a skills assessment. Only a positive skills assessment in a matching occupation counts under item 6D111.
• Assuming any English test counts.The same minimum-in-every-component rule applies to a partner’s English as it does to the primary applicant’s — see the full threshold table for exactly what competent English requires.
• Forgetting the 485 exclusion.A partner’s skills assessment obtained specifically for a Temporary Graduate visa does not satisfy item 6D111, even if it is otherwise positive and current.
• Treating a partner's CCL as relevant here.It isn’t — see above.

A worked example

Same primary applicant, three different partner situations, everything else held constant at 70 points before this row:

The gap between the top row and the bottom row is 10 points — enough, on its own, to be the entire difference between an EOI that clears 65 and one that doesn’t, or between a score that’s competitive for a busy occupation and one that isn’t. What a competitive score looks like right now puts that gap in context against real recent invitation rounds.

Quick check

Frequently asked questions