Sixteen finance and investment ANZSCO codes: why the visa list you land on depends on the exact job title, not the work

The reach split, stated plainly

Visa list membership is not symmetric across near-identical roles in this family, and the pattern is worth reading before anything else here.

Finance Broker (222112) and Insurance Broker (222113) sit on STSOL and CSOL and reach 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494. Their own catch-all sibling, Financial Brokers nec (222199), sits on STSOL only and does not reach 482 or 186 — nor does Commodities Trader (222111), assessed under the identical Group C, four-pathway shape.

None of the four dealer codes reach 482 or 186. Financial Market Dealer (222211), Stockbroking Dealer (222213) and Financial Dealers nec (222299) each reach 190, 407, 491 and 494. Futures Trader (222212) is worse again: Regional Occupation List only, reaching the 494 regional visa alone, despite VETASSESS assessing it under the identical Group B pathways, the same fields of study and near-identical tasks as the other three.

Financial Investment Adviser (222311) is STSOL and CSOL and reaches 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494. Financial Investment Manager (222312), its direct sibling, is STSOL only and reaches 190, 407, 491 and 494 — no 186, no 482, so it cannot be employer-sponsored at all.

Actuary (224111), Statistician (224116), Land Economist (224511) and Valuer (224512) are all MLTSSL and CSOL, reaching all eight visas this family touches: 186, 189, 190, 407, 482, 485, 491 and 494. Economist (224311) is the outlier among them — MLTSSL only, reaching 189, 190, 407, 485, 491 and 494, but not 186 and not 482 — despite the identical Group A, single-pathway assessment as the other four. Mathematician (224112) sits in between on STSOL and CSOL, reaching six visas including 482 and 186 but not 189 or 485.

These are structural facts about which lists each code sits on, drawn from the same public occupation data this site publishes elsewhere. Nothing here says which code fits your own work — that's a task-content question, worked through below.

How VETASSESS assesses this family

VETASSESS sorts every occupation into a Group that fixes the qualification level and the number of assessment pathways, and this family spans three of them. Group A — Actuary, Statistician, Economist, Land Economist and Valuer — allows exactly one pathway: a Bachelor degree or higher in a highly relevant field, plus one year of post-qualification, highly relevant employment within the last five years, with no lesser-field fallback at all.

Group B — Financial Market Dealer, Futures Trader, Stockbroking Dealer, Financial Dealers nec, Financial Investment Adviser, Financial Investment Manager and Mathematician — runs four pathways. Pathway 1 mirrors Group A; Pathways 2 to 4 allow a not-highly-relevant Bachelor-plus degree if compensated by an additional Certificate IV, three years' post-qualification employment, or six years' total employment including one year highly relevant in the last five.

Group C — Commodities Trader, Finance Broker, Insurance Broker, Financial Brokers nec — runs the same four-pathway shape as Group B, but the qualification floor is an AQF Diploma rather than a Bachelor degree, and the employment thresholds scale down accordingly (two years for Pathway 3, four years total for Pathway 4).

A genuinely useful fact buried in this: the Group boundary does not track the visa-list boundary. Economist and Actuary are both Group A but sit on different lists. Finance Broker (Group C) and Financial Investment Adviser (Group B) sit on the same lists despite different Groups. Don't assume a 'harder' Group buys better visa reach — check the list directly.

Broker cluster: Finance Broker, Insurance Broker, Commodities Trader, Financial Brokers nec

All four sit in Group C, and VETASSESS's own exclusion lists distinguish them cleanly on each occupation's page. Insurance Broker's page explicitly excludes Insurance Agent, on the basis that an agent representing one company only advises on that company's products, whereas broking requires independence across multiple insurers. Financial Brokers nec is VETASSESS's own catch-all for broking work that fits none of the other three — its stated typical work is complex and commercial leases, equipment finance, commercial finance, project finance and finance for property developers, not a straightforward personal loan (Finance Broker) or an insurance placement (Insurance Broker).

The field-of-study lists reinforce the pattern: Finance Broker, Financial Brokers nec and Commodities Trader share an identical list (Finance, Economics, Econometrics, Accounting, Management, Commerce, Business); Insurance Broker's list is Insurance Broking alone, narrower than every other occupation in this whole family.

Nominating the nec catch-all, or Commodities Trader, when the work actually fits Finance Broker or Insurance Broker closes off the employer-sponsored route for reasons that have nothing to do with how hard the assessment is — see the reach split above.

Dealer cluster: four codes, one identical assessment, four different outcomes

Financial Market Dealer, Futures Trader, Stockbroking Dealer and Financial Dealers nec share the identical Group B qualification level, the identical highly-relevant fields of study (Finance, Business, Commerce, Accounting, Economics, Actuarial Studies) and near-identical task descriptions around obtaining and interpreting securities data and executing buy and sell orders. VETASSESS separates them by asset class and counterparty: Financial Market Dealer trades securities on behalf of financial institutions; Futures Trader buys and sells commodity futures on behalf of clients; Stockbroking Dealer buys and sells stocks and bonds on behalf of clients. Financial Dealers nec is the explicit leftover bucket, and names Equities Analyst — researching companies and issuing buy, sell or hold ratings, rather than executing transactions — as the specialisation that belongs here.

Three of the four sit on identical list reach: STSOL only, 190/407/491/494, no 482/186. Futures Trader alone is ROL-only, reaching 494 and nothing else — the least visible, most consequential difference in the whole family, because nothing in the assessment criteria themselves signals it. A futures trader whose duties equally support Financial Market Dealer or Financial Dealers nec should not default to Futures Trader on job-title grounds; VETASSESS's exclusion lists on the other three dealer pages all name Futures Trader as a separate, excluded occupation, which confirms the authority does not treat it as interchangeable with the others.

Financial Investment Adviser vs Financial Investment Manager

This is the pair the reach split matters most for, and VETASSESS's own pages settle the distinction directly: each occupation excludes the other by ANZSCO code number. The Adviser page describes developing financial plans and giving personal advice on investment strategies to individuals and organisations. The Manager page states plainly that most Financial Investment Managers do not provide financial advice directly to clients — they invest and manage sums of money and assets on behalf of others, typically pooled funds (Portfolio Manager, Superannuation Funds Manager, Unit Trust Manager are the named suitable specialisations for Manager; Financial Planning Adviser, Paraplanner and Associate Advisor sit under Adviser).

Adviser is STSOL and CSOL and reaches 482 and 186. Manager is STSOL only and reaches neither. An applicant whose employer's job title says 'Investment Manager' but whose actual duties are giving personal advice to individual retail clients risks both a task-mismatch finding against Manager and, separately, working without the licensing registration ASIC requires for that kind of advice — covered next.

The AFS licence question does not bite all sixteen codes the same way

ASIC's own rule is broad: 'If you want to run a financial services business, you generally need to be authorised under an AFS licence,' and financial products for this purpose sweep in shares, superannuation, managed investment schemes, life and general insurance, derivatives and margin lending. Read at that level, dealing in securities (the dealer codes), managing pooled investments (Financial Investment Manager) and advising on insurance (Insurance Broker) all plausibly require AFS authorisation in principle.

But a separate, narrower regime — the professional-standards track for financial advisers, meaning the education standard, the financial adviser exam, a professional year and Financial Adviser Register listing — applies only to a subset. ASIC states this applies to 'individuals who provide personal advice on relevant financial products to retail clients,' and explicitly carves out general advice, personal advice on products that aren't relevant financial products (general insurance, consumer credit insurance, basic banking products), and personal advice to wholesale clients. General insurance advice is explicitly excluded from the exam-and-register regime — which is why Insurance Broker needs AFS authorisation to operate but not the exam or the register, while Financial Investment Adviser is the one occupation in this whole family whose own VETASSESS page carries a dedicated Licensing and Registration section, because retail-client investment advice sits squarely inside the narrower regime.

Finance Broker sits under neither of these — mortgage and finance brokers arranging loans are licensed under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act as credit licensees or credit representatives, with a statutory best-interests duty in force since 1 January 2021, a wholly separate track from the AFS licence.

The dealer codes sit in between: none of the four carries VETASSESS's top-of-page licensing banner the way Adviser and Manager do, only a softer in-body line ('may require a licence,' 'normally require a licence or registration'). Why VETASSESS presents these four differently, despite comparable AFS-licensing exposure in principle, is not explained anywhere on its own site — an inconsistency in how the authority presents the information, not a finding about what the law actually requires.

This is not one licence. It is several separate regimes with different regulators and different triggers, and a skills assessment — for any of these sixteen codes — engages none of them. Every one of the sixteen VETASSESS pages carries the same underlying disclaimer: the skills assessment 'for migration purposes is distinct from an assessment for licensing or registration purposes.'

Actuary: a professional-body track, not a government licence

Actuary carries no government registration or licensing requirement. What does exist, entirely separate from the VETASSESS skills assessment, is the Actuaries Institute's own qualification track: an Associate credential (AIAA) first, then a Fellowship (FIAA) through a further study-and-experience program. This is materially longer and more demanding than VETASSESS's single Group A pathway — one highly relevant Bachelor's degree plus one year of post-qualification employment.

A positive VETASSESS Actuary assessment supports the visa. It is not equivalent to, and does not substitute for, becoming a Fellow of the Institute, which is what most senior actuarial employers in Australia actually look for. The two intersect at the qualification stage — VETASSESS gives weight to Actuaries Institute mutual-recognition-agreement fellowships as a way to satisfy the field-of-study requirement for applicants without an actuarial-science degree — but the Institute's Associate/Fellow status is a distinct, ongoing professional credential the migration assessment does not confer.

Valuer and Land Economist: a state-by-state story, checked in three states

State-based valuer licensing genuinely varies, and the difference is stark enough that 'Valuer' does not mean the same regulatory reality everywhere. Queensland requires mandatory registration with the Valuers Registration Board of Queensland, under the Valuers Registration Act 1992. Western Australia requires a licence under the Land Valuers Licensing Act, administered by the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety — a different Act, a different regulator. New South Wales deregulated in 2016: a Revenue NSW ruling records that 'the Valuers Act 2003... has been repealed, effective 1 March 2016,' For its own purposes that same ruling accepts a valuation from a member of a named professional body — the Australian Valuers Institute, the Australian Property Institute or a RICS Chartered Valuer — but that is a rule about which valuations Revenue NSW will accept, not a general licence to practise, and no NSW practice requirement was found to replace the repealed Act.

Do not generalise one state's position to Australia as a whole. A Valuer fully compliant to practise in NSW today is not automatically compliant in Queensland or Western Australia, both of which still require separate state registration or licensing regardless of the VETASSESS outcome. Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory were not checked in this research — that gap is stated rather than assumed away.

Land Economist's own VETASSESS page distinguishes its work from Valuer's on task content — advising on, managing or analysing land and property as an asset class, rather than personally producing valuations — and lists no licensing requirement of its own. No state licensing regime specific to 'Land Economist,' as distinct from Valuer, was found in this research pass; that is reported as not found, not confirmed as absent.

What this page could not verify

Statistician's own VETASSESS page carries a genuine internal contradiction: its top-of-page banner reads 'Registration or licensing may be required,' while the body text states plainly that 'there are currently no legal requirements for licensing or registration for the occupation of Statistician.' Both statements are live on the same page as fetched for this research. Which is the intended current position is not resolved anywhere on VETASSESS's own site.

Why Financial Investment Adviser and Manager carry a dedicated licensing banner while the four dealer codes carry only a softer in-body line is not explained by anything VETASSESS publishes — an observed inconsistency in presentation, not a settled finding.

Real, first-hand applicant accounts of the skills assessment or visa outcome for any of these sixteen occupations could not be found for this page. Every forum route was checked and blocked: a specific, relevant-looking expatforum.com thread returned a bot-challenge page rather than content; reddit.com and old.reddit.com both returned an explicit network-policy block; Whirlpool's search results load through client-side script this research could not execute, and targeted searches for Whirlpool or PropertyChat threads on these specific occupations turned up nothing beyond unrelated career-advice threads. That gap is stated here rather than filled with an invented account.

Does Financial Investment Adviser reach the same visas as Financial Investment Manager?

No. Financial Investment Adviser sits on STSOL and CSOL and reaches 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494. Financial Investment Manager, its direct sibling, sits on STSOL only and reaches 190, 407, 491 and 494 — no 186, no 482. The two occupations exclude each other by ANZSCO code on their own VETASSESS pages, and the practical distinction is whether the work is personal advice to an individual client (Adviser) or managing pooled funds without advising a client directly (Manager).

Why don't the four dealer codes reach 482 or 186?

Financial Market Dealer, Stockbroking Dealer and Financial Dealers nec all sit on STSOL only, so they reach 190, 407, 491 and 494 but not the employer-sponsored 482 or 186 routes, despite being assessed under Group B — the same Bachelor-level structure as Financial Investment Adviser, which does reach 482 and 186. Futures Trader is worse again: Regional Occupation List only, reaching 494 alone. This is a list-membership fact, not a reflection of how difficult VETASSESS's assessment is for any of the four.

Does a positive VETASSESS assessment let me start giving financial advice or dealing in securities in Australia?

No. Every one of these sixteen VETASSESS occupation pages states that the skills assessment is distinct from any assessment for licensing or registration purposes. Depending on the occupation, separate regimes may apply on top of it: ASIC's AFS licensing rule for financial products generally, the narrower financial-adviser exam and Financial Adviser Register regime for retail investment advice specifically, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act for finance brokers, and state-based registration or licensing for valuers in some states. A skills assessment engages none of these.

Is Insurance Broker's licensing requirement the same as Financial Investment Adviser's?

No, and the difference is specific. Insurance Broker needs AFS authorisation to operate at all, because insurance is a financial product under ASIC's general AFS-licensing rule. But general insurance advice is explicitly carved out of the narrower professional-standards regime — the financial adviser exam and Financial Adviser Register — that applies to Financial Investment Adviser's retail-client investment advice work. That's consistent with VETASSESS's own Insurance Broker page carrying no dedicated licensing section, while Financial Investment Adviser's page does.

Is a VETASSESS Actuary assessment the same as being a qualified actuary?

No. A positive VETASSESS assessment supports the visa. Becoming what the Actuaries Institute calls a qualified actuary — an Associate (AIAA) and then a Fellow (FIAA) — is a separate, materially longer study-and-experience track run by the Institute itself, not VETASSESS, and it's generally what senior Australian actuarial employers look for on top of a migration outcome.

Can I practise as a Valuer anywhere in Australia once I have a VETASSESS Valuer assessment?

Not automatically, and it depends entirely on the state. Queensland requires registration with the Valuers Registration Board of Queensland; Western Australia requires a licence under the Land Valuers Licensing Act. New South Wales repealed its own valuer registration requirement in 2016 and relies on professional-body membership instead. Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory were not checked for this page — confirm the current position with the destination state directly rather than assuming NSW's rule (or any other state's) applies elsewhere.

What's the actual difference between Financial Brokers nec and Finance Broker or Insurance Broker?

Financial Brokers nec is VETASSESS's catch-all for broking work that doesn't fit the other three named codes — its own page describes typical work as complex and commercial leases, equipment finance, project finance and finance for property developers, rather than a straightforward personal loan (Finance Broker) or insurance placement (Insurance Broker). It matters beyond task fit: Finance Broker and Insurance Broker sit on STSOL and CSOL and reach 482 and 186; Financial Brokers nec sits on STSOL only and doesn't.

Why is Economist different from Actuary, Statistician, Land Economist and Valuer if they're all Group A?

All five share the identical VETASSESS Group A structure: one pathway, a Bachelor degree or higher in a highly relevant field, one year of post-qualification highly relevant employment. But Economist sits on MLTSSL only and reaches 189, 190, 407, 485, 491 and 494 — no 482, no 186 — while the other four are all MLTSSL and CSOL and reach all eight visas this family covers. The gap is which lists Economist sits on, not a difference in how VETASSESS assesses the qualification itself.