Marine Surveyor (ANZSCO 231215)

On the Regional Occupation List

From the official Home Affairs skilled occupation lists, as at 2026-08-12. Lists change at each government update — always confirm on the official page before acting.

Which lists is Marine Surveyor on?

ROL — Regional Occupation List. Occupations on the ROL are limited to the regional provisional visas — mainly the Skilled Work Regional 491 and Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional 494.

Visas this occupation can access

Being on a list makes the occupation nominatable for these visas — each visa still has its own requirements (points, age, English, a positive skills assessment, and for sponsored visas a willing employer or state).

Skills assessment

A positive skills assessment for Marine Surveyor comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

Marine Surveyor is assessed on an entirely different basis from the other three AMSA codes: no STCW certificate at all. The eligible qualification is a relevant degree — AMSA's own example is a Masters or Bachelor's in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering — paired with 8 years of post-degree professional experience in place of sea service. The evidence AMSA asks for is different in kind too: documents showing competence as a Port State Control Inspector or an IACS surveyor, not a sea-service letter naming ships and ranks. Marine surveyors skip the oral exam that engineers, masters and officers must pass, going straight from a complete application to the outcome letter.

Where these applications come unstuck

The specific trap is assuming seagoing engineering experience counts as the evidence AMSA wants: it doesn't. AMSA's stated evidence for this code is survey-specific — Port State Control Inspector or IACS surveyor competence — so an engineer with years at sea but no survey credential is not automatically eligible on the strength of that sea time alone. A second, unresolved gap sits after the visa: AMSA runs a separate Marine Surveyor accreditation scheme (Form 741) for surveying domestic commercial vessels, governed by its own Surveyor Accreditation Guidance Manual, and this dossier could not establish from AMSA's published pages whether that accreditation is also required for surveyors working solely for an international classification society rather than on Australian domestic vessels.

An honest read on this pathway

Marine Surveyor is the only AMSA code with no certificate of recognition step — AMSA states this directly — because there's no STCW certificate to recognise. But that isn't the end of the licensing chain: the separate Form 741 accreditation scheme sits between the visa and DCV survey work, and AMSA's own pages don't say whether IACS-only survey work needs it too. On visa access this code sits on ROL only, reaching 494. Hunter Marine Surveyors Pty Ltd holds a current WA Designated Area Migration Agreement, a direct named match for this occupation in Home Affairs' agreement register — though what it actually sponsors under that agreement wasn't independently confirmed.

Whichever authority assesses you, the paperwork is the part applicants underestimate. The Document Vault keeps a single register of every document, what it was needed for, and what is still missing.

Talk it through with a registered agent

Whether nominating Marine Surveyor is your best route depends on your points, experience evidence and timing — exactly what a MARA-registered agent works through in an initial consultation. Describe your situation once through Migratio and compare real consultation quotes from registered agents, free.

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