Wood Turner (ANZSCO 394214)

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 Wood Turner 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 Wood Turner comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

TRA has no page specific to Wood Turner — it runs the same general assessment programs as for every other trade in this family. Wood Turner sits on the Regional Occupation List only, which is never named in TRA's own repeated Migration Skills Assessment eligibility sentence, and it carries neither Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, Short-term Skilled Occupations List nor Core Skills Occupation List membership at all. TRA's broader program-comparison language elsewhere frames the Migration Skills Assessment as covering pathways not specified under its other programs, but this dossier cannot resolve whether that reading extends to a Regional-Occupation-List-only trade — confirm directly with TRA which program, if any, applies before relying on a general assumption.

Where these applications come unstuck

Wood Turner stands alone in ANZSCO with no named specialisations, and it is easy to assume a lathe-turning trade sits inside the broader Wood Machinist code instead — it does not; the two are separate occupations with very different visa reach. Nominating Wood Machinist for turning work that is genuinely narrower, or the reverse, misdescribes the trade against the occupation actually claimed. The bigger risk for this specific code is assuming a sponsored pathway exists at all: with no MLTSSL, STSOL or CSOL membership, subclass 482, 186, 189 and 485 are all structurally unavailable, not just harder to obtain, and no amount of employer interest or evidence changes that.

An honest read on this pathway

Wood Turner's only visa route, under any circumstance, is subclass 494 regional sponsorship — its Regional Occupation List membership is the sole list it sits on, and every other subclass in this family's spread is closed to it. That makes this the narrowest reach of any occupation in the family, and anyone doing wood-turning work who also does broader machining, finishing or fabrication work should check carefully whether one of the other seven codes here — Wood Machinist, Furniture Finisher, Cabinet Maker or Furniture Maker — more accurately describes their actual duties and opens a wider set of visas.

Going through Trades Recognition Australia? TRA pathways lean heavily on documented work history and evidence of on-the-job experience. The Employment History Builder reconstructs it with gap detection, so the record you submit holds together.

Talk it through with a registered agent

Whether nominating Wood Turner 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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