Papua New Guinea received 44 per cent of the 4,006 Pacific Engagement Visas (PEV) granted in the scheme's first two years, Stephen Howes and Finn Clarke wrote on the Devpolicy Blog.

Howes is Director of the Development Policy Centre and Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. Clarke is a research officer at the centre. Their analysis uses Department of Home Affairs data to June 2026.

Fiji and Timor-Leste followed with 13 per cent each. In absolute terms the winners are the larger countries, the authors wrote, which is what the visa was designed to do.

Measured against quotas, the picture changes. Solomon Islands had a quota of 150 visas in each of the first two years and reached a success rate of 71 per cent — visas granted divided by the combined quota for those two years — above the 67 per cent average across participating countries. Its preliminary quota for 2026–27 is 300.

Samoa was the most successful at 100 per cent, which Howes and Clarke described as remarkable given it only entered the PEV in 2025–26. Tuvalu followed at 96 per cent, then Fiji at 84 per cent and Timor-Leste at 73 per cent. At the other end, Tonga, PNG, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Nauru all sat between 55 and 62 per cent.

In both of the first two years some visas were held back or reallocated, the authors wrote. In 2024–25 the Australian government kept 300 slots in reserve in case Samoa and Kiribati joined late, which they did not. Those visas, along with unused slots from the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, went to PNG, whose quota rose from 1,350 to 1,515, and to Tonga, which rose from 150 to 300.

In 2025–26, 150 reserve visas plus 85 unused visas from FSM and Palau were given to Fiji (50), Timor-Leste (135) and Tonga (50). Unlike the earlier increases, these were not announced in advance.

No country received significantly more than its 2025–26 quota that year, which suggests the increases were used at the margin to lift individual country quotas and reach the aggregate ceiling of 3,000 visas, Howes and Clarke wrote.

The 3,000 ceiling will be reached easily in the current year, and probably as early as December, they wrote. There will be less room for reallocation because the quota total is already 3,050, and underuse by the compact states will leave at most 100 slots to redistribute.

What lies behind the differences in success rates needs further research, the authors wrote. They argued there is a case for targeting more help to find a job, and for issuing more invitations to ballot registrants, in the less successful countries.