Immigration Minister David Coleman says he is looking "very closely" at what he can do to get more migrants to move to regional Australia, including providing incentives and simplifying the visa process.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week signalled plans to slow the intake of some temporary migrants and to encourage new arrivals to settle outside of the congested major cities.
Mr Coleman says giving immigrants good reasons to move to regional areas and ensuring they remain living where they said they will is key.
"I don't want to get into specifics about particular visas and so on... but what I would say is that it's about creating the right structure," he told Sky News on Sunday.
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"So the right incentives, the right reasons for immigrants to choose those regional areas.
"It's also about ensuring that that's followed through upon. Obviously if people come on a visa that's meant to be based in a regional area then compliance needs to be there to make that happen."
Making the process easier for people to migrate to a regional area could also be helped, Mr Coleman said.
"One of the most important things we can do is make the arrangements for regional visas as simple as possible."
Mr Coleman said he is "not so much focused" on the overall number of immigrants coming in as meeting the nation's regional and economic needs.
The minister says there are a number of regions, including South Australia, the Goldfields in Western Australia and Victoria's Warrnambool that have been calling for more immigrants.
"We know there are unmet needs in those regional areas and I'm looking very closely at what we can do to meet those."
About 87 per cent of skilled migrants move to Melbourne or Sydney.
