Subclass 482, 186 and 494.

Both of you. An employer-sponsored visa is not a single application – it is up to three decisions, each made separately, and each can be refused on its own:

1. Sponsorship, where the business is approved to sponsor.
2. Nomination, where a specific job, filled by a specific person, is approved.
3. The visa itself.

Your visa cannot be granted unless the nomination has been approved and that approval is still on foot. If the nomination is refused, only your employer can take that refusal to the Tribunal.

No. Asking for, offering, receiving or providing a benefit in return for sponsorship is an offence under the Migration Act.

It also affects the visa itself. For all three subclasses the criteria require that you have not engaged in that conduct in the previous three years, unless the Minister considers it reasonable to disregard it.

If someone has asked you for money to sponsor you, raise it with a registered migration agent before you pay anything.

Migration Act 1958 ss.245AR–245AU · cl 482.213, 186.212A, 494.215

Usually not, because there are two salary tests and a nomination has to pass both.

One is the income threshold, a floor set by legislative instrument and indexed each 1 July. The other is the annual market salary rate, which is what an equivalent Australian worker would be paid for the same job in the same place.

Where an award or other industrial instrument covers the occupation, the salary cannot fall below what that instrument would pay an equivalent Australian worker. So a nomination can meet the threshold and still be refused because the salary is below the market rate.

IMMI 18/033 ss.7–8, made under reg 2.72

Which list your nomination has to appear on, which authority can assess your skills, what counts as relevant experience, and once you hold the visa, what work you are allowed to do.

Occupation lists are legislative instruments, and they are amended. The list that governs your nomination is the one in force when the nomination is made.

Core Skills Occupation List (482) · occupations and assessing authorities (186) · occupations (494)

No. In the Regulations it is now headed Skills in Demand. Visas granted under the old Temporary Skill Shortage label are still valid, and the Regulations still name both where it matters, such as when you are counting time towards a 186.

Migration Regulations 1994, Schedule 2, Part 482

• Specialist Skills, at cl 482.22.
• Core Skills, at cl 482.23, tied to the Core Skills Occupation List.
• Labour Agreement, at cl 482.24, where a work agreement between your employer and the Minister sets the terms, including the occupation, any experience period and any English requirement.

Whichever stream you are in, you also have to satisfy the common criteria in cl 482.21.

cl 482.21–482.24 · Core Skills Occupation List

Twelve months, and it does not have to be twelve months in a row.

For the Specialist Skills and Core Skills streams, the Minister has to be satisfied you have worked in the nominated occupation or a related field for a total equivalent to at least 12 months full-time, and that the work was done within the five years before you applied.

Full-time, part-time and casual all count, provided it adds up and falls inside that five-year window. In the Labour Agreement stream the period is whatever the work agreement specifies.

cl 482.221(1), 482.231(1), 482.242 · mandatory skills assessment

For the period of stay your employer proposed in the nomination, which may be one, two, three or four years. The employer picks that when nominating; you do not choose it on the visa application.

Labour Agreement nominations are capped at whatever period the work agreement specifies.

cl 482.511; reg 2.72(10)–(11)

Not freely. Condition 8607 ties you to the nominated occupation and to your sponsor, or in most cases an associated entity of the sponsor.

Moving to someone else means that employer becoming an approved sponsor and getting a fresh nomination approved. Until that happens, working for them breaches your visa condition, and a breach can count against you in later applications.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(1)–(2)

Condition 8607 sets two limits and both apply at once. Any single period in which you are not working as the condition requires cannot run past 180 consecutive days, and all such periods added together cannot exceed 365 days across the life of the visa.

There is a starting obligation as well. You have 90 days from arrival, or from grant if you were already here, to begin work.

Those are the limits the Regulations allow. What you should do turns on how much of the allowance you have already used and what else is open to you.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(4)–(5)

Yes. Adequate health insurance for your intended stay is a criterion for grant, and anyone applying with you needs it too.

cl 482.214, 482.314

Temporary Residence Transition, if you have already worked for your sponsor on a 457 or 482. Direct Entry, if you have not, or not for long enough. Labour Agreement, if your employer holds a work agreement.

All three also have to meet the common criteria in cl 186.21.

cl 186.21–186.24

Two years, measured inside the three years immediately before you lodge. Two separate requirements apply.

You need to have held a 457, or a 482 under either the Temporary Skill Shortage or the Skills in Demand name, for a total of at least two years. You also need to have been employed by an approved work sponsor in the occupation that visa was granted for, for at least two years, full-time and in Australia, not counting unpaid leave.

The Minister can specify different periods for specified people, so an exemption may cover you.

cl 186.226, 186.227

A suitable skills assessment from the authority specified for your occupation, and at least three years of full-time work in that occupation at the skill level it requires.

The assessment cannot be one obtained for a subclass 485, and generally cannot be more than three years old. A class of people specified by the Minister is exempt from both.

cl 186.234 · assessing authorities · exemptions

At the time you apply, yes, unless you fall inside a class the Minister has specified. The same goes for competent English, and it holds in both Temporary Residence Transition and Direct Entry.

If you are over 45, check whether one covers you before you rule the visa out.

cl 186.221, 186.222, 186.231, 186.232 · skill, age and English exemptions

Six months. The visa application has to be made no more than six months after the Minister approved the nomination, in both Temporary Residence Transition and Direct Entry. The nomination also has to not have been withdrawn, and the position has to still be available to you.

cl 186.223(5), 186.233(6)

Not straight away. If you hold, or last held, a regional provisional visa such as a 491 or 494, Direct Entry requires you to have held it for at least three years when you apply, unless the Minister has specified circumstances that cover you.

For most 494 holders the intended permanent route is the subclass 191 rather than the 186.

cl 186.232A

A five-year provisional visa for skilled workers sponsored by an employer in a designated regional area, with a permanent pathway through the subclass 191. It has an Employer Sponsored stream and a Labour Agreement stream.

cl 494.511(1)

• To be under 45 when you apply, unless specified circumstances apply.
• A suitable skills assessment, not one obtained for a subclass 485, and generally not more than three years old. An assessment already done for a 457 or 482 in the same occupation can count.
• At least three years of full-time work in the nominated occupation, at the skill level it requires.
• Competent English.

The position itself has to be genuine, full-time, and likely to exist for at least five years.

cl 494.223–494.226; reg 2.72C(12) · occupations

Condition 8579 requires you, while in Australia during the regional residency period, to live, work and study only in a part of Australia that was a designated regional area when the nomination was made.

The date it fixes on is the nomination date: the areas designated then, not the areas designated when you decide to move.

Conditions 8578, 8580 and 8581 come with it. Between them they require you to tell the Department about a change of address, employer or passport within 14 days, to produce evidence within 28 days if you are asked, and to attend an interview if you are asked to.

Schedule 8, conditions 8578–8581, 8608 · designated regional areas

Through the subclass 191.

You have to have complied with condition 8579. The Regulations are stricter about that one than the rest: substantial compliance is enough for your other conditions, but 8579 has to have been complied with.

You also have to produce your ATO notices of assessment for three relevant income years, which in practice means lodging a return every year and keeping every notice.

There is a taxable-income limb in the Regulations as well, but it only bites if the Minister specifies an amount by legislative instrument. We do not quote a minimum income figure for the 191, because at present no such amount is specified.

cl 191.221, 191.222

Only your employer can.

A nomination refusal is reviewable, but the Regulations say who may ask for that review, and for a nomination it is the person who made it. The nominee has no standing.

An application lodged in the wrong name is not valid, and the clock does not pause while that is untangled. If your nomination has been refused, your employer is the one who has to act, and the time limit is short.

reg 4.02(4)(d) and 4.02(5)(c); reg 4.02(4)(e) and 4.02(5)(d)

Read the letter, and note the date you received it. It will usually tell you whether the decision can be reviewed and by when. Most refusals carry a right of merits review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, and those time limits are set by law, counted in days, and generally cannot be extended.

Representing you at the Tribunal is work a registered migration agent is authorised to do. Bring the letter in with its date as early as you can.

There is more in our general FAQ.

For the 186, the criteria require that the nomination has not been withdrawn and that the position is still available to you when the decision is made. For the 482 and 494, the nomination approval must not have ceased.

It goes to whether the visa can be granted at all. What is left open to you depends on where the application has got to, what visa you hold now, and how long it has to run.

cl 186.223(3)–(4), 186.233(4)–(5); cl 482.212(1)(c), 494.213(1)(c)

If you are holding a letter from the Department or the Tribunal, assume there is, and check the date on it today. Time limits in migration matters are short and generally cannot be extended.

If you are not sure whether something is a deadline, ask.