Employer sponsored
The method for working out the annual market salary rate was replaced in March 2026
A ministerial instrument repealed and replaced the sections that set out how the annual market salary rate is determined, and it reaches nominations that were already lodged and undecided.
The Migration Legislation Amendment (Annual Market Salary Rate) Instrument 2026 (LIN 26/038) repealed sections 7 and 8 of the 2018 instrument that specifies the methodology for the annual market salary rate, and substituted new provisions. It was made on 23 March 2026, registered on 24 March 2026 and commenced the day after registration.
The replacement sections set out, in numbered subsections, how the rate is determined for the purposes of subregulation 2.72(17) of the Migration Regulations 1994: by reference to a fair work instrument, state industrial instrument or transitional instrument where one applies to an equivalent Australian worker, and otherwise by reference to relevant employment documents and information. They deal separately with the case where an equivalent Australian worker performs the work at the workplace and the case where none does.
The transitional provision is the operative point
The instrument applies the amendments to an application for the approval of a nomination made but not decided before the commencement of LIN 26/038
as well as to applications made on or after commencement. A nomination sitting undecided on 25 March 2026 was therefore moved onto the new method mid-stream.
Sources
- Migration Legislation Amendment (Annual Market Salary Rate) Instrument 2026 (LIN 26/038), F2026L00329
- Migration Regulations 1994, regulation 2.72 (Compilation No. 288)
Links go to the instrument or the official page. Where a page states a figure, the figure above is that page’s figure on the date shown.
Full guide: Employer sponsored