Specialist Skills
One of the two ordinary streams. Its own work experience and English requirements sit in clause 482.22.
Subclass 482 · Skills in Demand
The subclass 482 visa.
A temporary employer-sponsored visa for skilled workers. Most grants can be for up to four years, and the stream depends mainly on the occupation, the salary and your employer’s nomination.
- Temporary or permanent?
- Temporary
- How long?
- Up to 4 years – up to 5 on a Hong Kong passport
- Age limit?
- None in Part 482
- Work experience?
- At least 12 months, full-time equivalent
- Employer required?
- Yes – approved sponsor and nomination
- Can it lead to PR?
- Yes, usually through the 186
On this page
General information about the subclass 482. It is not advice about whether you or a particular position would qualify, and the answer to almost every question below changes with the occupation and the stream.
The English score, the eligible occupations and the income threshold are set by legislative instrument and change, so check the one that applies on the day you apply. No Worries Migration is an Australian migration practice, not a law firm, and nothing on this website is legal advice.
Three streams.
Core Skills
The stream most nominations run through. The occupation has to be on the Core Skills Occupation List in force when the nomination is made.
Labour Agreement
Where the occupation is the subject of a work agreement between the Minister and the employer. The agreement sets the terms.
Am I eligible?
Is the 482 still called the TSS visa?
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.
What are the requirements for a 482 visa?
Three things have to line up, and they are decided separately: the employer, the position and you.
The employer has to be an approved work sponsor, and has to have a nomination approved for the position. Then, for you, the common criteria are: if you are in Australia you have substantially complied with your current visa conditions; the nomination identified in your application has been approved and has not ceased; you are employed to work in the nominated occupation; you have adequate health insurance; and you meet the public interest and special return criteria.
On top of those, each stream adds its own work experience and English requirements. Which stream you are in decides what else you have to show.
Which stream am I in?
Three streams, and the employer's nomination decides which one.
Specialist Skills and Core Skills are the two ordinary streams. Labour Agreement applies where the occupation is the subject of a work agreement between the Minister and your employer.
The practical difference for you is where the occupation list comes from and what the salary has to be. Core Skills works off the Core Skills Occupation List; the Labour Agreement stream works off the agreement itself.
Which occupations are eligible for a 482 visa?
For the Core Skills stream, the occupation has to be on the Core Skills Occupation List, and the version that counts is the one in force when the nomination is made – not when you apply, and not when you first talked to your employer.
We have not reproduced the list here. It is a legislative instrument and it changes; a list copied onto a website is wrong the first time it is amended. Read it at the source, or send us the occupation and we will check it against the version that applies to your nomination.
In the Labour Agreement stream the occupation comes from the agreement instead.
Do I need an English test for a 482 visa?
Usually, yes, but it is not written into the Regulations as a fixed score. The criterion is that you satisfy any language test requirements specified for you by the Minister in a legislative instrument, and the Minister may also require you to demonstrate your English in a specified way.
So whether you need a test at all, which tests are accepted and what score is required all sit in that instrument, and exemptions sit there too. Check it against your own occupation and stream before booking a test.
cl 482.222, 482.232, 482.243 · English language test requirements instrument
What English score do I need?
The score is in the instrument, not in the Regulations, and it is not the same for every applicant. It changes whenever the instrument is amended, which is why the version that matters is the one applying to your occupation and stream on the day you apply.
Send us the occupation and the stream and we will tell you what applies to your application, including whether an exemption is available to you.
How many years of work experience do I need?
Twelve months, and it does not have to be twelve months in a row.
The Minister has to be satisfied that you have carried out work in the nominated occupation or a related field, that the total is or is equivalent to at least 12 months full-time, and that it was done in the five years ending immediately before the day the application was made.
Two things people get wrong. It is measured against the application date, so a gap that pushes your experience outside the five-year window can matter. And the 186 and 494 are not the same – those ask for three years.
Does part-time or casual work count?
Yes. The Regulations say the work may have been carried out on a full-time, part-time or casual basis. What has to add up to twelve months is the full-time equivalent, not the number of months on a payslip.
Do I need a skills assessment for a 482 visa?
Not for every occupation. A skills assessment is mandatory only where the occupation, or the occupation together with your passport country, is specified in the instrument made for that purpose.
Separately from that, you have to have the skills, qualifications and employment background the Minister considers necessary to perform the tasks of the occupation, and the Minister can ask you to demonstrate them.
cl 482.221(2)–(3), 482.231(2)–(3) · mandatory skills assessment instrument
Is there an age limit for a 482 visa?
No. Part 482 contains no age criterion at all.
That is worth knowing if permanent residence is the plan, because the 186 does have one – you generally have to be under 45 at the time of application, unless a specified exemption applies. A 482 granted at 44 can leave a short runway to the 186.
Do I need health insurance?
Yes, and it is both a criterion and a condition. You have to have adequate arrangements for health insurance for your intended stay, and condition 8501 is then imposed on the visa, so it has to stay in place.
The Regulations do not name a product. What is adequate depends on your circumstances, and members of your family unit are subject to the same criterion.
Applying
Can I apply for a 482 visa from within Australia?
Yes. You may be in or outside Australia when the visa is granted – the only place you cannot be is in immigration clearance.
Applying onshore has a separate trap that has nothing to do with the 482 criteria: if you are in Australia without a substantive visa, the section 48 bar limits which visas you can validly apply for, and the 482 is not on that list. Check your status before you lodge, not after.
How much does a 482 visa cost, and how long does it take?
Both change, and both are published by the Department rather than fixed in the Regulations. The visa application charge is set by legislation and is indexed; processing times move with caseload.
The Department publishes both, and it also publishes the levy the employer pays with the nomination. Ask us and we will tell you what applies to your matter now, including which costs are the employer's rather than yours.
Does my employer have to be an approved sponsor?
Yes, for a standard 482. The visa cannot be granted unless the person who made the nomination was an approved work sponsor when it was approved, and for most businesses that means standard business sponsorship.
A party to a labour agreement is an approved work sponsor without a separate sponsorship application. What the employer has to do is set out in our employer-sponsored guide.
Who pays – me or my employer?
Some costs are the employer's by law and cannot be passed to you. It is an offence to ask for or receive a benefit in return for a sponsorship-related event, and an offence to offer or provide one, so this runs in both directions.
If anyone has asked you to pay for your own sponsorship or nomination, get advice before you pay anything.
Once you hold the visa
How long is a 482 visa granted for?
Up to four years in most cases, and up to five years if you hold a Hong Kong passport.
Within that, the actual period follows the nomination: the visa period ends at the end of the period of stay proposed in the nomination identified in your application, starting from the date of grant. Your grant notice states the period that applies to you.
What salary does the job have to pay?
Two tests, and the higher one wins.
For nominations lodged 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, the income threshold is AUD 79,423 for the Core Skills stream and AUD 146,576 for Specialist Skills. The salary also has to meet the annual market salary rate – what an equivalent Australian worker would be paid for the same work in the same place. If that is higher than the threshold, the market rate is what has to be paid.
Thresholds are indexed every 1 July; these were checked on 23 August 2026. The employer side of this is set out in our employer guide.
Can I bring my family?
Yes. A member of your family unit can be granted a 482 on the secondary criteria, either by making a combined application with you or by being listed on the nomination.
They have to meet their own criteria, including the health insurance requirement and the public interest criteria.
Can I travel in and out of Australia?
Yes. The 482 is a multiple-entry visa: it permits travel to and entry into Australia on multiple occasions during the visa period.
Condition 8303 may be imposed on the visa, so check your grant notice for the conditions that actually apply to you.
Can I study on a 482?
The 482 carries no study condition. The conditions imposed are 8607, which governs your work, and 8501, which requires health insurance; condition 8303 may also be imposed.
The conditions that apply to you are the ones listed on your grant notice.
Can I change employers on a 482 visa?
Yes, but condition 8607 sets the boundaries and there is a clock.
You must work only in the nominated occupation for the sponsor, and start within 90 days. If sponsored employment ends, 8607(5) allows a mobility period: no single period over 180 consecutive days, and no more than 365 days in total across the whole visa period. Working for someone else inside that period does not by itself breach the condition.
The new employer will generally need its own approved sponsorship and an approved nomination before you can be granted a further visa.
What happens if I lose my job?
The visa does not cease automatically, but the mobility period in condition 8607 starts running and the practical position is time-limited. Deal with it in weeks, not months.
What is open to you depends on how long the visa has left, whether another employer can sponsor you, and what other visas you could validly apply for from where you are. Our employer-sponsored guide covers what happens to the nomination.
Where the 482 leads
Does a 482 lead to permanent residence?
Not by itself. The 482 is a temporary visa. The usual permanent pathway is the subclass 186, most often through its Temporary Residence Transition stream.
Two things decide whether that is realistic: your age at the time of the 186 application, and whether your employer will nominate you again. Neither is automatic.
How long do I have to work before I can go for the 186?
For the Temporary Residence Transition stream the employer's nomination has to satisfy the qualifying employment rules in regulation 5.19, and those should be checked against the current legislation for your own history – including whether the periods must all have been with the same sponsoring entity.
The nominator also has to be the business that last nominated you under section 140GB, and has to still be actively and lawfully operating. Age, English and the nomination criteria apply as well unless an exemption is available.
If something goes wrong
What happens if the nomination is refused?
The nomination and the visa are separate decisions, and the visa cannot be granted unless the nomination has been approved and has not ceased. So a nomination refusal is usually fatal to the visa application attached to it.
The review right belongs to whoever holds it, and on a nomination that is generally the employer, not you. The time limit is short. Our refusals and review guide sets out who may apply.
Can I appeal a 482 refusal?
Sometimes. Whether a visa refusal is reviewable, and by whom, is set by legislation and depends on where you were when you applied and on the sponsorship position at the time of the decision.
Read the decision letter first: it will say whether the decision can be reviewed and by when. The period is counted in days and generally cannot be extended.
Terms used on this page.
Three terms that decide most 482 questions. Everything else is explained where it appears.
- Nominated occupation
- The occupation nominated by your employer in the nomination identified in your visa application. It sets the boundaries of what you may lawfully do, because condition 8607 ties your work to that occupation and that employer.cl 482.111 · Schedule 8, condition 8607
- Core Skills Occupation List
- The list of occupations that can be nominated in the Core Skills stream. It is a legislative instrument, not policy, and the version that counts is the one in force when the nomination is made.reg 2.72(10)–(11)
- Condition 8607
- The work condition on every 482 granted on the primary criteria. Nominated occupation, nominated sponsor, start within 90 days, and a mobility period if sponsored employment ends: no single stretch over 180 consecutive days and no more than 365 days in total.cl 482.611 · Schedule 8, condition 8607
Reviewed by Arash Barinder Singh (Arsh Dhillon). Registered Migration Agent, MARN 1467301. No Worries Migration, Southport, Queensland.
Last reviewed 23 August 2026
Where this comes from.
Read from the Federal Register of Legislation on 23 August 2026: the Migration Regulations 1994 compilation then in force, Schedule 2 Part 482 in full, together with regulation 2.72 and the Migration Act 1958. Every clause number on this page is a link.
The eligible occupations, the English test requirements, the income threshold and the visa application charge are not in the Regulations. They are set by legislative instrument or by legislation that is indexed, and they change. We have named the test and linked the instrument in each case rather than printing a figure that would be wrong within the year. The instruments are in our legislation library.
Based on content from the Federal Register of Legislation at 22 August 2026. For the latest information on Australian Government legislation please go to https://www.legislation.gov.au. Federal Register material is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Still general information. Reading the provision is not the same as knowing which version applied to your application, how the Department and the Tribunal have interpreted it, or what it means for your circumstances. That is what advice is for.
Talk to a registered migration agent
Tell us where you are up to.
Whether you are at the very start, waiting on a decision, or holding a refusal letter, start with a conversation about where things stand.
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