Condition 8607: approved work only.

Clause 482.611 requires condition 8607 only for the applicant who satisfies the primary criteria, the person who was nominated. Family members’ conditions are the ones listed on their own grant notice.

cl 482.611

Subclause 8607(1) ties you to the occupation in the nomination identified in the application for your most recent 482. Subclause 8607(5) allows periods of not working in line with it, with no single period over 180 consecutive days and no more than 365 days in total, and the Department’s approach is that those periods start only once you stop working for your sponsor.

The Department’s approach is that short, temporary changes, such as covering for a colleague on leave or a short secondment, will not necessarily breach the condition. Duties that change for a long period, or keep changing, so that you are in practice doing a different occupation, will. On that approach the duties count, not the job title.

On the Department’s approach, a move to a different occupation with the same employer needs a new nomination approved and a new 482 granted on it before you start the new work. Separately, the employer must ensure you work in the nominated occupation, must not have you work in an occupation it has not nominated and had approved, and must notify the Department of a change to your work duties.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(1) · reg 2.84(3)(aa), 2.86(2)

It depends on the stream of your most recent 482 and on the business that nominated you.

• Labour Agreement stream: only the person who nominated the occupation.
• Specialist Skills or Core Skills stream, where the nominator was an overseas business sponsor when the nomination was approved: only in a position in that person’s business.
• Specialist Skills or Core Skills stream otherwise: a position in the nominator’s business or in a business of an associated entity of the nominator.

Whether a business is an associated entity is decided under section 50AAA of the Corporations Act 2001. Being hired out to work in a client’s own business risks falling outside 8607(2) unless your occupation is exempt; whether work done at a client’s site is still a position in your employer’s business depends on the arrangement. The Labour Agreement stream has no associated-entity allowance.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(2) · reg 1.03 (associated entity, overseas business sponsor)

The employer limb in 8607(2) does not apply where the nominated occupation is one the Minister has specified under regulation 2.72(13). The instrument lists chief executive or managing director, corporate general manager, and a long list of medical practitioner occupations, from general practitioner and resident medical officer to surgical and physician specialties.

The occupation limb in 8607(1) still applies. An exempt holder can work for more than one business, in the nominated occupation, subject to the 8607(5) periods. The Department expects the holder to keep the sponsor informed in writing about the other work, because the sponsor’s obligations continue.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(3)(a) · LIN 19/212 s 6

90 days. If you were outside Australia when the visa was granted, the 90 days run from your arrival. If you were in Australia, they run from the grant.

Condition 8607 sets no deadline to arrive, and the Department’s approach is that you need only arrive while the visa is in effect. It also takes the view that a long delay in arriving can lead to questions about whether you still intend to do the job, and the genuineness of that intention is itself a cancellation ground.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(4) · reg 2.43(1)(kc)

Where a licence, registration or membership is mandatory to perform the occupation in the place where your position is, you must:

• hold it within 90 days of arrival (granted outside Australia) or of grant (granted in Australia);
• keep holding it while you perform the occupation, and comply with each condition or requirement it is subject to;
• not do work that is inconsistent with it;
• notify the Department in writing, as soon as practicable, if an application for it is refused, or if it stops being in force or is revoked or cancelled.

The 90 days are not permission to work unlicensed: the Department’s approach is that you must hold the authorisation before you start performing the occupation. It also treats the rule against work inconsistent with the authorisation as applying while you are between sponsors. Telling your employer is not the same as notifying the Department.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(6)

Subclause 8607(5) lets you stop working in line with the occupation and employer limbs for a time, with two limits:

• no single period over 180 consecutive days; and
• no more than 365 days in total during the visa period.

The Department’s approach is that during those days you may work for other employers, and in other occupations, while you arrange the next nomination or visa or prepare to leave.

The 365 days are cumulative. On the Department’s approach a gap runs until a new sponsor’s nomination of you is approved, so someone whose first gap lasted 180 days and second 120 has used 300, and has 65 left for any further gap on that visa. On a strict reading of 8607(1) and (2) a gap can run until a new 482 is granted, so the days used can be higher. On the Department’s approach, gaps before 1 July 2024, when a shorter 60-day rule applied, are not counted.

In its own words, the Department says: If you have been laid off and are currently unemployed, you have up to 180 days to find a new employer or make arrangements to leave Australia.

The 365-day total in 8607(5)(b) applies as well.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(5) · Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa: Core Skills stream

On the Department’s approach, employment has ceased once you or the employer have given written notice that it ends (or has ended) on a particular date, and that date has passed. On that approach, where a worker stops turning up, employment may be treated as having ended if the employer can show it tried to give that notice.

The sponsor must notify the Department of the cessation, or expected cessation, of your employment. The Department’s 482 page also lists changes to your employer and to your employment status among the things a holder needs to let it know about.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(5) · reg 2.84(3)(a) · Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa: Core Skills stream

On the Department’s approach, yes, if the occupation stays the same. It treats an approved nomination by the new employer as allowing you to work for that employer for the rest of the visa, and it accepts work for a new sponsor before that nomination is approved, within the 180 and 365 days.

The condition itself is worded around the person who nominated the occupation in the nomination identified in the application for your most recent 482. Read closely, that can be narrower than the Department’s approach, which is one reason to keep the gap short and the paperwork in order. Working in a different occupation beyond the 8607(5) limits needs a new nomination and a new 482 granted on it.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(1), (2), (5)

On the Department’s approach, no. Once you have stopped working for the old sponsor, it treats a return to that sponsor, for any period, as needing a further nomination by that sponsor to be approved. Condition 8607(2) itself refers to whoever nominated the occupation in the nomination identified in the application for your most recent 482, so the answer can turn on which nomination that is.

Working out a notice period is different. The employer limb does not apply while you are continuing to work for a person to meet a requirement about giving notice under a law relating to industrial relations.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(2), (3)(b)

On the Department’s approach, approved unpaid leave does not necessarily breach the condition, and you may still be treated as employed by your sponsor. It also takes the view that unpaid leave should generally not run beyond about three months, unless workplace law requires the employer to give it (parental leave, for example) or the circumstances are exceptional, and that it should be agreed and approved in writing.

Time outside Australia is not, on that approach, a cessation of work by itself; a 482 allows multiple entries. On that approach, long or regular absences can still raise questions about whether the position is genuine and whether you still intend to work in it.

A temporary lay-off is treated more strictly: the Department may regard a worker who is stood down in a downturn as having ceased employment, and the gap then counts.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(5) · cl 482.511 · reg 2.43(1)(kc)

A second paid job can breach the condition. Work for a business other than the nominator (or, where allowed, an associated entity) is outside 8607(2) unless your occupation is exempt. Work in another occupation is outside 8607(1) for every holder. The Department’s approach accepts extra work only if it is for the sponsor, in the nominated occupation, consistent with the nominated position and incidental to it.

Unpaid volunteering is different. Work in the Regulations means an activity that, in Australia, normally attracts remuneration, and the Department does not treat genuine volunteering as a breach, provided it does not get in the way of full-time work in the nominated position. It expects the sponsor’s written consent first. The test is the kind of activity: an unpaid trial shift, or unpaid work of a kind that is normally paid, is still work.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(1)–(2) · reg 1.03 (work)

On the Department’s approach, the question is whether the legal entity you work for has changed. A new trading name, or a new structure that keeps the same entity, leaves the sponsor the same. A takeover or amalgamation can produce a different entity, and the ABN is relevant but does not decide it either way. On that approach, a partner leaving a partnership does not necessarily mean a change of sponsor.

If the entity has changed, the Department can treat continued work as a breach even where the worker did not know of the change. A new nomination by the new entity is the usual fix, and sooner is better.

Schedule 8, condition 8607(2)

Yes. The Minister may cancel a visa if the holder has not complied with a condition of it. For condition 8607 that power is discretionary. The circumstances in which the Regulations make cancellation mandatory concern matters such as foreign policy, sanctions and security, and a breach of 8607 is not one of them.

A separate ground applies to 482 holders. The visa can also be cancelled if the Minister is satisfied you did not have, or have ceased to have, a genuine intention to perform the occupation, or that the position is not genuine.

The procedure, the time to respond and review rights are on our visa cancellation guide.

s.116(1)(b), (g), (3) · reg 2.43(1)(kc), 2.43(2)

The Regulations give some protection to workers in that position. If a certifying entity has issued a written certificate about a workplace exploitation matter connected with the breach, the Minister must take it into account and, where all the conditions in regulation 2.43B are met, must not cancel the visa under s 116(1)(b) for breaching that work condition. Those conditions include a written commitment to act on the exploitation matter and to comply with the visa conditions in future. Cancellation on other grounds, such as the genuineness ground above, stays available. The protection does not extend to a bridging visa, although the certificate is still a matter the Minister must consider.

Coercing a visa holder, or exerting undue influence or undue pressure on them, to accept an arrangement to work in breach of a work-related condition is an offence and a civil penalty provision.

reg 2.43A, 2.43B · s.245AAA

The sponsor has its own obligations: to ensure the worker works in the nominated occupation, and, unless the occupation is exempt, that the worker is engaged only as an employee of the sponsor or, in some cases, of an associated entity. Failing an obligation can lead to a bar, cancellation of the sponsorship, an infringement notice, a civil penalty or a compliance notice.

reg 2.86(2), (2A) · s.140K

The version that was in force before 7 December 2024 continues to apply to a 482 granted before that date, and to one granted later on an application made before it. The two versions are drafted the same way: the older one refers to the Temporary Skill Shortage visa and its Short-term and Medium-term streams where the current one refers to Skills in Demand and the Specialist Skills and Core Skills streams.

Schedule 13, item 14502(4)

It can. A Bridging A or B visa granted on a 482 application made while you held a 457 or 482 that carried condition 8607 carries 8607 too. In most other cases, a Bridging A visa carries over the listed conditions (including 8607) of the visa you held when you applied, or of your last Bridging A or B visa if that visa has ceased. A Bridging B visa carries over the listed conditions of the bridging visa held when the Bridging B application was made.

A bridging visa granted under the relevant criteria on an application for one of the listed business, skilled and employer-sponsored visas, including the subclass 186, has no conditions. The grant notice for the bridging visa states which conditions apply.

cl 010.611, 020.611