Do I need a job offer before anything else can happen?

Yes. An employer sponsored visa starts with an Australian employer who wants you in a specific position and is willing to go through the sponsorship process for it. There is no version of this where you apply first and find the employer afterwards. If you have no employer yet, the skilled visas that need no sponsor are a different conversation.

My employer says they will sponsor me. Is that the same as having a visa?

No, and it is the most expensive misunderstanding in this category. Sponsorship is three separate approvals: the Department approves the business, then approves the job, then approves you. Willingness is none of the three. Plenty of employers offer sponsorship in good faith without knowing what it asks of them, and find out at the advertising or salary stage that they cannot do it.

Am I too old for an employer sponsored visa?

It depends which one. The Skills in Demand visa, subclass 482, has no age requirement at all, which surprises most people. The permanent Employer Nomination Scheme visa, subclass 186, and the regional subclass 494 generally require you to be under 45 when you apply, with a narrow set of exemptions covering academics, some researchers, certain medical practitioners in regional areas, and people whose sponsored earnings have been above a set level.

Does my occupation have to be on a list?

For most of these visas yes, but not for all of them. The 482 Core Skills stream and the 186 Direct Entry stream both require an occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List. The 482 Specialist Skills stream has no occupation list and uses a high salary threshold instead, although it excludes trades, machinery operators and labourers. The 186 Temporary Residence Transition stream has no list either, because it runs off the occupation on the temporary visa you already hold.

How much does my employer have to pay me?

At least as much as an Australian doing the same work at the same place would be paid, and at least the income threshold that applies to that visa. Both tests have to be met, not one of them. The thresholds are set by the Australian Government and are indexed on 1 July each year, so the figure that matters is the one in force on the day your employer lodges the nomination.

What happens if I lose my job while I am on a 482?

You do not have to leave immediately. As at August 2026 the Department allows up to 180 days after your employment ends to find another employer willing to sponsor you or to make arrangements to leave, and there are limits on what work you may do in the meantime. That figure has changed before and is worth re-checking on the Department’s own page. The clock is real either way, so the day to get advice is the day it happens, not the week before it runs out.

What does it cost, and who pays what?

The costs split in two. Your employer pays to become a sponsor, to lodge the nomination and to pay the training levy, and cannot pass any of that on to you. You pay the visa application charge for yourself and anyone you include, plus English tests, health checks, police certificates and any skills assessment. Jenny’s own fee is separate from both, is a fixed amount, and is quoted in writing in a service agreement before she starts.

Employer sponsored · subclass 482, 186 and 494

Can an Australian employer sponsor you?

Q: Can my employer ask me to pay for the sponsorship?

No. The Department states that an employer must pay the costs of becoming a sponsor and of nominating you, and cannot transfer those costs to you or your family. The training levy in particular must not be passed on. Paying an employer for sponsorship is against the law, whether it is a direct payment, a deduction from your salary or any other benefit, and it can lead to a visa being refused or cancelled as well as to fines or imprisonment. If you are being asked to pay, get advice before you pay anything.

Q: Can a temporary sponsored visa lead to permanent residence?

It can, and for many people that is the point of it. The usual route is to work for your sponsoring employer on a 482 and then be nominated by that same employer for the permanent 186 visa through its Temporary Residence Transition stream, which generally looks for around two years of full-time sponsored employment. It is a pathway that exists in the law, not an entitlement: your employer has to still want to nominate you, and every requirement is tested again at that point.

Q: My occupation is a priority. Does that get the sponsorship approved?

No. Ministerial Direction 119 sets the order in which applications are picked up, not the outcome. For these visas it applies to your employer’s nomination as well as to your own application, so both sit in the same queue. Every requirement still has to be met, and the Department still decides.

Only if the business itself is approved to sponsor, the job is approved on its own terms, and then you are approved for it. Most people are told "we'll sponsor you" and assume that is the decision. It is the start of three separate ones, and two of them are about your employer rather than about you. Below is what each of the three actually requires, and where sponsorships fall over.

Check where you stand Start with how it works

What does being sponsored actually involve?

Three approvals, in order, and each one can fail on its own. A job offer is not any of them.

Step 1 · Your employer does this
Your employer is approved as a sponsor
The business applies to become a standard business sponsor, and the Department decides whether it is a real, lawfully operating business that can be trusted with the obligations sponsoring someone carries. This is about the company, not about you, and it has to exist before anything with your name on it can be lodged. An employer who already sponsors people has usually done it.
Step 2 · Your employer does this too
The job is approved
This is the nomination, and it is where most of the work sits. Your employer names the position, shows what it will pay, and for most streams has to show it advertised the job in Australia first and could not fill it. The Department is examining the job here, not you. If the pay is below the threshold, or the advertising was not done properly, the nomination is refused and your visa application has nothing to attach to.
Step 3 · This one is yours
You are approved
Only now does the Department look at you: your skills and qualifications for that occupation, your work history, your English, your health and your character. Getting your own part right does not help if the first two fail, which is why an offer from an employer who has never sponsored anyone is a much longer road than it sounds.

Which employer sponsored visa applies to you?

There are three subclasses and six routes through them, and the streams within one subclass differ from each other more than the subclasses do. Two lead straight to permanent residence. The rest are temporary, and one of those is the usual way people reach the permanent ones.

Each stream links to the Department of Home Affairs page for it, where the current application charge and the full eligibility criteria are published. Checked 23 August 2026.
Visa and stream	Who it is for	How long you can stay	The catch
Subclass 482 Skills in Demand Core Skills stream	Your occupation is on the Core Skills Occupation List and an approved employer wants to fill that job with you.	Up to 4 years, and it can be renewed	You work for the sponsor who nominated you. If the job ends, you have a limited window to find another employer willing to start the process again.
Subclass 482 Skills in Demand Specialist Skills stream	The job pays at or above the Specialist Skills Income Threshold. There is no occupation list for this stream.	Up to 4 years, and it can be renewed	The salary is effectively the whole test, and it sits well above what most jobs pay. Trades, machinery operators, drivers and labourers cannot use this stream at any salary.
Subclass 482 Skills in Demand Labour agreement stream	Your employer has negotiated its own agreement with the Australian Government, usually because its industry cannot use the standard streams.	Up to 4 years, depending on what the agreement says	You cannot arrange this yourself. Either the employer already has an agreement in effect, or this stream is not available to you.
Subclass 186 Employer Nomination Scheme Direct Entry stream	You are going straight for permanent residence, without holding a temporary sponsored visa first.	Permanent from the day it is granted Permanent residence	The bar is higher on every count: at least 3 years of relevant work experience, a positive skills assessment before you lodge, and usually under 45 on the day you apply.
Subclass 186 Employer Nomination Scheme Temporary Residence Transition stream	You have already been working for your sponsor on a 482 or a 457, and they want to keep you permanently.	Permanent from the day it is granted Permanent residence	You generally need around 2 years of full-time sponsored work with that employer behind you, and Competent English with no exemptions at all.
Subclass 494 Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional Employer Sponsored stream	A regional employer sponsors you, and you agree to live and work in a designated regional area.	5 years, then permanent residence is possible after 3 years if you meet the conditions	You have to actually live and work in the region. It also asks for 3 years of relevant experience and usually under 45, so it is not the softer option it looks like.

Whether your occupation can be used at all depends on the stream. To check your own, start with the Department of Home Affairs list of eligible skilled occupations, which shows for each occupation which visas it can be used for and which body assesses it.

What is expected of you?

Less than most people fear, and different from what the skilled visas ask. There is no points test here at all: the job carries the application, so the questions are about whether you can do that job.

Your occupation

For most of these visas your occupation has to be on the Core Skills Occupation List, and it has to genuinely match the job you are being nominated for rather than approximately match it. Two streams are exceptions: the Specialist Skills stream uses a salary bar instead of a list, and the permanent Temporary Residence Transition stream runs off the occupation on the temporary visa you already hold.

Your experience

The temporary 482 asks for at least one year of relevant work in your occupation or a closely related field. The permanent 186 Direct Entry stream and the regional 494 both ask for at least three. That gap is why some people start on a 482 rather than applying for permanent residence straight away.

Your skills assessment

An assessing authority checks that your qualifications and experience really do match that occupation as it is defined in Australia. It is mandatory for some occupations and some applicants and not for others, and where it is mandatory it has to be at least started before the visa application is lodged, not afterwards. It is a separate application with its own fee and its own wait.

Your English

You have to meet a minimum standard unless you are exempt, and the standard differs by visa. The permanent 186 Temporary Residence Transition stream is the strictest of them, asking for Competent English with no exemptions at all. The required scores are set by the Department and change, so check the current requirement rather than a figure from last year.

Your age

The temporary 482 has no age requirement whatsoever, which surprises almost everyone. The permanent 186 and the regional 494 generally require you to be under 45 when you apply, with a narrow set of exemptions for academics, certain researchers, some medical practitioners in regional areas, and people whose sponsored earnings have been above a set level.

Your health and character

You and the family members you include have to meet the health and character requirements, and the Department can ask about family members who are not coming with you. This is the part people leave to the end and should not: a health or character issue found late can undo work that took a year.

The full criteria for each stream, including every exemption, are on the Department's page for that stream, linked in the table above. The current English standards are on its English language requirements page.

How much does the job have to pay?

Two tests, and the job has to pass both. It has to pay at least what an Australian doing the same work at the same place would earn, and it has to pay at least the income threshold set for that visa. Whichever is higher is the real floor.

Figures apply to nominations lodged between 1 July 2026 and 30 June 2027, and are indexed every 1 July. The figure that counts is the one in force on the day the nomination is lodged. Source: Department of Home Affairs salary requirements, checked 23 August 2026.
Threshold	Amount	Applies to
Core Skills Income Threshold Often written CSIT	AUD 79,423	Subclass 482 Core Skills stream, and subclass 186
Specialist Skills Income Threshold Often written SSIT	AUD 146,576	Subclass 482 Specialist Skills stream
Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold Often written TSMIT	AUD 79,423	Subclass 494, and subclass 187

What does your employer have to do?

More than most employers expect when they offer, which is worth knowing before you turn down other options. Four obligations do most of the work, and the last one is about what they may not ask of you.

Show they could not fill the job locally

For most streams the position has to have been advertised in Australia for at least four weeks, in at least two places, within the four months before the nomination is lodged. The advertisement has to carry the job, the skills needed and the employer or its recruiter, and to publish the salary where the job pays under a set amount. Posting it only on social media does not count.

Pay you properly, and prove it

The employer has to establish what an Australian doing the same work at the same place would earn, and pay you at least that. That figure also has to clear the income threshold for the visa. Cheaper than an Australian is not an argument for sponsoring someone; it is a reason the nomination gets refused.

Pay the training levy

Sponsors pay a Skilling Australians Fund levy when they lodge the nomination. It is worked out from the size of the business and, for the temporary visas, how many years they nominate you for. It is payable in full up front, and it is only refundable in a short list of specific situations.

Carry the cost themselves

The Department is explicit that an employer cannot transfer the cost of sponsoring or nominating, or the levy, to you or your family. Paying an employer for sponsorship is against the law, whether as a payment, a deduction from your salary or any other benefit, and the consequences reach the worker as well as the business.

The Department publishes all of it for employers: what sponsoring involves, the advertising rules and the costs a sponsor carries. If an employer has told you the sponsorship depends on you covering part of it, that page is the one to read before you agree to anything.

Can a sponsored visa lead to permanent residence?

It can, and for most people that is the whole point of starting on a temporary one. The usual route is to work for your sponsor on a subclass 482, then be nominated by that same employer for the permanent subclass 186 through its Temporary Residence Transition stream, which generally looks for around two years of full-time sponsored work.

Three things that route asks of you which the first visa did not. Your employer has to still want to nominate you, and has to still be an approved sponsor, so the relationship is part of the requirement rather than incidental to it. The English standard is higher and has no exemptions. And the age rule that did not apply to the 482 does apply here, so the same person can be eligible for the temporary visa and not for the permanent one a few years later.

Does a priority occupation get a sponsorship approved?

No. It changes when the applications are picked up, not whether they succeed. Since 25 July 2026 the Department works through these applications in a set order, and where you are when you apply matters as much as what you do.

Law enforcement or defence occupations, applicant already in Australia
Law enforcement or defence occupations, applicant outside Australia
Construction, healthcare and teaching occupations, applicant already in Australia
Everything else, applicant already in Australia
Everything else, applicant outside Australia

Two things worth taking from that. On these visas the order applies to your employer's nomination as well as to your own application, so both of them sit in the same queue and the total wait is not one queue but two. And priority is only queue position: every requirement still has to be met, and the Department still decides. Read the current processing priorities.

Questions people ask first

Employer sponsorship, answered plainly.

Bring the offer. Jenny will tell you whether it can be built on.

Tell her the occupation, what the job pays, whether the business has sponsored anyone before, and where you are now. She will go through which of these visas are realistic, what your employer would have to do, and when the honest answer is that this particular offer will not carry a visa.

Check where you stand

Indicative guidance only, not migration advice. Your details stay private.

Written and checked by Jenny Satya Graha, Registered Migration Agent MARN 0429372. Every requirement, threshold and obligation on this page was checked against the Department of Home Affairs on 23 August 2026. Criteria and charges are set by the Australian Government and change often. Check the Department's own pages for subclass 482 and subclass 186 to confirm anything above, including the eligibility requirements that apply to you.