Your 482 sponsor has gone into liquidation or administration: what happens to the visa, when the 180 days start, the pending nomination, and the wages you are owed

MARN 1576536

The visa is not the sponsor's

The 482 and the 494 are granted to the worker on the strength of an employer's nomination, and once granted they belong to the worker: they continue to their expiry date unless the Department cancels them, and the cancellation grounds are the worker's own, a breach of a condition, false information, character, and not the sponsor's fate. A sponsor that enters administration, receivership or liquidation ceases, sooner or later, to be an approved sponsor and ceases to employ the worker, and the visa's response to that is condition 8607: the worker must work only for the sponsor in the nominated occupation, and when that employment ends the worker has 180 days to find a new sponsor, be granted another visa, or depart. The Department does not cancel a visa because the sponsor has gone, and the worker who assumes the visa has ended, stops looking for work and overstays the 180 days has done the one thing that does end it. The sponsor-stops guide covers the ordinary end of a sponsorship.

Administration, receivership and liquidation

• Voluntary administration: the directors appoint an administrator to take control for a short period while creditors decide whether the company is saved by a deed of company arrangement, sold, or wound up; the administrator commonly keeps the business trading and the employees employed, and the worker's employment and sponsorship continue until the administrator ends them. A sale of the business as a going concern can transfer the employees to the buyer, who then applies for sponsorship approval and nominates the worker. Administration can end in liquidation.
• Receivership: a secured creditor appoints a receiver to realise the assets it holds security over, which may include running the business for a time; employees may continue or be terminated, and the receiver's letter says which.
• Liquidation: the company is wound up, a liquidator collects and sells the assets and distributes them to creditors in the order the law sets, and employees are usually terminated at or soon after the appointment, because there is no business to employ them; the liquidator's letter to employees gives the termination date and the forms for their claims.
• Deregistration or abandonment: a company that simply stops, with the directors gone and no formal appointment, leaves the worker without an employer and without a letter; the date employment ended is then the last day worked or paid, and the worker records it.

When the 180 days start

The 180 days under condition 8607 run from the day the worker ceases employment with the sponsor, and in an insolvency that day is the termination date in the administrator's or liquidator's letter, or the last day of work where the business simply stopped; it is not the date of the appointment, not the date the worker heard, and not the date the sponsor's approval lapsed with the Department. A worker kept on by an administrator for six weeks and then terminated has 180 days from the termination; a worker stood down without pay while the administrator decides is in a grey position, since a stand-down is not a termination, and the worker asks the administrator in writing for the status of the employment and keeps the answer. The worker tells the Department of the change of employer circumstances within the period the condition sets, through ImmiAccount, with the letter attached, which fixes the date on the Department's file. The 180-day guide covers what the period permits.

The sponsor's approval and obligations

A standard business sponsorship is held by the company, and a company in liquidation is not lawfully operating a business in the sense the approval requires; the Department cancels or lets lapse the approval once it learns, which is usually when the administrator or liquidator notifies it, as the sponsor's obligations require within the period after the event. The obligations that survive are the company's debts: the obligation to pay the worker's reasonable and necessary return travel costs on request, the obligation not to recover sponsorship costs from the worker, and the record-keeping obligations, and a company without assets does not meet them, so the worker's claim for the airfare is a claim in the winding up, unsecured and rarely paid. The sponsor's failure is not the worker's breach, and the Department does not hold the worker responsible for an obligation the sponsor could not meet.

The pending nomination

A nomination lodged by the sponsor and not decided when the company fails cannot be approved by a company in liquidation, because the nomination criteria require a lawfully operating business, a genuine position and a sponsor that meets its obligations, and the Department refuses it or the liquidator withdraws it; the visa application that depends on it is then withdrawn in writing by the worker so that the visa application charge is refunded, rather than left to be refused. A worker in Australia on a bridging visa waiting for that nomination and visa is in the hardest position in this guide: the bridging visa continues while the application is pending, and the worker needs a new sponsor to nominate them and a new visa application before the current one is withdrawn, which the consultation sequences. A nomination by a company in administration can survive where the administrator confirms the business is trading and the position is real, and the Department asks the administrator. The refund guide covers the withdrawal.

Wages, leave and the Fair Entitlements Guarantee

Employees of a company in liquidation are priority creditors under the Corporations Act for unpaid wages, superannuation, annual and long service leave, payment in lieu of notice and redundancy, paid before unsecured creditors from the assets the liquidator realises; where the assets are not enough, the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, pays eligible employees their unpaid wages up to thirteen weeks, their leave, their notice and their redundancy up to the scheme's caps, on a claim lodged within twelve months of the liquidation or the termination, and the scheme has paid temporary visa holders on the same terms as other employees. The guarantee does not cover unpaid superannuation, which is pursued through the Tax Office's unpaid super process, nor entitlements under a contract above the award or agreement minimums beyond the caps. The liquidator gives employees the information and the forms; a worker who has left Australia can still claim. In administration, employees continue to be paid while the business trades, and unpaid amounts before the appointment are claims in the administration.

Visa costs and the airfare

The sponsor pays the sponsorship and nomination charges and the Skilling Australians Fund levy, and may not recover them from the worker; a worker who paid any of them to the sponsor has a claim in the winding up and, where the recovery was unlawful, a matter for the Department's sponsor monitoring, which a company in liquidation is no longer in a position to answer. The visa application charge, which the worker ordinarily pays, is not refundable for a granted visa and is refundable for a pending visa application withdrawn after the nomination fails. The sponsor's obligation to pay the worker's return airfare on request is a debt of the company, claimed in the winding up and usually unpaid; a worker who leaves pays their own fare and claims. The Skilling Australians Fund levy is refundable to the sponsor in some cases where the worker did not start or left within the first year, which is the liquidator's claim, not the worker's.

The new sponsor

The worker finds an employer who is, or will become, an approved standard business sponsor, who nominates the worker in the same or another occupation at the market rate with labour market testing or an exemption, and the worker lodges a new 482 application or, where the current 482 has enough validity, transfers on the new nomination alone; the new nomination must be approved before the worker starts, and the 180 days are the time within which that happens. A buyer of the failed business as a going concern is the natural new sponsor, and a buyer that is already a sponsor can nominate immediately; a buyer that is not applies for sponsorship approval first, which takes weeks, and the worker's 180 days run through it. Work for anyone in the gap is permitted by the 180-day allowance, in any occupation, which keeps the worker solvent. The transfer guide covers the new sponsor's side, and the no-employer guide the skilled visas for a worker who does not want another sponsor.

The 186 time you keep

The months of sponsored full-time work with the employer that failed count toward the two years the 186 transition stream requires, since the requirement no longer ties the two years to the nominating employer, provided the occupation is the same and the months fall within the three years before the new nomination; the gap after the termination does not count and does not break the count. The evidence of those months, the contract, the payslips, the superannuation statements and the income statements from the Tax Office, exists independently of the employer, and a letter from a former manager or a statutory declaration stands in for the employer's letter that cannot be obtained. The previous-sponsor guide sets out the count.

The worker who never started

A worker whose 482 was granted abroad and whose employer failed before they arrived, or who arrived to find the business closed, holds a visa with condition 8607 and no employment to have ceased; the Department's reading is that the 180 days run from the date the worker would have started or from arrival, and the worker has the period to find a new sponsor or another visa, with the same work allowance. The visa was granted on a nomination that was genuine when made, and the worker has done nothing wrong; the airfare and the relocation costs are a claim against a company that cannot pay, and the consultation says so plainly before the worker spends more.

What to do this week

1. Get the administrator's or liquidator's letter and fix the termination date, or write to the administrator asking for the status of your employment if you have been stood down.
2. Count the 180 days from that date and write the end date down.
3. Notify the Department of the change through ImmiAccount, with the letter.
4. Lodge the employee claim forms with the liquidator, and the Fair Entitlements Guarantee claim within its period.
5. Gather the payslips, contract, super and tax statements for the 186 count while the records are reachable.
6. Start the search for a new sponsor at once, and take work in the gap to stay solvent.
7. If a nomination and visa were pending, see the consultation before withdrawing anything, so the sequence is right.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Condition 8607 in Schedule 8 to the Migration Regulations 1994, the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19, the nomination criteria in regulation 2.72, section 556 of the Corporations Act 2001 (employee priority), and the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Act 2012, as in force at the date above; the Department’s treatment of a stand-down and of a worker who never commenced is a matter of its policy and the current position governs. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each case; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.