An employee has asked you to sponsor them: the five questions that decide it, what saying yes commits you to, the conditions you can and cannot set, and how to say no

MARN 1576536

The request

The employee who asks is usually one the business wants to keep, which is why the request is hard: a graduate on a 485 with a year or two to run, a working holiday maker whose six months with the business are ending, a student about to finish, a 482 holder whose sponsor is closing. The worker's visa has a date on it, and the employer's answer is needed before the date rather than after; a slow no costs the worker the time to find another sponsor, and a slow yes costs the business the worker, because the process takes months and the visa does not wait. The five questions below are answered in a week, by the employer with the readiness check or the consultation, and the answer, yes or no, is given to the worker with the reasons. The readiness check answers them in writing.

Question one: the role

Does the job the worker actually does correspond to an occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List at the skill level the occupation requires, full-time, at a salary at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold and the market rate? The question is answered on the duties, not the title: a graduate hired as a junior who does the work of the occupation qualifies, and one whose work is administrative support with a professional title does not; a role that is part-time does not qualify until it is full-time; a salary below the threshold does not qualify until it is raised. The employer writes down what the worker does in a week and reads it against the occupation with the consultation. A no here is a no to sponsorship in this role, and the only route is a different role the business genuinely has. The occupation list and the threshold guide answer the first half, and the part-time guide the hours.

Question two: the worker

Does the worker have the qualification and the experience the occupation requires, the skills assessment where their occupation and nationality require one, the English at the level the visa sets, and a history, health and character the Department will accept? The worker answers most of this with their documents, the qualification, the references, the earlier visa grants and the English test result, and the employer asks the two questions the documents do not answer: has any visa been refused or cancelled since the worker last entered Australia, which bears on whether the 482 can be lodged here at all, and is there anything in the worker's history, a conviction, an earlier false statement, that the Department will find. A worker who cannot pass the skills assessment, whose English is below the level, or who is barred onshore has a sponsorship that will fail or take a different route, and the employer learns it before the charges. The criminal record guide and the bridging visa guide cover the two histories that change the answer.

Question three: the business

Is the business lawfully operating, with the registrations, the financial statements and the trading history to show it, with no adverse information about it or the people who run it, and with the capacity to pay the nominated salary with superannuation for the years of the visa and to meet the obligations, the records, the notifications, the equal terms, the return airfare, the monitoring? A new business shows its plan and its capital, a sole trader or a trust shows the structure can sponsor, a business with a Fair Work finding or a tax problem shows it has been resolved. The question includes whether someone in the business will own the file for five years, because the obligations are not a one-off. The small business guide, the structures guide and the obligations guide answer it.

Question four: the need

Would the business need this position filled, full-time, at this salary, if this worker did not exist? The Department's genuine position test asks exactly that, and an employer who would not advertise the role if the worker left has a position the Department will read as created for the worker; an employer who would, and who can show the work, the revenue and the place in the organisation, has a genuine position. The question also asks whether the need is ongoing, for the years of the visa, rather than a project or a season, and whether the business has tried to fill it with Australians, which the labour market testing will require it to do again. The genuine position guide covers the test.

Question five: the timing

Does the worker's current visa leave enough time for the sponsorship approval, the labour market testing period, the nomination and the visa application to be lodged before it expires? The visa application must be lodged, not decided, before the current visa ends, and the nomination lodged by then too; the labour market testing's advertising period and the sponsorship approval's weeks set the earliest nomination date, and a worker with three months left on a 485 is possible with urgency, while a worker with three weeks is not unless the employer is already a sponsor and the testing is exempt. A worker whose visa has already expired is unlawful and in a different position. The timeline is drawn on the first day, backwards from the expiry, and the existing employee guide sets it out.

What saying yes commits you to

• The sponsorship charge, the nomination charge, and the Skilling Australians Fund levy for each year of the visa, paid at lodgement and not recoverable from the worker, with the levy partly refundable in limited cases and the charges not refundable for a worker who leaves.
• The nominated salary, at or above the threshold and the market rate, with superannuation, for as long as the worker is employed on the visa, reviewed against the market as the obligations require.
• The sponsorship obligations for the five years of the approval and beyond: a written contract, equal terms, records kept and produced, notifications within 28 days of listed events, cooperation with monitoring, no recovery of costs, and the return airfare on request at the end.
• A nomination that is for this worker in this position, so that a change of role needs a new nomination.
• The time of the person who manages the file, and the agent's fee for the employer's side where one is engaged.

The cost guide has the figures, and the obligations guide the full list.

What it does not commit you to

• Keeping the worker employed beyond what the Fair Work Act, the award and the contract require of any employment; a sponsored worker can be dismissed or made redundant on the same terms as anyone, with the notification and the obligations that follow.
• Nominating the worker for permanent residence; the 186 is a separate decision when the two years are reached, and an employer who will not make it tells the worker, since their time counts with another sponsor.
• Paying the worker's visa application charge, skills assessment, English test, police certificates, health examination, relocation or flights, unless the employer chooses to.
• Liability for the worker's conduct, their family, their health cover unless agreed, or their compliance with their own visa conditions, beyond the employer's obligations about the employment.
• Sponsoring anyone else who asks; each request is decided on its own.

Saying yes with conditions

An employer may say yes subject to the worker obtaining the skills assessment, the English test, the police certificates and the health examination at their own cost, to the worker paying their own visa application charge and their own agent, to a start date and a probation period that sit inside the nominated terms, and to the business's ordinary policies; an employer may decline to pay relocation or extras. An employer may not require the worker to repay the sponsorship, nomination or levy costs if they leave, in a clause, a loan, a bond or a deduction, may not pay below the nominated salary during probation or at any time, may not require hours or duties outside the nomination, may not condition the sponsorship on the worker withdrawing another application or waiving a right, and may not require the worker to stay for a period on pain of a penalty; each is a breach of the obligations, unenforceable, and disclosed by the worker's later applications. The deductions guide covers the clause employers most often draft and most often regret.

Saying no

An employer may decline to sponsor, and the lawful reasons are the honest ones: the role does not qualify, the worker does not, the business cannot carry the cost or the obligations, the need is not ongoing, the timing is impossible, or the business has a policy against sponsorship or a limit on it. The anti-discrimination laws prohibit treating a person less favourably in employment because of race, nationality or, in some jurisdictions, immigration status, and the exposure is a refusal that is really a refusal to employ people of that background, or a sponsorship policy applied to workers of one nationality and not another; a written policy, applied consistently, with the reasons for each decision recorded in the five questions' terms, is the protection. The no is given early, plainly and in writing, with the reason, and with the help the employer is willing to give, a reference, time to look, an introduction, because the worker's visa clock is running and a late no is the unkindest answer. An employer who says no does not then keep the worker on past the visa's end, and reads the VEVO guide for the date the right to work ends.

The sponsorship policy

1. Whether the business sponsors at all, and for which roles: the skilled positions it cannot fill locally, named by occupation where it can.
2. The five questions, as the test every request is put through, and who answers them.
3. What the business pays and what the worker pays, within the law.
4. The timeline: a decision within a set period of the request, and the sponsorship process started within a set period of a yes.
5. How a no is communicated, and what help the business gives.
6. Who owns the sponsorship file, the obligations and the notifications for the five years.
7. The 186: whether the business will consider nominating for permanent residence, and when it will decide.

A business with the policy answers the next request in a week and the one after that in a day; a business without it decides each one under pressure, inconsistently, and sometimes unlawfully. The consultation drafts the policy with the business as part of the first sponsorship.

General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case, and not employment or discrimination law advice. The standard business sponsorship criteria and the nomination criteria in Divisions 2.13 and 2.17 of the Migration Regulations 1994, the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19 and the sanctions in Division 2.20, the subclass 482 criteria, the Fair Work Act 2009, and the Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws, as in force at the date above; the Department’s practice on genuineness is a matter of its policy and the current position governs. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.