Intra-company transfers on the 482: which entity sponsors, who is exempt from labour market testing, the short assignment that belongs on the 400, and who must employ and pay the transferee

MARN 1576536

What a transfer is, and what the group gets wrong

An intra-company transfer is the movement of an employee from one company in a corporate group to another, here from an overseas office to the Australian company, to fill a position in Australia; the migration program has no transfer visa, and the transferee comes on the same 482 as any sponsored worker, with the same sponsorship, nomination and visa stages that the step-by-step guide sets out, and with a handful of rules that apply to transfers in particular. The things groups get wrong are consistent: the parent company tries to sponsor, when the Australian entity must; the group assumes every transferee is exempt from labour market testing, when only executives, senior managers and some specialists from trade-obligation countries are; the group keeps the transferee on the home contract and home payroll, when the Department expects Australian employment; the group uses the 482 for a three-month assignment that belongs on the 400; and the group reads the salary against the home country, when the Department reads it against the Australian threshold and the Australian market. Each is fixable before lodgement and expensive after it.

Which entity sponsors

The sponsor is the business lawfully operating in Australia that will employ the transferee: the Australian subsidiary, branch company or related entity, which applies for approval as a Standard Business Sponsor on its own ABN, with its own evidence of lawful operation, its own financial and employment records, and its own undertaking of the sponsorship obligations. The overseas parent is not the sponsor, however large it is, and its financial strength supports the Australian entity's application only as context; a group whose Australian entity is newly established, with little trading history, is in the position the new business guide describes and evidences its operation with the parent's commitment, the contracts, the lease and the plan. A group that has no Australian entity at all, and is sending staff to establish one or to fulfil a contract, uses the overseas business sponsor route that the overseas sponsor guide covers, which is a different approval with different limits, and moves to a standard sponsorship once the Australian entity exists. The sponsorship approval lasts five years and covers every nomination the entity and its associated entities make in that time.

The associated entity rule

A nomination by a Standard Business Sponsor may be for a position with the sponsor or with an associated entity of the sponsor, and associated entity takes its meaning from the Corporations Act, which covers related bodies corporate, entities under common control and entities in which the sponsor or its controller holds a qualifying interest. For a group with several Australian companies, an operating company, a holding company, a services company that employs the staff, one entity holds the sponsorship and nominates for positions across the group, naming the associated entity that will employ the transferee and evidencing the association with the group structure, the ASIC extracts and the ownership chain; the sponsorship obligations remain the sponsor's, and the sponsor ensures the associated entity employs the transferee on the nominated terms. The rule does not extend to an overseas associated entity as the employer of a 482 holder working in Australia, since the position must be in Australia with an Australian employer, and it does not extend to an unrelated company, a client, a franchisee or a joint venture partner that does not meet the definition. A group that nominates for a position with an entity that is not associated, or that lets the transferee work for one that was not named, has a nomination problem and a condition 8607 problem for the transferee, and the group structure is read before the nomination is drafted.

The labour market testing exemption under trade obligations

Labour market testing is required for a 482 nomination in the Core Skills and Specialist Skills streams unless an exemption applies, and the exemption that matters for transfers is the one for international trade obligations: testing is not required where requiring it would be inconsistent with Australia's obligations under the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services or the free trade agreements Australia has entered, and those obligations include commitments on intra-corporate transferees. In the ordinary case the exemption covers a person being transferred within the same company group to the Australian entity as an executive or a senior manager, and under some agreements as a specialist with advanced knowledge of the company's products, services or processes, where the person has been employed by the group abroad for the period the agreement specifies, commonly one or two years, and is coming from a country whose nationals or whose companies the obligation covers, which for the WTO commitment is a broad set of countries and for the agreements is the partner country. The nomination claims the exemption, identifies the obligation, and evidences the group relationship, the transferee's current role and period of employment abroad, and the Australian role's seniority or specialisation; a claim that describes a mid-level role as a senior manager to fit the exemption is read as such, and the Department reads organisation charts. The exemptions guide sets out the trade-obligation exemption beside the others, including the nationality-based exemptions for citizens of some agreement countries that can apply to a transferee independently of their role.

The transferees the exemption does not cover

Most transferees are not executives, senior managers or specialists in the trade-obligation sense: the engineer moving to the Australian project, the accountant joining the finance team, the developer, the consultant, the technician, the account manager. For them the exemption does not apply unless another does, and the sponsor tests the Australian labour market for the position in the way the labour market testing guide describes, with the advertisements run for the period, in the forms and with the content the instrument requires, before the nomination is lodged, and with the outcome evidenced. A group that would rather not advertise a position it has already decided to fill with its own person advertises anyway, because the testing is a condition of the nomination and not a recruitment exercise, and the applications received are read and recorded; a group that lodges without testing, relying on a transfer being a transfer, has the nomination refused and the levy paid. The nationality exemptions can rescue some: a transferee who is a citizen of a country whose nationals are exempt under an agreement, which the exemptions guide lists, needs no testing whatever their role.

The short assignment: the 400

An assignment that is short and specialised does not need the 482 at all. The 400 Temporary Work (Short Stay Specialist) visa is for a person coming to do highly specialised work that an Australian cannot reasonably do, for up to three months in the ordinary case and up to six months where the business case is strong, without sponsorship approval, without a nomination, without labour market testing and without the levy; the transferee remains employed and paid abroad in the ordinary case, the Australian entity supports the application with a letter describing the work, and the visa is applied for from outside Australia and granted in weeks. The installer, the trainer, the auditor, the project specialist, the executive visiting for a quarter, come on the 400. The 482 is for a position in the Australian business that will last beyond the 400's limits, and a group that has used the 400 for a person and now wants them to stay nominates them for the 482 and reads the timing, since a 400 holder cannot in the ordinary case apply onshore for the 482 because of the no further stay condition, and lodges from abroad. The line between the two is the length and the nature of the work, and a group that stretches a 400 assignment to a year has a worker in breach and a business with an unlawful employee.

Who employs and pays the transferee

The 482 holder must work in the nominated position for the sponsor or the associated entity named in the nomination, and the sponsor's obligations, including the obligation to pay the nominated earnings and the obligation to provide terms no less favourable than an equivalent Australian worker's, are the sponsor's and are read on the sponsor's payroll; the Department therefore expects the transferee to be employed by the Australian entity under an Australian employment contract, paid through Australian payroll in Australian dollars, with Australian superannuation and tax withheld, and the nomination states the position's terms on that footing. A group that wants to keep the transferee on the home-country contract, paid from abroad, with the Australian entity recharged, has a problem: the Department reads whether the transferee is in substance employed by the Australian entity, and a nomination that shows an employer abroad and no Australian employment is refused as not a genuine position with the sponsor. Some trade-obligation transferees are seconded, remaining employed by the home entity for continuity of benefits while assigned to and controlled by the Australian entity under a secondment agreement, and the Department reads the agreement for the Australian entity's control, its bearing of the cost, and the transferee's integration in the Australian business; it is done, with care, and a group that wants it takes advice before lodging. The contractor guide covers the employment requirement from the other direction.

The salary read in Australia

The nominated annual earnings must be at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold, or the Specialist Skills Income Threshold for a specialist-stream nomination, and at or above the annual market salary rate for the position in Australia, read against what the Australian entity pays equivalent Australian employees in the location or, where there are none, against the Australian market; the transferee's home salary, the group's global bands and the cost of living abroad are irrelevant. A transferee on a home salary that converts to less than the Australian rate is nominated at the Australian rate and paid it; a package that reaches the Australian figure through housing, a car and allowances is read on the guaranteed annual earnings, which include guaranteed allowances written into the contract but not accommodation provided in kind unless the strict conditions for non-monetary benefits are met, and most groups put the whole figure in cash. A senior transferee whose Australian salary is at or above the specialist threshold is nominated in the Specialist Skills stream, with no occupation list and priority processing, which the specialist stream guide covers. The thresholds are indexed each July and the threshold guide carries the figures.

The documents the Department reads

For the sponsorship, the Australian entity's registration, financials, business activity statements, employment records and evidence of lawful operation, with the group structure where the entity is new. For the nomination, the position description and the organisation chart showing the position in the Australian business, the employment contract or offer on Australian terms, the salary evidence against the threshold and the market, the labour market testing or the exemption with its evidence, the group structure and ASIC extracts for the associated entity, and for a trade-obligation exemption the transferee's employment history with the group abroad, their current role and its seniority or specialisation, and the basis of the obligation; where a secondment agreement is used, the agreement itself. For the visa, the transferee's identity, qualifications and experience against the occupation, the skills assessment where the occupation or nationality requires one, English, health, character for every country lived in for twelve months or more, and the family's documents. The Department reads a transfer for genuineness as it reads any nomination, and the question it asks of a transfer is whether the Australian position is real and the person will do it in Australia for the Australian entity; a file that answers that question in its first pages is approved, and a file built around a home-country arrangement is queried.

The family

The transferee's partner and dependent children are included in the visa application as secondary applicants, with the partner holding full work rights in Australia, the children attending school, with the state school fees that some states charge temporary visa holders, and the family holding health insurance that meets condition 8501; the group that relocates a family budgets for the fees, the insurance, the housing and the schooling, and the relocation guides cover the family's first weeks. The family's health examinations and police certificates are part of the application and are the usual cause of delay in a transfer that was planned to a start date, so they are started the day the nomination is lodged. A transferee who comes alone and later wants the family to follow adds them as subsequent entrants, which the subsequent entrant guide covers.

The transferee who stays: the 186

Many transfers become permanent, and the route is the 186 employer nomination. The transition stream nominates a transferee who has worked in the nominated position for the sponsor for two years on the 482, read on the payroll and the position; the direct entry stream nominates a transferee who meets the direct entry criteria, including the skills assessment and the experience, without the two years. Either nomination is read against the Core Skills Income Threshold and the market rate at the time it is lodged, which after two indexations is higher than the figure the 482 was nominated at, and the group that intends permanence plans the transferee's salary to that figure from the start; the 186 is a nomination by the Australian entity or its associated entity, with its own charge and its own levy, and the transferee's visa follows. The transferee who becomes a permanent resident is no longer tied to the group, which the group accepts as the cost of the retention. The 482 to 186 guide sets out the route, and the age limit, which a senior transferee approaching 45 reads first.

The transfer checklist

1. Decide the length and nature of the assignment: up to three months of specialised work is the 400; a lasting position is the 482.
2. Have the Australian entity approved as the sponsor on its own ABN; the parent does not sponsor unless there is no Australian entity.
3. Map the group: which Australian entity employs the transferee, and whether it is the sponsor or an associated entity; evidence the association.
4. Read the transferee’s role against the trade-obligation exemption: executive, senior manager or qualifying specialist from a covered country, with the group service period; otherwise test the market before nominating.
5. Put the transferee on an Australian contract and Australian payroll at the Australian threshold and market rate; if a secondment is unavoidable, have the agreement read first.
6. Nominate in the Specialist Skills stream where the salary is at or above its threshold.
7. Start the family’s health and police checks the day the nomination is lodged.
8. If the transfer is meant to be permanent, budget the salary to the 186 threshold two years out.

General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The Standard Business Sponsor and overseas business sponsor criteria, the nomination criteria in regulation 2.72 including the associated entity provisions, the labour market testing requirement in s 140GBA of the Migration Act 1958 and the international trade obligations exemption as specified by legislative instrument, the subclass 400 criteria, the Core Skills and Specialist Skills Income Thresholds as indexed, the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19 of the Migration Regulations 1994, and the definition of associated entity in the Corporations Act 2001, all as in force at the date above; the trade agreements and their commitments are read as published. 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.