Can a new business sponsor a 482 worker? Start-ups, the shorter approval, and proving a business that has no history yet

MARN 1576536

What a sponsor has to be

A standard business sponsor must be a business that is lawfully established and actively operating in Australia, or an overseas business with no Australian presence sponsoring for a specific purpose, with no adverse information known about it or its associates, and with a record, where it has sponsored before, of meeting its obligations. The criteria do not mention age, turnover or profit. A business registered yesterday with no trade is not actively operating; a business registered four months ago with a lease, a bank account that shows money moving, invoices issued and a person answering the phone is. The Department's question is whether a real business exists that will employ a real worker, and the evidence is what answers it. The sponsorship guide sets out the standard application.

A business trading under twelve months

The Department treats a business that has been operating for less than twelve months at the time of the sponsorship application as a start-up for its purposes, and three things follow. The evidence of operation is examined more closely, because there is less of it. The sponsorship is approved for a shorter period, so that the Department sees the business survive before it is trusted for the standard term. And the first nomination is examined on affordability and genuineness without the financial history that answers those questions for an established business. None of this is a bar. It is a higher evidential standard applied to a business that has less to show, and the businesses that are refused are the ones that applied with a plan and a registration and nothing else.

The evidence that replaces history

• Registrations. The company or business registration, the ABN, GST registration where applicable, the industry licences the business needs to trade, and workers compensation insurance.
• Premises. The lease, or the title, or the serviced-office agreement, with photographs where the premises are a shop, a kitchen or a workshop.
• Money moving. Bank statements from opening to the application, showing capital in, revenue in and expenses out.
• Trade. Invoices issued, contracts signed, purchase orders, supplier agreements, the first customers and what they paid.
• People. Payroll for any staff, superannuation contributions, the organisational chart as it is and as it will be with the nominated position.
• The plan. A business plan with projections an accountant has prepared, showing the revenue the contracts support and the salary of the nominated position inside the budget for the visa's term.
• The accountant's letter, confirming the business is trading and the figures are its.

A start-up with these is approved. A start-up with the plan and the registration alone is asked for the rest, and refused if it cannot produce them.

The shorter approval

A standard business sponsorship is approved for five years. A business trading under twelve months at application is approved for a shorter period, which the Department sets and states in the approval, and which has been eighteen months under the arrangements of recent years; the sponsor applies for a further sponsorship before it ends, with the financial history it now has. The shorter period does not shorten the visas granted under it, which run for their own terms, and it does not reduce the obligations, which apply in full from the day of approval. It means a second sponsorship application, with its fee, sooner. A business that expects to sponsor several workers over the years applies for the first sponsorship as soon as it can meet the evidence, so that the renewal falls when the accounts are strongest.

The levy and the costs

The sponsorship application charge is modest. Each nomination carries the Skilling Australians Fund levy, which for a business with annual turnover under ten million dollars is charged at the small-business rate for each year of the visa, paid at nomination and partly refundable only in limited cases; a start-up is almost always under the threshold. The nomination charge, the worker's visa application charge and the costs of labour market testing, the market salary evidence and any agent's fees for the sponsorship and nomination are the sponsor's, and the cost-recovery obligation prohibits recovering the sponsor-side costs from the worker. A start-up budgets the sponsorship, the first nomination and the levy as one cost, and the fee schedule gives the current figures.

The nomination: genuine and affordable

The nomination must show that the position is genuine, that it is full-time and in the business, that the occupation is on the list and the duties match it, that the salary is at or above the annual market rate and the threshold, that labour market testing was done, and that the sponsor can meet the obligations, which includes paying the salary for the visa's term. An established business shows affordability with its accounts; a start-up shows it with capital in the bank, investment committed in writing, contracts whose revenue is identifiable, and a budget that puts the salary inside them for the whole term. The Department also asks why a business this young needs this position: a chef for a restaurant that has opened is obvious; a marketing manager for a company with no revenue is not, and the business case has to say why the position comes before the revenue. The genuine position guide covers the business case, and the labour market testing guide the advertising.

The founder as nominee

A company can nominate its own director or shareholder, and a start-up founded by the person who wants the visa is the nomination the Department reads with the most suspicion, because a company set up to sponsor its founder is the device the genuineness criterion was written against. It is approved where the company is a real business that would exist without the visa, has other staff or real customers, needs the founder's occupation for reasons the business can state, pays an arm's-length salary that the business funds, and is run by people other than the founder in a way that makes the employment real. It is refused where the company is a vehicle. A sole trader cannot sponsor themselves at all. The self-sponsorship guide sets out the structure and the evidence.

What a start-up cannot yet do

A new business can sponsor a 482 and, in a regional area with the Regional Certifying Body's advice, a 494. What it usually cannot do is nominate for the permanent 186 in the direct entry stream, because the nomination requires the Department to be satisfied that the business can employ the worker for at least two years on the terms nominated, and a business without a financial history rarely satisfies it; the 186 comes two years later, under the transition stream, when the worker has been with the business on the 482 and the accounts exist. A start-up also cannot yet be an accredited sponsor, which requires a trading history and a compliance record. A worker joining a start-up on a 482 is told that honestly: the permanent visa depends on the business surviving two years.

The sequence

1. Trade first: premises, registrations, bank account, customers, invoices, and at least a few months of money moving.
2. Assemble the evidence of operation and the accountant's plan, and lodge the sponsorship.
3. Run labour market testing for the position while the sponsorship is processed, and obtain the market salary evidence.
4. Lodge the nomination with the business case, the capital and the contracts that fund the salary, and the testing.
5. Lodge the worker's visa with or after the nomination, with the skills, English, health and character evidence.
6. Diarise the sponsorship's end date, and renew with the accounts before it.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. Regulations 2.59 (standard business sponsor criteria), 2.68 and 2.72 (nomination criteria) and Division 2.19 (sponsorship obligations) of the Migration Regulations 1994, and the Migration (Skilling Australians Fund) Charges Act 2018, as in force at the date above; the approval period for a business trading under twelve months is set by the Department’s policy and the approval itself 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.