Sponsoring an employee you already have on a student or graduate visa: the employer’s three checks, labour market testing for a filled job, and the timeline against the visa’s expiry

MARN 1576536

Why an existing employee is harder than it looks

An employer sponsoring from abroad designs the position for the visa: the occupation, the duties, the salary and the advertising are set with the nomination in mind. An employer sponsoring someone already employed has a position that grew up without the visa in mind, a graduate hired as a junior at a graduate salary, a student working twenty hours in a role that is partly administrative, a title that was chosen for the org chart, and the Department assesses the nomination on the position as it is, not as the employer would describe it to keep the worker. The worker's visa has an expiry date that fixes the deadline, the employer is often not yet an approved sponsor, and the employer learns that the advertising must be done for a job it has no intention of giving to anyone else. The three checks below are done before any charge is paid, and the step-by-step guide sets out the stages that follow.

Check one: the occupation

The position must be one whose duties correspond to an occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List, or to one the Specialist Skills stream covers at its salary, and the Department reads the duties the worker actually performs against the ANZSCO description for the occupation: a graduate accountant who does bookkeeping and data entry is a bookkeeper, not an accountant, whatever the title; a marketing coordinator whose work is social media posting is not a marketing specialist; a software developer who configures a vendor's product is examined for whether the role is at the developer's level. The employer writes the position description from the real work, the agent reads it against the occupation, and where the real work is below the occupation's level the position is restructured honestly, with the duties the occupation requires actually assigned and paid for, before the nomination; a position description written to fit the occupation while the work stays the same is the genuineness refusal, which the genuine position guide covers. The role must be full-time, and a student's twenty-hour role is made full-time from the start date in the nomination. The occupation list is read first.

Check two: the salary

The nominated salary must be at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold in force at nomination, which is indexed each July, and at or above the annual market salary rate for the position, which is what an Australian doing the same work for the same employer in the same location is or would be paid, shown by the employer's own equivalent employees, the award or agreement, or market data; a graduate on a graduate salary below the threshold cannot be nominated at that salary, and the employer either raises it to the threshold and the market rate from the nomination date or does not nominate. The salary is the guaranteed annual earnings excluding superannuation and non-cash items, and a package built on allowances or commission is examined. An employer who raises the salary to the threshold for the nomination and lowers it afterwards breaches the obligation to pay the nominated salary and is found at monitoring. The threshold guide has the current figure, and the market rate report the evidence the Department wants.

Check three: the skills assessment

The 482 requires the worker to have the skills, qualifications and experience for the occupation, which the Department assesses on the qualification and the work history, and for the occupations and nationalities the instrument lists it requires a formal skills assessment from the assessing authority, obtained before the visa application; the worker checks whether the occupation and passport are on the list, and if so applies to the authority now, because an assessment takes weeks to months and the visa cannot be lodged without it where required. A graduate with an Australian qualification in the occupation commonly passes; a student working in a trade who needs a trade assessment on experience may not have enough, and the consultation reads the authority's criteria before the employer commits. The 482 also requires relevant work experience for the occupation, which the Department has set at a modest period and which recent graduates meet through the graduate role itself, and the worker's English at the required level, which the 485 or the student visa's test result usually shows.

Labour market testing for a filled job

The nomination requires evidence that the employer tested the labour market for the position, by advertising it in the manner and for the period the legislative instrument sets, within the months before the nomination, and the requirement applies whether or not the position is currently filled by the person to be nominated; the employer runs the advertisements for the position, with the title, the duties, the salary or salary range and the skills required, on the platforms the instrument accepts, considers the Australian applicants honestly, and records who applied and why none was suitable. An employer who treats the advertising as a formality and writes "no suitable applicants" without interviewing is examined, and an employer who receives a suitable Australian applicant has a decision to make. The exemptions, for workers of the nationalities with treaty access, for some positions above a salary level, for intra-company transfers and for a few others, are read before advertising, since many graduates qualify by nationality. The testing guide and the exemptions guide set out both.

Sponsorship approval and the nomination

An employer that is not already an approved standard business sponsor applies to become one, showing a lawfully operating business, no adverse information, and the capacity to meet the obligations; the approval lasts five years and covers every later nomination. The nomination for the position follows, or is lodged at the same time, with the position description, the labour market testing evidence, the salary and the market rate evidence, the genuineness submission, the levy and the nomination charge, and the worker's details; the Department decides the sponsorship and the nomination in the order it receives them, with the nomination unable to be approved before the sponsorship. The sponsor guide covers the first stage and the nomination checklist the second; the processing time guide has the current figures. An employer that does not want to run the process itself uses the nomination service.

The timeline against the worker's expiry

1. Write the worker's visa expiry date at the top of the file; everything is planned back from it.
2. Run the three checks in the first week; start the skills assessment at once where one is needed.
3. Begin labour market testing immediately, since the advertising period and the instrument's window set the earliest nomination date.
4. Lodge the sponsorship application as soon as the business documents are assembled, in parallel with the advertising.
5. Lodge the nomination when the advertising period has run and the sponsorship is lodged or approved.
6. Lodge the visa application before the worker's current visa expires; it must be lodged, not decided, by then, and the nomination must be lodged by then too.
7. Keep the worker on the current visa's conditions until the 482 is granted.

A 485 with a year to run gives comfortable time; a 485 with three months, or a student visa expiring at course end, gives none to waste, and an employer who starts late is the commonest reason the worker is lost. The 485 ending guide covers the worker's side of the clock.

The bridging visa and work rights in the gap

A worker who lodges the 482 application in Australia while holding the 485 or the student visa is granted a bridging visa A that takes effect when the current visa expires and lasts until the 482 is decided, with the work conditions of the visa the worker held: a 485 holder keeps unrestricted work rights and continues full-time with the employer; a student visa holder keeps the fortnightly hours limit during term until the 482 is granted, and the employer who rosters the student full-time on the bridging visa has caused a breach that the 482 application itself will disclose. A student whose course has ended and whose provider's scheduled break has begun is on unlimited hours for the break under the student rules, which the employer checks against the provider's calendar rather than assuming. The 482's grant lifts every limit, and the worker starts on the nominated terms from the grant date. The work hours guide covers the limit, and the VEVO guide how the employer checks.

The student who has not finished

A student still studying can be the subject of a sponsorship application and a nomination, but cannot lodge the 482 until they meet its skills criteria, which for most occupations means the qualification completed and, where required, the skills assessment issued; the sequence is to prepare everything now, lodge the sponsorship and run the advertising, and lodge the nomination and the visa in the window between the completion letter and the student visa's expiry, which the Department allows for in the visa's grant period. A student who will take the 485 first has two or three years of full work rights in which the 482 can be done without pressure, and for many the 485 is the better first step; a student whose occupation is on the list and whose employer is ready can go straight to the 482 and skip the 485's charge, and the consultation reads which. Since October 2026 the student visa rules restrict what a student can apply for onshore, and the study on a 482 guide covers the worker who wants to keep studying after the grant.

What the employer pays and cannot recover

• The standard business sponsorship application charge, once per five years.
• The nomination charge, per nomination.
• The Skilling Australians Fund levy, per year of the visa period nominated, at the rate for the business's turnover, paid at nomination.
• The agent's fee for the employer's side, where an agent is engaged.
• The salary at the nominated rate from the grant, and the obligations through the sponsorship.

None of these may be recovered from the worker, directly or by deduction, by a lower salary, by a bond, or by an agreement that the worker repays if they leave; the sponsorship obligations prohibit recovery, the Fair Work Act prohibits the deductions, and an employer that does either is found at monitoring and in the worker's later application. The worker pays the visa application charge, the skills assessment, the health examination, the police certificates and their own agent. The cost guide has the figures, and the deductions guide what an employer that recovers faces.

The mistakes that lose the worker

• Starting when the visa has weeks to run, so that the advertising period alone outlasts it.
• Nominating the title rather than the work, so that the genuineness assessment finds a lower-level role.
• Nominating at the current graduate salary, below the threshold or the market rate.
• Skipping labour market testing because the job is already filled.
• Nominating a part-time role, or rostering a student full-time on the bridging visa.
• Discovering the skills assessment requirement after the visa has expired.
• Recovering the costs from the worker, which the worker's own later applications disclose.
• Letting the worker's current visa expire before the application is lodged, which makes the worker unlawful and the onshore application far harder.

The readiness check runs the three checks for a business before the consultation.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The standard business sponsorship criteria in Division 2.13, the nomination criteria in regulation 2.72 including the genuine position, salary and labour market testing requirements and the legislative instruments made under them, the subclass 482 criteria in Schedule 2, the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19, and the Bridging A visa provisions of the Migration Regulations 1994, and the Migration (Skilling Australians Fund) Charges Act 2018, as in force at the date above; the income threshold, the occupation list and the testing instrument change and the current published positions govern. 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.