Sponsoring a relative through your business: why a related-party nomination is lawful and examined harder, the genuine position test for family, and the cases that succeed

MARN 1576536

What the law says and what the policy adds

The nomination criteria for the 482 and 494 do not prohibit a sponsor from nominating a person related to its owners or officers; they require, for every nomination, that the position is genuine, that the sponsor has a genuine need for a paid employee in the position, that the position is full-time and likely to exist for the period, that the salary meets the threshold and the market rate, that labour market testing was done or is exempt, and that the sponsor has no adverse information. The Department's policy on genuineness lists the circumstances an officer considers, and a relationship between the nominee and the sponsor's owners, directors or officers is among them, alongside a position that does not fit the business's size or activity, a position recently created, a salary at the minimum, and a nominee whose qualifications do not match; the officer weighs the relationship as a reason to look harder, and refuses where the evidence does not satisfy them that the position is real. The relationship is therefore neither a bar nor irrelevant, and a nomination that pretends it is irrelevant is the one that fails. The genuine position guide sets out the test in full.

What the Department reads

• The business's registration, financial statements, business activity statements, revenue and staff numbers, against the position nominated: a business with two staff and modest revenue nominating a manager is read for whether the business can use and pay one.
• The organisational chart and the existing staff, and who does the work of the nominated position now: a position that nobody currently does, in a business that has operated for years, is asked why it is needed now.
• The recruitment history: whether the business has tried to fill the position, with whom, and why it failed.
• The nominee's qualifications, employment history and current position abroad, against the occupation's requirements, and whether the nominee was working in the occupation before or was chosen because of the relationship.
• The labour market testing: the advertisements, the applicants, the responses, and whether an Australian was suitable.
• The salary against the threshold, the market rate and the business's capacity to pay it from its revenue.
• The disclosure of the relationship, and whether the nomination addressed it.
• The business's and the owners' immigration history, including earlier nominations of relatives and what happened to them.

The disclosure

The nomination form asks whether the nominee has a family or other relationship with the sponsor's owners, directors, officers or other staff, and the answer is yes, with the relationship stated; the Department verifies through the names, the addresses, the earlier visa applications in which the relative was listed as a family member, and the nominee's own form, which asks about relatives in Australia, and an undisclosed relationship found by those means is a false statement under PIC 4020, refusing the visa with a three-year bar on the worker and recording adverse information against the sponsor for every later nomination. The submission accompanying the nomination addresses the relationship directly: that the nominee is the owner's nephew, that the business needs the position for the reasons shown, that the nephew is qualified for it as shown, that the position was advertised and the applicants considered, and that the salary is at the market rate and will be paid; a submission that addresses the question before the officer asks it is read as honest, and a nomination that leaves the officer to discover the relationship is read as the opposite.

The business's need for the role

The nomination shows that the business needs a paid, full-time employee in the position, independently of the relative: the growth, the contracts, the customer base or the regulatory requirement that creates the need; the work that is currently not being done, or being done by the owner or by contractors at a cost; the business plan or the financial projections that show the position paying for itself; and the position's place in the organisational chart with its reporting lines and its duties. A restaurant that has grown to a second service needs a second chef; a construction business that has won a contract needs a site supervisor; a medical practice with a new clinic needs a practice manager; and the evidence is the bookings, the contract, the lease. A business that cannot show the need beyond the owner's statement that the relative would be useful has not shown a genuine position, whoever the nominee was. The genuine position statement guide covers the submission, and the small business guide the size and revenue the Department expects for each kind of position.

The relative's qualifications

The nominee must have the qualifications and experience the occupation requires, shown by the qualification certificates, the employment references from abroad with duties and dates, the skills assessment where the occupation and nationality require one, and the English test result; a relative who has been working in the occupation for years abroad and holds the qualification is a nominee the Department accepts, and a relative who has never worked in the occupation and whose qualification is in something else is a nominee the Department refuses, because the position, if genuine, would be filled by someone who can do it. The Department verifies overseas employment references for related-party nominations more often than for others, by contacting the employer, and a reference from another family business abroad is read with that in mind. The occupation nominated is the one the relative is qualified for, not the one that is on the list; a cousin who is a cook is nominated as a cook, if cook is available, and not as a chef, and the occupation list is read for what is available.

The salary that must be real

The nominated salary must be at or above the income threshold and the annual market salary rate for the position, shown by the business's own equivalent employees, the award or market data, and the Department reads a related-party nomination at the minimum for whether the salary will be paid at all; after the grant, the sponsor's obligation to pay the nominated salary is monitored through the payroll, the superannuation and the Tax Office's single touch payroll, and a relative who is paid the salary and returns part of it to the business, who is paid in cash, or who is paid less than nominated has caused the sponsor a breach and the worker a problem at the 186. The salary is paid through the payroll, with the superannuation, from the business's revenue, and a business whose revenue cannot support it has shown the Department that the position is not genuine. The market rate report covers the evidence.

Labour market testing done honestly

The position is advertised in the form and for the period the instrument requires, the Australian applicants are considered, and the outcome is recorded; a related-party nomination whose advertising produced suitable Australian applicants who were not interviewed, or were interviewed and rejected on grounds the officer finds thin, is refused on genuineness as well as on the testing, because the advertising was for show. The honest employer advertises the real position at the real salary, interviews the applicants who meet the criteria, and hires the relative only if no suitable Australian applied, which for a skilled position in a regional restaurant or a trade business is often the outcome and for a managerial position in a city is often not. The exemptions for some nationalities apply to relatives as to anyone. The testing guide sets out the requirements.

The family business that employs only family

A family business, the restaurant, the farm, the shop, the trade business, in which the owner, the spouse and the adult children all work, is a lawfully operating business like any other, and the Department reads it for what it is: whether it has real revenue from real customers, whether the nominated position is work the business actually has, and whether the salary can be paid from the takings. A family restaurant with a full dining room and a chef who has left can nominate a relative who is a chef; a family business that has no employees who are not family, that has never advertised, and that nominates a relative into a position it has never had, is examined for whether the business exists to sponsor family, and the earlier nominations of relatives and what became of them are read. A business that has sponsored three cousins who each left within a year of the grant is a sponsor the Department bars.

The owner who is the relative

A company nominating one of its own directors or shareholders, or the spouse of one, is a self-sponsorship, which the Department examines under a stricter reading of genuineness: whether the person is an employee of a business that exists independently of them, with a position that the business needs filled, or the owner of a business arranged to produce a visa; a sole trader cannot nominate themselves at all, and a company with the nominee as sole director is examined for whether there is an employer and an employee in any real sense. The self-sponsorship guide covers it, and a relative who will also own part of the business discloses that too, because the Department reads a nominee who is both employee and shareholder as closer to the self-sponsorship case.

The cases that succeed and the cases that do not

• Succeeds: a regional restaurant with the bookings to need a second chef, nominating the owner's nephew who has worked as a chef abroad for five years and holds the qualification, after advertising that produced no suitable Australian, at the market rate, disclosed.
• Succeeds: a growing trade business with contracts to show, nominating the owner's brother-in-law who is a qualified electrician with a skills assessment, after advertising, at the award rate or above.
• Succeeds: a medical practice nominating the owner's sister who is a registered nurse with the registration, into a position the practice's patient numbers require.
• Fails: a business with three staff nominating a cousin as a marketing manager, where no one has done marketing before, the cousin's degree is in another field, and the salary is the threshold exactly.
• Fails: a family shop nominating a relative as a retail manager where the owner manages the shop and will continue to.
• Fails: any nomination in which the relationship was not disclosed, whatever the merits.
• Fails: a relative who is not qualified for the occupation, for whom the family hopes a job title will do; there is no route by which an unqualified relative is sponsored into a skilled position, and the sibling guide covers the family visas that exist instead.

After the grant

A relative sponsored on a 482 works in the nominated position, for the nominated salary, under the sponsor's obligations like any worker, and the Department monitors related-party sponsors with the same tools and, on its own statements, with more attention: the payroll, the superannuation, the duties, and whether the relative is in the business doing the job; a relative who is on the books and working elsewhere, or who has gone to live in another city, is the sponsor's breach and the worker's cancellation. The 186 transition after two years is assessed on the same genuineness, and a related-party 186 nomination that shows two years of real employment at the real salary is granted. The business keeps the records from the first day, because the monitoring is coming. The obligations guide covers what is monitored.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The nomination criteria in regulation 2.72 of the Migration Regulations 1994, including the genuine position requirement and the labour market testing and salary requirements, the Department’s policy on the assessment of genuineness and the circumstances it lists, public interest criterion 4020, and the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19, as in force at the date above; the policy is the Department’s and the current position governs. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each nomination; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.