Your sponsored worker has been injured: workers compensation, the visa, and what the employer must keep doing while they are off

MARN 1576536

The scheme covers visa holders

Workers compensation in Australia is a state and territory scheme, compulsory for employers, no-fault, and defined by the employment relationship rather than by the worker's status: a person employed by the business and injured in the course of the employment is covered whether they are a citizen, a permanent resident or the holder of a temporary visa, and a 482 holder is an employee in every sense the schemes use. The insurer pays the medical and rehabilitation costs and weekly payments while the worker is incapacitated, on the scheme's rates and step-downs, and the employer's premium, not the worker, carries it. The worker's own health insurance under condition 8501 is a separate matter, covering the worker outside work, and the 8501 guide covers it. An employer that tells a sponsored worker not to claim because of the visa, or that the claim will affect the sponsorship, is wrong on the law and exposed under the scheme, which in most states makes it an offence to deter a claim, and under the sponsorship obligations, which require terms no less favourable than an Australian's.

What the employer does on the day

The same as for any employee, in the order the scheme sets: first aid and medical treatment, the incident recorded in the register, the insurer notified within the scheme's period, which is days in most states, the worker given the claim form and the certificate of capacity obtained from the treating doctor, and the return-to-work coordinator or the person responsible for it engaged. Nothing in the migration rules is triggered by the injury itself. The employer does not notify the Department of an injury, does not withdraw or vary the nomination, does not stop the worker's pay outside what the scheme provides, and does not change the worker's position; the mistakes under the later headings come from doing one of those things in the belief that the visa required it. One thing the employer does on the day that it would not do for an Australian is note the worker's visa expiry date against the likely recovery, because the calendar is where the migration side of an injury is decided.

Why the sponsorship obligations continue

The sponsorship obligations attach to the sponsor for as long as the worker is a sponsored visa holder whose employment with the sponsor continues, and an injured worker on compensation is still employed: the contract subsists, the position is held, and the absence is leave of a kind the scheme governs. There is no cessation of employment, so the obligation to notify a cessation within 28 days is not engaged, the worker's visa condition about ceasing employment is not engaged, and the 180-day period in which a worker who has ceased must find another sponsor does not begin; the job-ended guide explains what that period is for and why it does not apply here. What continues is everything else: the obligation to provide terms no less favourable than an Australian's, the obligation to keep records of the employment, the pay and the absence, the obligation to notify the listed events if they occur, the obligation not to recover costs, and the obligation to cooperate with monitoring. The obligations guide sets them out, and an employer whose monitoring sample happens to include an injured worker is asked to show that the worker was treated as an Australian would have been.

The nominated salary during incapacity

The nominated salary is the salary for the position, and the obligation on the sponsor is to ensure that the worker's terms and conditions are no less favourable than those an Australian in the same position would have. An Australian in the same position who was injured at work would receive the scheme's weekly payments, which in every scheme start at or near full pre-injury earnings and step down after a period, together with any top-up the award, the enterprise agreement or the contract provides, and would return to the full salary on return to full duties; a sponsored worker treated identically is treated as the obligation requires, and the Department has not, on its stated approach to leave, read scheme payments during an absence consistent with Australian entitlements as a failure to pay the nominated salary. The employer's exposure comes from treating the worker worse than the scheme and the award require, from using the absence to renegotiate the salary downward, from failing to restore the salary on return, or from paying so little attention that the payslips show a period at a lower figure with no record explaining it. The record is the protection: the certificates of capacity, the insurer's payment schedule, the award clause, and a note that the arrangement is the one an Australian would have.

What must be notified, and what need not

The regulations list the events a sponsor must notify the Department of in writing within 28 days, and an injury is not among them. The listed events include the worker ceasing employment or the sponsor ceasing to be the employer, a change in the worker's duties that takes the position outside the nominated occupation, a change in the business's name, address, directors or ownership, the business ceasing to exist or becoming insolvent, and the paying of return travel. An absence on compensation with the position held and the employment continuing triggers none of them. Three things that can follow an injury do: a lasting change to the worker's duties on return, treated under the next heading; the end of the employment, by resignation, by agreement or by dismissal, notified within 28 days with the date, which the resignation guide covers; and the worker's departure from Australia with the employer paying return travel on request. A business that notifies the Department of the injury itself, out of caution, has done no harm, but it has told the Department something it did not need to know and invited questions about the position.

Return to work and lighter duties

Every scheme requires the employer to provide suitable duties for a returning worker where it reasonably can, and a graduated return on reduced hours or lighter tasks is the ordinary path. For a sponsored worker that path is read against the nomination: a temporary period of reduced hours or modified duties within the nominated occupation, as part of a documented return-to-work plan with a medical end date, is the kind of arrangement an Australian would have and is treated as such, with the records showing why the hours and the pay are what they are and when the worker returns to the nominated position; the part-time guide covers reduced hours after the grant. A permanent change is different: a worker who cannot return to the nominated occupation and is moved to a different role on an ongoing basis is no longer working in the nominated position, which breaches the worker's visa condition and the sponsor's obligation unless a new nomination for the new position is lodged and approved, where the new position is itself one that can be nominated. An employer facing that has the position read before the worker starts in it, because the breach is the worker's as much as the business's.

The visa that expires during recovery

A 482 expires on its date regardless of the worker's condition, and a worker without a further visa on that date must leave Australia or become unlawful, which ends the employment and the scheme's weekly payments in most states. The employer who wants to keep the worker nominates them for a further 482 before the current one ends, and the worker applies before the expiry and holds a bridging visa while it is decided; the nomination requires a genuine full-time position, which the employer still has for a worker expected to return, and the worker's application requires the worker to meet the visa criteria again, including the health requirement, which a serious injury with ongoing treatment can engage and which the 482 allows to be waived in some cases where the employer and the worker show the costs will not fall on the community. A worker whose incapacity is permanent, who will not return to the nominated occupation, cannot be nominated for a position they cannot fill, and the honest conversation about the worker's options, the scheme's lump sum entitlements and the worker's return home happens early, with advice, rather than at the expiry. The employer checks VEVO at the expiry either way, and the VEVO guide covers the check.

The 186 clock

The Temporary Residence Transition stream of the 186 requires the worker to have been employed by the sponsor full-time in the nominated occupation for two years while holding the 482, and the question a long absence raises is whether the months on compensation count. The Department's approach to leave has been to read it with the employment relationship: leave of a kind an Australian employee takes, paid or unpaid, with the employment continuing and the worker returning, has generally been counted toward the period, and an extended unpaid absence with no return in sight has been read with more care, as something closer to a gap. An absence on workers compensation, with the contract on foot, the position held and the worker back at work, sits in the first group in the ordinary case; the employer keeps the record that shows the relationship never ended, the certificates, the return-to-work plan and the payslips, because the 186 nomination will be asked for it. The 186 pathway guide sets out the two years, and a worker whose two years would otherwise fall during the absence plans the nomination date with that in mind.

Dismissing an injured worker

The employer cannot dismiss the worker because of the injury, the claim or the absence. The Fair Work Act prohibits dismissal because of a temporary absence due to illness or injury, and the state workers compensation laws add their own protection, restricting dismissal of an injured worker for a period after the injury, six months in New South Wales for example, with rights to reinstatement after that; a dismissal in breach of either is unlawful regardless of the visa and is also adverse information for the sponsor. A dismissal that is lawful under those rules, after the protected period has run, for a worker who cannot perform the inherent requirements of the nominated position with reasonable adjustments, is a cessation of employment for the visa: the employer notifies it within 28 days, the worker's period to find another sponsor or leave begins, and the return travel obligation is live. That is employment law first, and the employer takes employment advice on the dismissal before anyone reads the migration side; a business that gets the order wrong, dismissing a sponsored worker inside the protected period because the visa made it seem simpler, has an unfair dismissal claim, a scheme breach and a sponsorship breach from one decision.

The worker who wants to go home

An injured worker who decides to return to their own country, for treatment, family or recovery, has the right to, and the employer's obligations follow the decision. If the employment ends, the cessation is notified within 28 days and the sponsor pays the reasonable return travel costs for the worker and their family on the worker's written request, which is an obligation that does not depend on why the worker is leaving; the scheme's weekly payments after departure depend on the state's rules, some of which continue payments to a worker overseas and some of which do not, and the worker's lump sum and common law entitlements are matters for the worker's own lawyer under the scheme. If the employment continues and the worker goes home on leave to recover, with a return date, the position is leave, the employment subsists and the obligations continue; the extended leave guide covers how long a 482 holder can be away and what the visa requires. In either case the employer does not make the worker's decision for them, and does not use the costs of the claim as a reason to encourage it.

The injury checklist

1. Treat the injury and the claim exactly as for an Australian employee: insurer notified, claim lodged, certificates obtained, return-to-work plan started.
2. Do not notify the Department of the injury, withdraw the nomination, change the position or stop pay outside what the scheme provides.
3. Record the salary arrangement during the absence and the award or contract basis for it, and restore the nominated salary on return.
4. Note the visa expiry against the recovery; nominate for a further 482 before the expiry if the worker will return.
5. Keep a permanent change of duties inside the nominated occupation, or have a new nomination read before the worker starts in a different role.
6. Take employment advice before any dismissal; if the employment ends, notify within 28 days and meet the return travel obligation on request.

General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case, and not employment, workers compensation or personal injury law advice, which depend on the state or territory scheme and the Fair Work Act 2009 and should be taken from a lawyer in that field. The sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19 of the Migration Regulations 1994, including the equivalent terms and conditions, record-keeping, notification and return travel obligations, condition 8607 and the subclass 482 and 186 criteria, as in force at the date above, with the Department’s stated approach to periods of leave; the dismissal protections in section 352 of the Fair Work Act and the state workers compensation Acts. 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.