Your sponsored worker has been granted the visa: the employer’s checklist for the first 90 days, from the start date to the records the Department will ask for

MARN 1576536

The 90-day start

Condition 8607 on the 482 requires the holder to commence work in the nominated position within 90 days of arriving in Australia, where the visa was granted abroad, or within 90 days of the grant where the holder was in Australia, and to work only in that position for the sponsor thereafter; the 494 carries the same requirement. A worker who starts on day 91 is in breach, and an employer who was not ready for the worker, whose position was not available, or who put the worker on another job while waiting, has shown the Department that the nominated position was not what it was said to be. The start date goes in the contract and the payroll, the employer plans the arrival around it, and a delay the employer can see coming, a visa granted months before the planned move, a worker serving notice abroad, is managed by timing the arrival or, where the 90 days will be missed, by writing to the Department before they run out. The arrival guide covers the worker's side of the same weeks.

Day one: the VEVO check and the record

Before the first shift the employer checks the worker's visa in VEVO, with the worker's consent and passport details, and records the result with the date, the visa subclass, the grant and expiry dates and the conditions, keeping the record in the worker's file; the check proves the right to work, which every employer must verify for a non-citizen, and it is the first document a monitoring officer asks for. The employer also keeps the grant letter and the nomination approval together, so that the position, the occupation, the salary and the location nominated are in front of whoever manages the worker. A worker whose visa has not yet been granted, who is on a bridging visa from the 482 application, is checked in the same way and the conditions of the bridging visa, which may restrict the employer or the hours, are read before the shift. The VEVO guide covers the check.

The contract that matches the nomination

The sponsorship obligations require the sponsor to employ the worker under a written contract, and the contract must match the nomination: the position title and the occupation, the duties as described in the position description lodged, the full-time hours, the salary at the nominated figure with superannuation on top, the location, the start date, and terms no less favourable than an Australian's in the same role; a contract that says something different from the nomination, a different title, a lower base with allowances, a probation clause that lets the salary drop, is the document the Department reads first. The contract is signed before or on the start date, a copy goes in the file, and any later variation is read against the nomination before it is signed. The employer's standard contract is adapted to the nomination, not the other way round.

The payroll at the nominated salary

The worker is paid the nominated salary from the first pay, through the payroll, with superannuation at the statutory rate, reported through single touch payroll, and shown on payslips that carry the nominated title; the Department's monitoring reads the payroll, the superannuation statements and the Tax Office's data for whether the nominated salary was paid for the nominated hours, and a shortfall, a delayed first pay, a cash top-up outside the payroll, a salary sacrifice that reduces the base below the figure, or a deduction for visa costs is a breach the data reveals. The nominated salary is the guaranteed annual earnings, and the employer who structured the figure with allowances the worker does not always receive has a nomination that the payroll does not match. The salary is reviewed against the market rate as the obligations require, and raised when the award or the market moves. The deductions guide covers what may never come out of the pay.

The duties, and the change that needs a new nomination

The worker does the work of the nominated occupation, as the position description lodged with the nomination describes it, and induction, training and the incidental tasks any role carries are part of that; a worker kept on other work while the real role is organised, a nominated chef working as a kitchen hand, a nominated engineer on the tools, is not in the nominated position, and the first months are when it happens. A change of duties that moves the role to another occupation, a promotion into management, a move to a different function, or a restructure, requires a new nomination approved before the change takes effect, and a change within the occupation, a pay rise, a senior title in the same role, is notified; the promotion guide sets out which is which. The manager who runs the worker day to day knows the position description, because the roster and the task lists are what a monitoring officer compares with it.

The location and the second site

The worker works at the location nominated, and a second site, a branch, a client's premises or a new office is covered only where the nomination included it or the Department's rules on multiple locations and incidental work away from the nominated site allow it; a worker moved to a site in another city that was not nominated is working outside the nominated position, and the employer notifies the change or lodges a new nomination as the rules require. Work from home is read against the nomination's location and the Department's policy on the place of work, and an employer that moves a sponsored worker to remote work in another state reads the rules first. The multiple sites guide covers each case.

Health cover

The worker and each dependant must hold adequate health insurance for the whole stay under condition 8501, and the employer who undertook in the nomination or the contract to pay for it arranges the policy from the arrival date, for every person on the visa, and keeps it paid; an employer who agreed to pay and stops has caused the worker a breach and has broken the undertaking, and an employer who did not agree checks on day one that the worker has the cover, because a worker without it is in breach from arrival. The 8501 guide covers what a lapse does.

The records

• The sponsorship approval, the nomination and its attachments, the labour market testing evidence, and the grant letter.
• The VEVO check record for the worker and any dependant who works for the business.
• The written contract and every variation.
• Payslips, the payroll records, the superannuation contributions and the tax reporting, showing the salary and the hours.
• The position description, the roster and the evidence of the duties performed.
• The location of work and any change.
• Every notification made to the Department and its acknowledgement.
• The health cover arrangement where the employer pays it.
• The training expenditure or the levy records where the obligations require them.

The obligations require the records to be kept in a form the Department can inspect, for the period the regulations set, which runs for years after the sponsorship or the employment ends, and to be produced on request within the time given; one file per worker, opened on day one, is the whole of the discipline. The obligations guide sets out the record-keeping and the monitoring.

The notifications that run from the start

From the grant the sponsor must notify the Department, in writing, within the period the obligations set, of the events they list: the worker not commencing, the worker ceasing employment, a change in the worker's duties or position, a change in the business's name, structure, ownership or contact details, the sponsor ceasing to operate, and the others; the notifications are made through ImmiAccount against the sponsorship, and the acknowledgement is kept. The first-months events that are most often missed are the worker who did not start on the planned date, the title changed at induction, and the business that changed its trading name; each is notifiable, and each is found later from the records when it was not notified. The resignation guide covers the notification when the worker leaves.

The dependants

The worker's partner and children on the same 482 hold visas with their own conditions: the partner has unrestricted work rights and may work for the sponsor or anyone, as an ordinary employee with a VEVO check, the children may study, and each must hold health cover; the employer's obligations do not extend to the dependants beyond any cover it agreed to pay, and the dependants' employment elsewhere is not the sponsor's concern. The children's school fees depend on the state and the visa, which the school fees guide covers, and a worker asking the employer about them is pointed there.

The 186 clock

The two years of full-time work in the nominated occupation that the 186 transition stream requires start on the first day, and the records the employer keeps from day one are the evidence the 186 nomination will need: the contract, the payslips for every pay, the superannuation, the duties and the location, and a letter the employer will write in two years confirming the dates and the position. An employer who intends to keep the worker plans the 186 from the start, and an employer who does not tells the worker, because since December 2024 the worker's time counts toward a 186 with another sponsor too. The 186 pathway guide covers the stream, and the previous-sponsor guide the count across employers.

The first-months mistakes

• A start after the 90 days, or a start on other work while the real role was organised.
• A payslip title or a contract title that does not match the nominated occupation.
• A first pay below the nominated salary, a probation rate, or allowances counted into the figure and not always paid.
• A cash top-up or a payment outside the payroll.
• A deduction for the visa, the agent, the flight or the levy.
• A site not nominated, or work from another state.
• The business's trading name or ownership changed without notification.
• No VEVO record, no file, no copy of the nomination.
• Health cover not arranged for a dependant.

General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case, and not employment law advice. Conditions 8607 and 8501 in Schedule 8 to the Migration Regulations 1994, the sponsorship obligations in Division 2.19 including the obligations to employ under a written contract, to pay the nominated salary, to keep records, to notify and to cooperate with monitoring, the sanctions in Division 2.20, and the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Migration Act 1958 provisions on work rights checks, as in force at the date above; the periods for notifications and record-keeping are those the regulations set and the current position governs. Outcomes depend on the Department’s assessment of each case; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.