Starting a business on a temporary visa: what each visa allows, and whether the business helps you stay

MARN 1576536

Registering is not the question

An Australian Business Number is issued to anyone carrying on an enterprise in Australia, and the application asks about the enterprise, not the visa; a company is registered with ASIC on the same basis, subject to the director rule below. A temporary visa holder can therefore hold an ABN, be a sole trader, own shares in a company, and be its director. None of that is work. Work, for the Migration Act, is any activity that in Australia normally attracts remuneration, and it includes running a business, performing its services, managing its staff, and doing its books, whether or not the owner draws a wage. The visa conditions attach to the work, and the conditions are what the rest of this guide is about. The conditions guide lists them.

The 485, 491 and other unrestricted visas

The 485 carries no work condition, and a graduate can start and run any business for the life of the visa, which is its limit: the visa ends on its date whatever the business is doing, and the business does not extend it. The 491 and 494 secondary holders, the 190 and 189 as permanent visas, the partner visas at both stages, and a bridging visa A granted on a substantive application that carries full work rights are likewise unrestricted; a 491 primary holder must keep the business and the work in a designated regional area to meet the visa's own conditions and the 191 income requirement. A business run on a 485 by a person who will need sponsorship in two years is run with the sponsorship in mind, because the hours in the business are hours not spent building the employed experience a nomination is based on. The 485 guide covers the visa's life.

The student visa

A student visa holder may work up to 48 hours a fortnight while the course is in session and without limit during scheduled breaks and after the course ends while the visa lasts, and the limit applies to all work including work in the student's own business. The Department counts time, not income: a student who spends thirty hours a week on an online store during semester is in breach of condition 8105 whether the store makes money or not, and the breach is a cancellation ground. A student also may not work before the course starts, which includes starting the business before then. A business that can be run inside the limit during term and expanded in the breaks is lawful, and the records that prove the hours are the student's protection. The student's enrolment and attendance conditions continue, and a business that causes the student to fail the course costs the visa by another route. The work hours guide sets out what counts.

The working holiday visa

The 417 and 462 permit any work, and self-employment is work; a working holiday maker can trade as a sole trader or through a company for the life of the visa. The six-month limit on work with any one employer, condition 8547, is about employers, and a self-employed working holiday maker with many clients is not employed by any of them, though a single client who in substance employs them for more than six months is examined on the substance. The specified work that earns a second or third visa must be employed or self-employed work in the specified industries and regions, with the evidence, and running an unrelated business does not count toward it. The 417 guide covers the specified work.

The 482 and 494

Condition 8607 on the 482 requires the holder to work only in the nominated occupation and only for the sponsor or an associated entity, with the allowances for 180 days between sponsors and 365 days in total. Condition 8608 does the same for the 494, with the regional location added. Running a business is work, for yourself rather than the sponsor, in whatever occupation the business involves, and it breaches the condition. The breach is not cured by the business being in the same field, by the work being outside business hours, by the sponsor consenting, or by the holder taking no wage; the condition is about who the holder works for. The one structure in which a 482 holder lawfully works in their own business is self-sponsorship, where the holder's company is approved as a standard business sponsor, nominates a genuine position in a skilled occupation, and employs the holder on arm's-length terms, a structure with its own scrutiny and its own costs: the self-sponsorship guide. Passive ownership, holding shares in a company that others run, is not work, but a holder who is also the company's hands is not passive.

Dependants

A secondary holder on a 482 or 494, the partner or adult child included in the primary holder's visa, has no work condition and may run any business. The visa's life is the primary holder's, and ends if the primary holder's does, so the business has the sponsorship's horizon. A dependant on a student visa shares the 48-hour limit while the student's course is in session, with a higher allowance where the student is enrolled in a masters or doctorate, and the time in the business counts against it. A dependant on a 485 is unrestricted.

Visitors and bridging visas

A visitor visa carries condition 8101, no work, and running a business in Australia is work; the Business Visitor stream permits business activities, meetings, negotiations, conferences, exploratory visits, which are not the same as operating a business or providing services to Australian clients. A visitor who sets up and runs a business is in breach and the visa is cancellable. A bridging visa carries the work rights that were attached to it: a bridging visa A granted on an application that carries full rights allows a business; one that carries the previous visa's conditions carries its limits; a bridging visa C or E carries no work rights unless permission is granted, and running a business on one without permission is a breach that follows the holder into the next application.

Directors, tax and GST

A proprietary company must have at least one director who ordinarily resides in Australia, and a temporary visa holder living here can be that director; the test is residence, not citizenship. Directors obtain a director identification number. A sole trader reports business income on their personal return; a company lodges its own. Registration for GST is required once turnover reaches the threshold. A temporary visa holder's tax residency is decided by the ordinary tests, and most who live here for a year are residents for tax; the 485 and student visa holders are taxed as residents, working holiday makers at their own rates. The business's tax position is the accountant's; the visa holder's obligation is to have the registrations the business requires, because a business run without them is evidence of a different kind in a later visa application.

Does the business help you stay?

The business-owner visas that existed, the 188 and the 888, are closed to new applications, and the National Innovation visa that replaced them is for people of exceptional and demonstrated achievement, invited by the Minister, not for the owner of a growing small business. The points test gives no points for owning a business, and a state nomination is for an occupation, not an enterprise, though some states weigh a business commitment in their own criteria. What remains is two things. Self-sponsorship, where the company becomes the sponsor and the owner the nominee, in an occupation the owner is qualified in, at a genuine salary, with a business that can show it needs the position and can pay for it; the Department reads these closely and many fail on genuineness. And the owner's own occupation, in which an unrelated employer may sponsor them or a state nominate them, the business being neither a help nor, if it was run lawfully, a hindrance. A business run in breach of conditions is a hindrance, because the breach is on the record.

Before you start

1. Read your visa's conditions in VEVO, not the visa's general description.
2. If the condition confines you to a sponsor, do not start, unless the structure is self-sponsorship and the company is going to be approved first.
3. If the condition limits hours, set up the business so that the hours in term stay inside the limit, and keep the records.
4. Register properly: ABN, business name, company and director ID if a company, GST if required, and an accountant who knows your visa.
5. Decide what the business is for in visa terms before it exists: a living while you hold the visa, a self-sponsorship vehicle, or neither.

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General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The definition of work in regulation 1.03 and conditions 8101, 8105, 8107, 8547, 8607 and 8608 in Schedule 8 of the Migration Regulations 1994, section 201A of the Corporations Act 2001, and the tax law as administered by the Australian Taxation Office, as in force at the date above; tax and company matters are for an accountant or lawyer. 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.