Withdrawing a 482 nomination before it is decided: what the employer gets back, what it does to the worker, and when not to withdraw

MARN 1576536

Why employers withdraw

Nominations are withdrawn for five reasons, and the right response differs for each. The worker has left, or declined the role, so there is no one to fill the position: the nomination cannot be approved for a worker who will not take it, and withdrawal is the correct step, with the resignation guide covering the rest. The business has filled the role with an Australian, or restructured it out of existence: withdrawal is correct and the money is gone. The nomination was lodged in the wrong stream or occupation, or with the wrong period or salary, and cannot be amended because a lodged nomination cannot be changed in substance: withdraw and relodge, or in some cases answer a request for information with the correction. A request for information has arrived that the business cannot meet, on testing, on the salary, on the genuineness of the position: the hard case, treated below. And the business has learned something about the worker, a conviction, a false document, a history, that changes its mind: the nomination can be withdrawn, but the worker's visa application is the place that information is decided, and the criminal record guide covers whether withdrawal is the right response.

How a nomination is withdrawn

A nomination is withdrawn by the sponsor, in writing, either through the business's ImmiAccount against the nomination application, where the function exists, or by a written notice to the Department identifying the nomination by its reference, the sponsor and the nominated worker, signed by a person authorised for the business or by its registered agent. The Department records the withdrawal, takes no decision, and does not assess the nomination further; there is no refusal and no review. The withdrawal takes effect when it is received and cannot be undone: a business that withdraws and then finds the Australian candidate fell through lodges a new nomination with the charge and the levy again. For that reason the withdrawal is made after the worker has been told and has acted on their own application, after the refund position has been read, and after the business is sure, in that order.

The nomination charge

The nomination charge, A$330 for a 482 at the time of writing, is a charge for the application and is not refunded because the application was withdrawn, refused or lapsed, outside the small set of circumstances in the regulations in which the Department refunds charges: a payment made in error, an application that was never validly made, a duplicate payment, and the Department's own mistake. An employer withdrawing for any of the reasons in the first section loses it. The sum is small against the levy, and the point matters because an employer that withdraws and relodges a corrected nomination pays it twice, which is the price of lodging the first one without having it read; the nomination checklist is what the reading covers.

The levy, and the narrow refund cases

The Skilling Australians Fund levy paid with the nomination is thousands of dollars, and whether it comes back on a withdrawal turns on the reason, read against the prescribed circumstances in the regulations. It is refunded, on written request, where the nomination is withdrawn because the sponsorship application lodged with it was refused or was itself withdrawn, so that the nomination could never have been approved; where the nomination was lodged because of the Department's error; and where the levy was paid twice. It is not refunded, in the ordinary case, where the business withdraws because it changed its mind, hired an Australian, restructured the role, chose the wrong stream or occupation, cannot answer a request for information, or has lost confidence in the worker; those are the business's own reasons, and the regulations were drafted to leave the levy with the Department in them. The cases in which the levy is refunded after approval, a worker who never started or who left inside the first year of a longer nomination, require the nomination to have been approved and a visa granted, so a withdrawal before decision does not reach them. The levy guide sets out each case; a business withdrawing for a reason that might sit inside one has the request drafted to the circumstance before it withdraws, because a withdrawal framed carelessly can lose a refund that was available.

What the withdrawal does to the worker's visa application

A 482 visa application must be identified in an approved nomination at the time of decision, so a visa application lodged against a nomination that is then withdrawn cannot meet that criterion and is refused, unless the worker withdraws the visa application first. The order matters for the worker in two ways. A worker who withdraws the visa application because the nomination identifying them is no longer there may be able to request a refund of the visa application charge, A$4,015 for the main applicant at the time of writing, which the refund guide covers, while a worker whose application is refused gets nothing back. And a withdrawal is a withdrawal, while a refusal is a refusal on the worker's immigration history, which the worker declares in every later application and which, for a worker in Australia, can engage the section 48 bar on applying onshore. An employer that withdraws the nomination without telling the worker has, in the ordinary case, caused the worker a refusal and the loss of the charge for no reason, which is both a bad outcome for a person the business chose to sponsor and, if the worker is onshore, a problem for the business under the next heading. The employer tells the worker the nomination will be withdrawn, in writing, with time for the worker to withdraw first.

The worker onshore and the bridging visa

A worker who lodged the 482 application in Australia holds a bridging visa that was granted with it, often with the work rights of the visa they held before or full work rights, and that bridging visa ends a set period after the visa application is finally determined or withdrawn, in the ordinary case 35 days after withdrawal or refusal, after which the worker must hold another visa or depart. A worker with another employer willing to sponsor them can have a new nomination and visa application lodged inside that period and continue on a new bridging visa; a worker who can apply for another visa onshore does so; a worker with neither leaves, or becomes unlawful. The employer withdrawing a nomination for an onshore worker reads that period before acting, tells the worker the date, and checks VEVO at the end of it, because the business may not employ the worker beyond it; the bridging visa guide sets out the visa the worker holds and the bar that can follow a refusal, and the VEVO guide covers the check.

Withdrawing to avoid a refusal, or answering the request

A request for information on a nomination is the Department saying it is not yet satisfied on a point and giving the business a period, commonly 28 days, to satisfy it; the business can answer, withdraw, or let the period run and be refused on the file as it stands. The choice turns on whether the point can be met and when. Where it can be met now, the employer answers, with the evidence the request asks for and the submission that explains it, and a request answered well is usually followed by approval. Where it cannot be met now but can be met in a few months, a further round of labour market testing, a salary adjusted to the market rate and the threshold, a position description rewritten to the occupation, the choice is between withdrawing now and relodging when it can, which costs the charge and the levy again and leaves no refusal, and answering as best the business can and being refused, which costs nothing more now, puts a refusal on the record and opens the review. Where it cannot be met at all, because the position is not one the Department will approve, the business withdraws, and the money is the cost of having lodged. The one thing not to do is let the period run in silence: the refusal that follows reads as a business that did not engage, and that is adverse at the next nomination. The nomination refusal guide sets out what a refusal looks like and what review involves.

Withdraw-and-relodge against refusal-and-review

Two routes exist where the Department is not satisfied and the business thinks it should be. Withdrawing and relodging gives up the review right and the charges paid, and buys a fresh nomination on a corrected footing with new charges, decided by the Department in the ordinary processing time, with no refusal on the record; it suits a nomination whose problem was the business's, a missing document, a salary set wrong, testing not done to the rule. Letting the nomination be refused and seeking review at the Administrative Review Tribunal keeps the charges spent, puts a refusal on the record, and takes months, but the tribunal decides the nomination criteria afresh on the evidence before it at the hearing, including evidence that did not exist when the Department decided, and sends the matter back for approval where it is satisfied; it suits a nomination where the Department's reading was wrong, where the evidence is strong, and where the worker is in Australia on a bridging visa that continues through review and ends on a withdrawal. A business whose worker is onshore and whose nomination was refused on a point it disputes often has no choice but review, because the alternative is the worker leaving; a business whose worker is offshore and whose nomination had a fixable defect usually relodges. The choice is made on the request or the refusal in front of someone who has run both, and that is the consultation.

The record a withdrawal leaves

A withdrawn nomination is recorded as withdrawn, and the Department sees it at the next nomination and at the sponsorship renewal, as it sees everything on the sponsor's file. A withdrawal is not a refusal, is not adverse information in itself, and does not need to be explained in the way a refusal does; a pattern of withdrawals, several nominations lodged and withdrawn when the Department asked questions, reads differently, as a sponsor lodging nominations it could not support, and is the kind of thing the Department raises at renewal and in monitoring. A refused nomination is a refusal the business declares and explains at each later nomination, and where the refusal found that the position was not genuine or that the testing was not done, it is a finding that the next nomination for the same position has to overcome. The employer choosing between the two routes above weighs the record as well as the money, and a business planning to sponsor for years weighs it more.

The withdrawals that should not be made

• To avoid a request the business can answer. A request for information met with evidence is usually approved; withdrawing throws away the charges and the levy for a problem that was not one.
• Before the worker has withdrawn the visa application. The worker's application is refused, the worker's charge is lost and the worker carries a refusal, for nothing.
• Where the nomination was approved and the worker simply has not started. An approved nomination is not withdrawn to get the levy back; the levy for a worker who never commenced is claimed on the employer's notification that they did not start, and withdrawal is not the route.
• Because a worker has disclosed a record or a health matter. Those are visa questions decided in the worker's application, and most do not end the visa; the employer reads them before withdrawing a nomination that may be sound.
• To change a detail that a request for information or a new nomination for the same worker would handle. A nomination cannot be amended in substance, but a request can correct a document, and a new nomination for the same worker is lodged without withdrawing the old one until it is approved, where the old one has not been decided and the business wants the fallback.
• In silence, with a worker onshore who did not know. The bridging visa ends on a date the worker was not told, and the business is employing an unlawful worker.

The withdrawal checklist

1. Identify the reason, and whether it is one the business can fix now, fix later, or not fix.
2. Read the levy refund cases against the reason before withdrawing, and draft the refund request to the circumstance if one applies.
3. If a request for information is open, decide between answering, withdrawing and relodging, and letting it be decided and reviewing, on the point and the worker's location.
4. Tell the worker in writing, and let them withdraw the visa application first so the charge can be claimed and no refusal is recorded.
5. For an onshore worker, give the bridging visa end date and check VEVO at the end of it.
6. Withdraw in writing from the business's account, keep the acknowledgement, and lodge any relodgement only when the defect is fixed.

General information only, current at October 2026; not advice on your own case. The nomination provisions in Division 2.17 of the Migration Regulations 1994 including withdrawal and the circumstances in which a nomination approval ceases, the visa criterion requiring an approved nomination identifying the applicant, the refund provisions for nomination charges and for the nomination training contribution charge in regulation 2.73AA, the bridging visa provisions, section 48 of the Migration Act 1958, and the review provisions in Part 5 of the Act, as in force at the date above; charge figures are indicative and the Department’s current price list governs. Refunds are at the Department’s discretion within the prescribed circumstances. Outcomes depend on the Department’s and the tribunal’s assessment of each application; no registered migration agent can guarantee a result (Code of Conduct, Migration Agents Regulations). Keshab Chapagain, MARN 1576536.