482 Visa Requirements: Streams, Employer Duties & Costs

To qualify for the Australian 482 visa, now called the Skills in Demand visa, you need an approved Australian employer willing to sponsor you, a nominated position that meets occupation and salary rules, at least one year of relevant work experience, and the ability to pass English, skills, health, and character checks. The 482 visa requirements sit across three parties and three stages: the employer becomes an approved sponsor, the employer nominates a specific position, and you lodge the visa application. What each stage demands depends on which of the three streams you fit into.

Which Stream Applies to You

The stream determines the salary floor, whether your occupation must appear on a list, and how long the visa runs.

The Core Skills stream covers occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL). The nominated salary must meet the Core Skills Income Threshold of AUD 76,515 per year for nominations lodged between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. The visa runs up to four years.¹²

The Specialist Skills stream is open to occupations in ANZSCO Major Groups 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6 where the nominated salary meets the Specialist Skills Income Threshold of AUD 141,210 per year. The occupation does not need to appear on the CSOL. The visa runs up to four years.¹

The Labour Agreement stream is for employers who have negotiated a labour agreement with the Australian government. Visa duration follows the terms of the agreement and cannot exceed four years.²

Hong Kong passport holders receive a longer grant of up to five years under any stream. There is no age limit for the 482 visa itself, though age can matter later if you pursue permanent residency.

What the Employer Must Do

You cannot apply for a 482 visa without an Australian employer driving the first two stages. Understanding what they have to prove and pay helps you gauge whether a prospective sponsor is actually willing and able to see this through.

Sponsorship Approval

The business must be approved as a Standard Business Sponsor by the Department of Home Affairs before it can nominate anyone. It must be legally established and currently operating in Australia. Approval lasts five years.³

The Department screens for adverse information about the business and its key people, including past breaches of workplace or migration law and insolvency. Sponsors also carry ongoing obligations: paying workers at market rates, keeping records, and notifying the Department of changes such as a worker leaving.⁴

Position Nomination and the Market Salary Rule

Once approved, the employer nominates the specific position you will fill. For the Core Skills stream, the occupation must appear on the CSOL.⁵ For the Specialist Skills stream, it must fall within the qualifying ANZSCO major groups and meet the higher salary floor.

In every stream, the employer must determine the Annual Market Salary Rate (AMSR): what an equivalent Australian worker would earn in the same role and location. If an Australian is already in the same position, that person’s salary sets the AMSR. Otherwise, the employer uses enterprise agreements, industry awards, job advertisements from the past six months, or remuneration surveys. Your pay must meet or exceed both the AMSR and the relevant income threshold.¹

Labour Market Testing

The employer generally has to show they tried to fill the position locally first. That means advertising the role on at least two approved job platforms for a minimum of four weeks within the four months before lodging the nomination. Advertisements must be in English, published in Australia, and include the job title, required skills, employer’s name, and salary (if annual earnings are below AUD 96,400).

Exemptions apply for citizens or permanent residents of countries with specific trade agreements, including Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Chile, China, and Singapore, among others, and in certain intra-company transfers of executives and senior managers. Labour agreement positions do not get these exemptions.

The Skilling Australians Fund Levy

At nomination, the employer pays the Skilling Australians Fund (SAF) levy in full, upfront, for the whole nomination period. The rate depends on turnover:

Turnover under AUD 10 million: AUD 1,200 per year of nomination
Turnover of AUD 10 million or more: AUD 1,800 per year of nomination

A four-year nomination by a smaller business runs to AUD 4,800. If you later change employers, the new sponsor pays a fresh levy.⁶

What You Must Show as the Applicant

Work Experience

For the Core Skills stream, you need at least one year of relevant full-time work experience in the nominated occupation or a closely related field. Part-time or casual work counts if it adds up to the equivalent of 12 months full-time. Experience should have been gained within the past five years, and the work periods do not need to be continuous.⁷ This is down from the two years the previous version of the visa required.

Skills Assessment

A formal skills assessment is mandatory for certain trade occupations, and whether it applies depends on both the occupation and your passport country. Occupations commonly requiring assessment include chefs, cooks, pastry cooks, fitters, metal fabricators, and metal machinists, particularly for passport holders from India, China, the Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, and several other countries. The assessment must be completed by the relevant assessing authority and dated within three years of your visa application.

English Proficiency

Applicants in the Core Skills and Specialist Skills streams must show English proficiency through an approved test taken within three years before applying. The IELTS threshold, for example, is 5.0 in each of Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking; equivalent minimums apply for PTE Academic, TOEFL iBT, and OET.⁸ These score levels apply to tests taken on or after 13 September 2025, and for TOEFL iBT tests taken on or after 21 January 2026 you must select “Taking TOEFL for Australia” at registration.

Two groups are exempt from testing. Passport holders from Canada, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, or the United States do not need to take a test. Nor do employees of an overseas business being nominated to work in Australia by that business or an associated entity, provided guaranteed annual earnings reach AUD 96,400.⁸

Health, Character, and Insurance

Every applicant must pass health examinations arranged through the Department’s panel of approved physicians, plus character checks that involve police clearance certificates from every country you have lived in for 12 months or more in the past ten years. False or misleading information can lead to refusal and a ban on future applications.²

Once granted the visa, you must maintain adequate health insurance for the entire stay under condition 8501. The Department recommends coverage at least equivalent to public hospital gazetted rates, including overnight and day-only hospital accommodation, emergency department fees leading to admission, and post-operative services. Most applicants buy an Overseas Visitor Health Cover (OVHC) policy from an Australian-registered insurer, and the Department may ask to see the policy before granting the visa.⁹

Cost and Duration

The base visa application charge starts from AUD 3,210, with additional charges for family members included in the application.² The SAF levy the employer pays sits on top of that. The visa itself runs up to four years in the Core Skills and Specialist Skills streams, follows the labour agreement in that stream, and can run up to five years for Hong Kong passport holders.

Including Family Members

You can include a spouse or de facto partner and dependent children as secondary applicants. Family included on the visa receive their own work and study rights in Australia. Additional visa application charges apply for each family member. If you already hold a 482 or 457 visa and are applying for a subsequent 482, slightly different rules govern who qualifies as a secondary applicant.¹⁰

Condition 8607 If You Lose Your Job

The requirement to have a sponsoring employer doesn’t end when your visa is granted. Under condition 8607, if your employment ends you have up to 180 consecutive days to find a new employer willing to nominate you in the same occupation, obtain a different visa, or leave Australia. There is also a cumulative limit of 365 days total without work in your nominated occupation across the whole visa period. Going past either limit without a new nomination or visa in place puts you at risk of cancellation.

A new sponsor has to go through the full sponsorship and nomination process, including a fresh SAF levy. Factor that timeline in: 180 days moves faster than most people expect when a new employer still needs to be approved.

Pathway to Permanent Residency

The 482 visa can lead to permanent residency through the Subclass 186 Employer Nomination Scheme, specifically the Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) stream. To qualify, you must have worked full-time for at least two years with the same sponsoring employer in Australia while holding a subclass 482 or 457 visa.

Your employer must nominate you for a genuine full-time permanent position, and the occupation must appear on the CSOL. The salary must meet both the AMSR and the relevant income threshold, which for the 186 visa is AUD 76,515 for nominations lodged between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026. You need at least competent English (IELTS 6.0 in each component or equivalent) and must pass health and character checks again. There is no age limit for the TRT stream, which is unusual among Australian skilled visa pathways.

1
Department of Home Affairs. Salary Requirements to Nominate a Worker
2
Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482)
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Department of Home Affairs. Become a Sponsor Standard Business Sponsor
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Department of Home Affairs. Sponsorship Obligations for Standard Business
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Department of Home Affairs. Skilled Occupation List
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Department of Home Affairs. Cost of Sponsoring
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Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Core Skills Stream
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Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. English Proficiency (Subclass 482)
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Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. Adequate Health Insurance for Visa Holders
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Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Labour Agreement Stream