Australia 482 Visa: Streams, Requirements, and PR Pathway

The Australia 482 visa is an employer-sponsored temporary work visa, officially renamed the Skills in Demand visa in December 2024, that lets an overseas worker live and work in Australia for up to four years when an approved sponsor nominates them for a skilled position they cannot fill locally.¹ The base application fee starts at AUD 3,210, and you need at least one year of relevant work experience.²

Which Stream Applies to You

The subclass 482 program now runs on three streams, and which one fits depends mostly on your salary and occupation.

Core Skills Stream

This is the main pathway. Your occupation must appear on the Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL), and your guaranteed annual earnings must meet both the Annual Market Salary Rate for the job and the Core Skills Income Threshold. The threshold is AUD 76,515 for nominations lodged before 1 July 2026,³ rising to AUD 79,499 from that date.⁴ You can stay up to four years, or five with a Hong Kong passport.

Specialist Skills Stream

No occupation list applies here. Instead, your salary must meet the Specialist Skills Income Threshold of AUD 141,210, and the role must sit within ANZSCO Major Groups 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6.⁵ This is aimed at senior executives, lead researchers, and other high earners. Trades, machinery operators, and labourers (Major Groups 3, 7, and 8) are excluded from this stream regardless of pay.

Labour Agreement Stream

If your role doesn’t fit the other two streams, your employer may have a labour agreement negotiated directly with the government covering specific occupations, worker numbers, and salary floors.⁶ A planned Essential Skills pathway for lower-paid essential workers is still being developed.

What You Need to Qualify

Work Experience

You need at least one year of relevant experience in your nominated occupation or a closely related field, gained within the five years before you apply. Full-time, part-time, and casual work all count as long as it totals twelve months of full-time equivalent hours, and it doesn’t have to be continuous.³ This applies to both the Core Skills and Specialist Skills streams.⁵

Skills Assessment

A formal skills assessment is only required if your specific combination of nominated occupation and passport country appears in the requirements. Most applicants don’t need one. You’re also exempt if you hold the Australian licence or registration required for the role, if you completed relevant qualifications in Australia, or if your employer is an accredited sponsor and you earn at least AUD 180,000 a year.

English

The standard is an IELTS overall score of 5.0 with no component below 5.0, or the equivalent on TOEFL iBT, PTE Academic, Cambridge C1 Advanced, or OET. Your result must be less than three years old.⁷ You skip the test if you hold a passport from the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, or Ireland; if you completed at least five cumulative years of full-time education in English; if you finished a degree, diploma, or trade qualification taught and examined in English over at least two years of full-time study; or, in some cases, if you’ve already worked in Australia for at least a year on a 482 or 457 visa.

Health and Character

Which health examinations you need depends on your country’s tuberculosis risk and how long you plan to stay. High-risk-country applicants staying six months or more usually need a medical exam, a chest x-ray (age 11 or older), and a serum creatinine/eGFR test (age 15 or older). Extra tests apply if you’ll be working in healthcare, aged care, or childcare.⁸

You and family members aged 16 or older must meet the character requirement. The Department will tell you which police clearance certificates to provide after you apply.⁹

Health Insurance

Visa condition 8501 requires you to hold adequate Overseas Visitors Health Cover for the whole time you’re in Australia.¹⁰ A gap in coverage can put your visa at risk. If you’re from a country with a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with Australia, you may also be able to enrol in Medicare, but most 482 holders still take out OVHC because the reciprocal agreements only cover a limited set of services.¹¹

What Your Employer Has to Do First

You can’t lodge a 482 visa application on your own. Your employer must either already be an approved Standard Business Sponsor or have applied to become one, then submit a separate nomination for the specific position they want to fill.³

The nomination has to show the job is genuine and the salary meets both the stream’s income threshold and the Annual Market Salary Rate for the occupation. Non-cash benefits like accommodation or a company car don’t count toward the salary figure.¹² For salaries below AUD 250,000, the employer has to produce evidence supporting the market rate, whether that’s an award, an equivalent worker’s pay slips, or a documented methodology backed by at least two independent sources. Generic salary surveys alone will not do.

The employer also has to run labour market testing: at least two advertisements on nationally reaching platforms, live for at least four weeks. Exemptions are narrow and mostly based on international trade obligations, which can cover citizens of certain countries including Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan.¹³

On top of the nomination fee, the employer pays the Skilling Australians Fund levy: AUD 1,200 per year (or part-year) if turnover is under AUD 10 million, AUD 1,800 per year if it’s larger. The levy is not refunded if the nomination fails or you leave early.¹⁴

Fees, Documents, and Processing Time

The base application fee is AUD 3,210 for the primary applicant in every stream. Additional applicants aged 18 and over pay AUD 3,210 each, and dependants under 18 pay AUD 805.¹⁵

You lodge through ImmiAccount, using the Transaction Reference Number from your employer’s nomination to link the two applications. Expect to upload your passport, signed work references on company letterhead, a detailed CV with dates and duties, English test results or exemption evidence, health examination results, and any police certificates the Department requests. Documents not in English need certified translations. If you’re already in Australia on a substantive visa when you lodge, a Bridging Visa A is generally granted automatically.

Processing times differ sharply by stream. As of mid-2025, half of Core Skills applications were decided within 57 days and 90 percent within about four months. The Specialist Skills stream was faster: 50 percent within seven days, 90 percent within 55 days.¹⁶ Slow responses to Department requests are one of the most common reasons applications stall.

If You Change or Lose Your Job

Your visa is tied to your sponsoring employer. You can’t start work for a different sponsor until they have their own approved nomination in place for you.¹⁷

If you leave or lose your job, you have up to 180 days to find a new approved sponsor, apply for a different visa, or leave Australia. Over the whole life of your visa, time spent between sponsors can’t exceed 365 days in total. During any gap you can work for other employers in any occupation to support yourself. Your former employer must notify the Department within 28 days of your employment ending.

Bringing Your Family

Your partner and dependent children can be included in your initial application, or apply later as subsequent entrants once your visa is granted. Subsequent entrant applications need a letter from your sponsoring employer confirming they extend their sponsorship obligations to the family member.¹⁵

Each additional adult pays AUD 3,210 and each child under 18 pays AUD 805. Everyone must independently meet the health and character requirements. If the only person on a subsequent entrant application is a child under 18, they are charged the base rate rather than the lower additional-applicant charge.

Pathway to Permanent Residency

The 482 visa is temporary, but it can lead to permanent residency through the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) Temporary Residence Transition stream. You need to have worked full-time for your sponsoring employer in your nominated occupation for at least two of the three years before applying. Your employer nominates you again, this time for a permanent, genuine, ongoing position. You generally need to be under 45 and demonstrate competent English.¹⁸

A fresh skills assessment is usually not required, because your skills were already assessed for the 482. The TRT stream is open to holders of any 482 stream, including Labour Agreement, as long as the work-duration and nomination requirements are met. One thing to plan around: if you change employers partway through your 482 stay, the two-year clock restarts with the new sponsor.

1
MinterEllison. New Skills in Demand Visa and Core Skills Occupation List
2
Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482)
3
Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Core Skills Stream
4
Envoy Global, Inc. Australia 2026 Increases to Skilled Visa Income Thresholds
5
Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Specialist Skills Stream
6
Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Labour Agreement Stream
7
Department of Home Affairs. English Proficiency (Subclass 482)
8
Department of Home Affairs. What Health Examinations You Need
9
Department of Home Affairs. Character Requirements for Visas
10
Department of Home Affairs. Visas Subject to Condition 8501
11
Services Australia. About Reciprocal Health Care Agreements
12
Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. Salary Requirements to Nominate a Worker
13
Department of Home Affairs. Labour Market Testing
14
Department of Home Affairs. Cost of Sponsoring
15
Australian Government – Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) Subsequent Entrant
16
Department of Home Affairs. Global Visa Processing Times
17
Department of Home Affairs. Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482) – Change in Situation
18
Department of Home Affairs. Temporary Residence Transition Stream