What a 482 Visa Actually Lets You Do, and What It Does Not

Two words carry the whole visa

The Subclass 482 Skills in Demand visa is a temporary visa that lets an approved employer sponsor a skilled worker into a position they cannot fill with a suitably skilled Australian. That sentence is short, and almost every misunderstanding we correct about the visa comes from reading two of its words more loosely than the conditions allow.

Those words are occupation and sponsor. The conditions attached to the visa require the holder to work in Australia only in the occupation they were nominated for, and only for the nominating business, or in some circumstances an associated entity of that business. Not a similar occupation. Not a related role at the same employer.

One piece of housekeeping before the detail. The Skills in Demand framework replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage framework on 7 December 2024. If you are reading guidance that calls this visa the TSS, or that describes short-term and medium-term streams, you are reading about a system that no longer exists.

What the visa does let you do

Within those two words, the visa gives you more than the compliance conversation usually suggests.

You can work for your sponsor for up to four years, or up to five years if you hold a Hong Kong passport. The period actually granted is the period your employer nominates you for, up to that maximum, so it is often shorter than four years.

You can travel out of Australia and back as many times as you want while the visa is valid. There is no limit on departures. One caveat that catches people planning a long trip home: time spent outside Australia does not extend the visa.

You can bring your family. Eligible family members can be included as secondary applicants in the original application, or they can follow later as subsequent entrants. That matters for people who take a role quickly and move a partner and children once schooling and housing are arranged. Your visa is linked digitally to your passport, so there is no label to collect.

You can apply from inside or outside Australia, though not while you are in immigration clearance.

Two requirements are worth being precise about, because both are widely misstated. A skills assessment is not a universal gate on this visa, but it is mandatory for some occupations, and where it applies the Department prefers it completed before you lodge. And you must have at least one year of relevant work experience in your nominated occupation or a related field. On English, the requirement is that you meet minimum standards of English language proficiency unless an exemption applies, and the exemptions are narrower than most applicants assume.

What it does not let you do

You cannot move to a new sponsor on your own timetable

This is the constraint that surprises people most, because it does not work the way ordinary employment does. A 482 holder cannot start working for a different employer until that employer has a new approved nomination. Not a signed contract. Not a start date. An approved nomination.

That means the new employer has to already be an approved sponsor for the visa, then lodge a nomination for your specific position, then wait for it to be approved. If your prospective employer has never sponsored anyone, sponsorship approval is a separate process that happens before any of that.

Where a new employer takes over your sponsorship, you usually do not need to lodge a fresh visa application, only the new nomination, unless your visa is close to expiring. Two exceptions: moving from a labour agreement employer to a standard business sponsor does require a new visa application, and a change of duties requires a new visa in the new occupation regardless.

A pay rise is fine, new duties are a new visa

Your sponsor can pay you more, and can promote you, provided your duties do not change. The moment the duties change, the position is a different position: the sponsor must lodge a new nomination and you must apply for and be granted a new visa.

This catches good people in good jobs. A promotion that adds team leadership to an engineering role, or moves an accountant into a management title, is exactly the kind of progression that requires paperwork rather than congratulations.

Two conditions run for the life of the visa rather than only at grant. Your earnings must continue to meet your stream’s income threshold, the Core Skills Income Threshold or the Specialist Skills Income Threshold, which together replaced the former TSMIT. And unless you work in an exempt occupation or limited circumstances apply, you must be employed on a full time basis. A move to part time hours is not a private arrangement between you and your employer.

You cannot extend it

The visa cannot be extended. If it is expiring and you want to stay on with the same employer, your sponsor lodges a new nomination and you lodge a new visa application. A nomination lasts up to twelve months from its approval date, and ends earlier if your visa is decided sooner, which makes the sequencing of nomination and application a practical planning question rather than a formality.

The 180 day rule, and the 365 day one behind it

If your employment ends, whether you resign or the role ends, you have up to 180 days from the date you finish working to do one of three things: find another approved sponsor to nominate you, be granted a different visa, or leave Australia. Your former sponsor must notify the Department within 28 days that the employment has ended.

There is a second limit that gets far less attention: the allowance is capped in aggregate as well as per episode, at 365 days in total across the life of the visa grant. If you have already had one gap between sponsors, the days you used then come off the total available for the next one. Someone on their second transition has materially less room than someone on their first, and that is the number people forget to count.

What you may do for income during that window is the part where general guidance is least reliable, and where we would rather you did not rely on an article. Condition 8607 was amended on 1 July 2024, and the Department’s own general help text for the condition has not caught up with the change. What is unambiguous is the sponsored side of it: you cannot begin work for a new employer as their sponsored worker until their nomination is approved. Whether you may take other work in the meantime turns on the exact conditions printed on your grant notice. Read them, and if there is any doubt, ask before you accept anything.

One detail in your favour: until your situation resolves, your former sponsor still carries its sponsor obligations to you and your dependents.

Which stream you are on, and why it matters later

The visa has three streams: Core Skills, Specialist Skills and Labour Agreement. For a holder, the practical question is not which door you came through but which ongoing threshold you have to keep meeting, and whether your occupation locks you out of a move.

Under the Core Skills stream your nominated occupation must appear on the Core Skills Occupation List, and you must be paid the Annual Market Salary Rate for the occupation and no less than the Core Skills Income Threshold. Both tests apply, which is why quoting a salary that clears one and not the other fails the nomination.

The Specialist Skills stream is not bound to the Core Skills Occupation List. It covers ANZSCO listed occupations excluding those in Major Groups 3, 7 and 8, where the nominated salary meets the Specialist Skills Income Threshold. Those excluded groups are Technicians and Trades Workers, Machinery Operators and Drivers, and Labourers, so the Specialist Skills stream is closed to trade occupations however well the role pays.

Threshold figures change, so any number you have been quoted needs checking against the Department’s current published threshold before you rely on it.

Where the 482 leads

The reason to hold a 482 carefully is that it is a staging post rather than a destination. Where you hold a Skills in Demand visa, your employer may be able to nominate you for permanent residence through the Employer Nomination Scheme, Subclass 186.

Two facts about that route should shape decisions you make now rather than later. The 186 carries an age cap of 45, which for anyone in their early forties turns the timing of a transition from a preference into a deadline. And the Temporary Residence Transition stream generally requires two years of eligible sponsored employment while holding a 482. Since 7 December 2024 that qualifying period can be worked across any approved sponsoring employer rather than a single one, which is genuinely good news for anyone who has changed sponsors, but the continuity of employment still has to hold up.

The mistakes we correct most often

Assuming a promotion is purely an internal matter. If the duties change, it is a new nomination and a new visa.

Treating the 180 days as a deadline for signing a contract. It is a deadline for an approved nomination, and the approval is the slow part. Work backwards from it.

Forgetting the 365 day aggregate, and discovering on a second transition that most of the allowance is already spent.

Dropping to part time hours by private agreement with a sympathetic employer.

Letting earnings drift below the stream threshold after a restructure, on the assumption that the test was passed at grant and is finished.

Still calling it the TSS, which is usually a sign the rest of the advice is out of date too.

If you hold a 482 and something about your role is changing, or you are weighing a sponsored offer against a points-tested route, it is worth a conversation before anything is signed. Our MARA-registered advisers read the conditions on your actual grant notice rather than the general rule, because on this visa the two are not always the same thing.

Sources

• Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)
• Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) Core Skills stream
• Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) Specialist Skills stream
• Department of Home Affairs, Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) change in situation
• Department of Home Affairs, Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186)