How to sponsor an employee in Australia: the 2026 employer guide

The Skills in Demand (subclass 482) visa is the main temporary work-sponsorship visa. It replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa on 7 December 2024 and has three streams:

• Core Skills — the mainstream stream for occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL).
• Specialist Skills — for highly paid specialists earning above the Specialist Skills Income Threshold, with faster processing and no occupation-list restriction.
• Labour Agreement — for employers with a negotiated labour agreement.

The Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) is the permanent-residency equivalent, used when you want to sponsor someone long term. A common path is to sponsor a worker on a 482 first, then transition them to a 186 via the Temporary Residence Transition stream. Importantly, the 186 does not require labour market testing on any stream.

Before you can nominate anyone, your business must be approved as a Standard Business Sponsor (SBS). To qualify you generally need to show the business is lawfully and actively operating, is financially viable, and has no adverse information (such as workplace or immigration breaches) recorded against it.

SBS approval lasts five years, so you don’t repeat this step for every hire. Accredited sponsor status is available to eligible larger or high-volume employers and brings priority processing.

Next you nominate the specific position. The role must be a genuine, full-time position that matches an occupation on the relevant skilled list, and the tasks must align with that occupation. You’ll need to show the position is real and ongoing — not created purely to secure a visa — and pay at or above both the income threshold and the market salary rate for the role.

This is where clean HR documentation earns its keep: a clear position description, digital employment contracts, and evidence of equivalent Australian workers’ pay all support a genuine-position case.

You must pay a sponsored worker the higher of the income threshold and the Annual Market Salary Rate (what you’d pay an equivalent Australian doing the same job). The thresholds are indexed each 1 July:

• Core Skills Income Threshold (CSIT): $79,499 from 1 July 2026 (up from $76,515). Applies to Core Skills nominations lodged on or after 1 July 2026.
• Specialist Skills Income Threshold (SSIT): around $141,210, for the Specialist Skills stream.

Because the market-rate rule sits on top of the threshold, a role that pays well above $79,499 in the open market must still be paid at that market rate. Confirm the current figures on the Department of Home Affairs website before you lodge — most competitor guides still quote last year’s numbers.

For the 482 (Core Skills stream) you generally must complete Labour Market Testing (LMT) — advertising the role to show no suitable Australian is available — unless an exemption applies. In practice that means:

• Advertising for at least four weeks (updated in 2025)
• Running at least two advertisements
• Posting within the four months before you lodge the nomination, on approved platforms

Keep copies of every advertisement and the responses. The 186 visa requires no LMT.

The employer pays the sponsorship and nomination fees plus the Skilling Australians Fund (SAF) levy — and it is unlawful to pass these costs to the employee. Indicative government charges:

• Sponsorship (SBS) application: $420
• Nomination fee: $330
• SAF levy: $1,200 per year of sponsorship for businesses with turnover under $10 million; $1,800 per year for turnover of $10 million or more, payable upfront for the full nomination period.

So a small café or retail business (turnover under $10M) sponsoring a worker for four years pays roughly $4,800 in SAF levy alone; a larger business pays about $7,200. The worker separately pays their own visa application charge.

Sponsorship doesn’t end at visa grant — it starts a multi-year compliance relationship. As a sponsor you must:

• Ensure the worker is only employed in the nominated occupation and paid at least the market salary rate
• Keep records of tasks performed, hours worked, earnings paid, and non-monetary benefits
• Notify Home Affairs in writing within 28 days of notifiable events (the worker leaving, a change of role or address, or the business changing)
• Not recover sponsorship or SAF costs from the employee

These duties are exactly where a good workforce system pays for itself. Digital HR records, automated timesheets and time and attendance, and rostering that ties each shift to the nominated role give you a clean, timestamped audit trail — the same records that also satisfy your conditions of employment and National Employment Standards obligations. Tracking visa expiry alongside other expiring licences and certifications stops a work right lapsing unnoticed.

Home Affairs monitors sponsors during the sponsorship and for up to five years after it ends, with inspection powers under the Migration Act 1958. If you can’t produce the required records, or the worker isn’t being paid or employed as nominated, penalties are significant — infringement notices and civil penalties can run to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per failure for a company.

The practical defence is boringly simple: keep accurate, retrievable records of hours, pay and duties for every sponsored worker, and keep them for at least five years. Sponsor-heavy sectors such as aged care, hospitality and healthcare are audited more closely, so systemised record-keeping matters most there.

Many employers sponsor on a 482 and later nominate the worker for permanent residency via the subclass 186. The Temporary Residence Transition stream typically suits a worker who has been with you for the required period; the Direct Entry stream generally requires the applicant to be under 45, have competent English, and hold around three years’ relevant experience, with pay meeting the income threshold and market rate. Retaining a proven employee permanently is often cheaper than re-recruiting — and a strong retention story for the rest of your team.