Guides

Short Stay Specialist visa (subclass 400) vs Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)

Which visa for a defined scope of work?

The subclass 400 (Temporary Work (Short Stay Specialist)) visa is for short-term, highly specialised work in Australia where the skills aren’t readily available locally.

The Subclass 482 Skills in Demand covers ongoing employment for up to four years, requires your business to be an approved sponsor, and carries sponsor obligations.

The first question is not convenience; it is whether the role is genuinely time-bound. Resource Visa advises Australian employers on both.

Side by side

The comparison at a glance

	Short Stay Specialist visa (subclass 400)	Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)
What it’s for	A defined piece of specialised, non-ongoing work	An ongoing position
Duration	See ‘Duration’ below	A 482 can be granted for up to four years.
Sponsorship approval	Not required	Required
Nomination	Not required	Required
Labour Market Testing	Not required (justification still needed)	Required where applicable
Occupation list	Not applicable	Depends on the stream (see below)
Salary threshold	Not applicable	Applies, and is indexed
Ongoing obligations	See below	Sponsor obligations (see below)
Permanent residence pathway	No	A separate step (see below)
Process	One application, no sponsorship or nomination stage	Up to three applications (sponsorship, nomination, visa), often lodged together
Best for	Shutdowns, breakdowns, commissioning, campaigns	Filling a role

Duration (subclass 400)

Normally up to three months in any 12-month period, counting every 400 stay with any employer. Up to six months only in exceptional circumstances, on strong evidence. A specialist who has already spent time in Australia on a 400 in the last 12 months may be granted only the balance, so offshore and FIFO rosters that add up to more than three months a year need a different visa.

Occupation list (subclass 482)

The subclass 482 Skills in Demand visa has three streams: Specialist Skills, Core Skills and Labour Agreement. The Specialist Skills stream is open to most occupations where the salary meets its income threshold. It isn’t available for technicians and trades workers, machinery operators and drivers, or labourers, whatever the salary. The Core Skills stream covers occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List. Under either stream, the worker must be paid at least the applicable income threshold and the market rate for the role. Thresholds are indexed every 1 July, and we check the current figures for each nomination.

Ongoing obligations

The 400 is the specialist’s own application. Your business supports it with an invitation and evidence. There’s no sponsorship approval or nomination stage and no sponsorship obligations, but your business must not let anyone work in breach of their visa conditions. Sponsor obligations start when you’re approved, and some continue after the sponsorship ends. They include giving equivalent terms and conditions, keeping records, telling the Department about certain changes within 28 days, paying reasonable return travel costs if asked, and cooperating with inspectors. Breaches can lead to sanctions, including bars on sponsoring, cancellation, infringement notices, civil penalties and enforceable undertakings.

Permanent residence pathway

The 482 is a temporary visa. Permanent residence is a separate step, usually through the subclass 186 Temporary Residence Transition stream after a qualifying period working for an approved sponsor. For that stream the nomination comes from the sponsoring employer; a Direct Entry nomination doesn’t need sponsorship approval. Either way, the position must be full-time and available for at least two years.

The first question

The question to ask first

Not “how long do we need them for”. The question is: when this work is finished, does the role still exist?

If the answer is no, the shutdown ends, the equipment is commissioned, the campaign closes, it may be 400 territory, if the stay limits above also fit. If the answer is yes, it is a 482 matter however short the initial engagement is.

Employers sometimes work backwards from the answer they want. In September 2024 the Department of Home Affairs began applying the 400 more strictly. Longer stays, repeat visits, large groups and roles that look ongoing get closer scrutiny, so every application needs evidence that the work is specialised, short-term and can’t be sourced locally.

Common mistakes

Where employers get it wrong

Using the 400 because the 482 takes more steps. Understandable and risky. A 400 that should have been a 482 is a refusal waiting to happen. A refusal doesn’t disappear: it becomes part of the specialist’s history on later applications, and the Department looks at how a business uses the 400 over time.

Consecutive 400s for the same person. Reads as what it is. See the ‘Duration’ note above.

Assuming the 482 is always the safer choice. It is not, it is heavy machinery for a small job, and it commits your business to obligations that outlast the work.

Deciding before checking the occupation list. Which occupations can be nominated depends on the stream. Check first.

Sequencing

What if it’s genuinely both?

Common: a specialist comes in on a 400 for a commissioning window, performs well, and you want to keep them. That is a legitimate sequence, a defined piece of work, followed by a decision to create an ongoing role.

What matters is that it was honestly a defined piece of work at the time, and that the ongoing role is genuinely new. Sequencing is fine. Retrofitting the story is not.

If the role turns out to be ongoing, the 482 is a fresh application with its own sponsorship and nomination. A 400 may carry a ‘No Further Stay’ condition. If it does, the specialist can’t apply for the 482 while in Australia unless the Department first waives the condition. A waiver is discretionary, so the 482 may need to be lodged from outside Australia.

DAMA

When the role isn’t on any list

A Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA) lets an employer in a designated area sponsor occupations, with concessions, that the standard 482 doesn’t offer. The employer first needs endorsement from the region’s Designated Area Representative, then its own labour agreement with the Australian Government.

As at [date]: five DAMAs operate in Western Australia. These are the state-wide WA DAMA, which covers all of WA including metropolitan Perth, and regional DAMAs for the Goldfields, Kimberley, Pilbara and South West. The regional agreements are closing to new applications between late October 2026 and March 2027, after which new DAMA labour agreements in WA are expected to run through the WA DAMA. Existing labour agreements and visas continue.

The South West DAMA closes to new applications and variation requests on 30 October 2026.

DAMA for WA Resources Employers

Reviewed by a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1686595) · Last reviewed [date]

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