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.
Resource Visa advises Australian employers on meeting these obligations. The obligations stay with your business in law. On a retainer we manage them with you, but we can’t take them over.
Your obligations
What you signed up to
When your business became an approved sponsor, it took on a set of statutory obligations. They are not conditions of the visa, they are conditions on you.
A common pattern is complying in substance and failing on administration. The work is being done, the worker is paid properly, the role is genuine, but nobody diarised the notification deadlines and nobody can locate the Labour Market Testing evidence from two years ago.
That is the failure mode this page is about, and it is entirely preventable.
In plain terms
The obligations, in plain terms
Records you must keep
Employment agreements, pay records, hours worked, leave, the nominated position details, Labour Market Testing evidence, and correspondence about the sponsorship. In a prescribed form, for a prescribed period, and producible on request.
The Department can request records at any time. If you cannot produce them, the fact that you were complying is not much help.
Events you must notify, and by when
Specified events trigger a notification obligation with a deadline. They include the worker ceasing employment, changes to their duties or role, changes to your business, contact details, structure, ownership, and various other prescribed circumstances.
The deadline is the thing. A late notification is a breach even where the underlying event was entirely benign. Diarise them.
Terms and conditions
The sponsored worker’s terms must be no less favourable than those that apply, or would apply, to an equivalent Australian performing equivalent work at the same location. This covers more than base salary, allowances, rosters, site entitlements and benefits are all in scope.
The nominated occupation
The worker must work in the occupation that was nominated. Roles evolve, which is normal, but a material change may require a fresh nomination. “They picked up some extra duties” is how this obligation is often breached without anyone intending to.
Costs you cannot pass on
Sponsorship and nomination charges, the Skilling Australians Fund levy and recruitment costs sit with the sponsor. Australian law prohibits passing them to the sponsored worker, directly or through deductions or bonds.
Monitoring
How the Department monitors
Monitoring ranges from desk-based requests for records to site visits. It can be triggered by a data match, a complaint, a pattern in your applications, or nothing in particular.
For resources employers there is an added dimension: monitoring may reach a remote site, where the practical questions, who supervises, what the roster actually is, whether site allowances match the nomination, are harder to answer from head office than from the site itself.
Consequences
What happens if you get it wrong
Breaches can lead to sanctions, including bars on sponsoring, cancellation, infringement notices, civil penalties and enforceable undertakings.
The reputational consequence is often the one that matters most. For a business that tenders for work, appearing on a public sanctions list is a procurement problem as well as a migration one.
The Migration Act now provides for a public register of approved work sponsors. It can show sponsor names, ABNs, the number of nominations and the occupations nominated.
Common gaps
The obligations employers often miss
- Notification deadlines, particularly when a worker resigns during a busy period
- Labour Market Testing evidence not retained in a producible form
- Role drift, duties expanding past the nominated occupation without a fresh nomination
- Site allowances and roster entitlements not matching the nominated terms
- Treating compliance as a one-off rather than an ongoing obligation
Every one of these is administrative. Every one is avoidable with a system.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Sponsor obligations start when you’re approved, and some continue after the sponsorship ends.
Yes. Records must be kept in a prescribed form and produced on request.
Cessation of employment is a notifiable event with a deadline attached. Notify within the required timeframe, a late notification is a breach even though the resignation itself is not.
It can be. The worker must perform the nominated occupation. Minor evolution is expected; a material change may require a fresh nomination. If you are unsure whether a change is material, ask before rather than after.
No. Sponsor obligations start when you’re approved, and some continue after the sponsorship ends.
A data match, a complaint, a pattern in your applications, or routine selection. There is not always a trigger you can identify.
Get it assessed before the Department does. A self-identified administrative gap that is corrected is a materially different position from one found during monitoring. Start with a Sponsor Compliance Check.
Reviewed by a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1686595) · Last reviewed [date]
Keep reading
Related pages
Sponsor Compliance Check
Find out where your sponsorship obligations stand before the Department does.
Sponsor Compliance Retainer
Your sponsorship obligations, managed by a Registered Migration Agent.
Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482)
Sponsoring an ongoing role under the Subclass 482 Skills in Demand visa. The three streams, what your business must do, and the obligations that follow.