Standard Business Sponsorship is the approval that lets an Australian business nominate overseas workers for the Subclass 482 Skills in Demand visa. It is granted to the business rather than to any particular worker, and covers multiple nominations. Resource Visa prepares sponsorship applications for Australian resources and energy employers.
Sponsor approval
What sponsorship approval actually is
A standing permission, not a per-worker transaction.
Employers often assume sponsorship is something done each time they hire. It isn’t. Your business is approved once; each subsequent worker needs a nomination and a visa, but not a fresh sponsorship. That is why the effort is worth it if you expect to sponsor more than one person, and why it is worth questioning if you expect to sponsor one.
Requirements
What your business has to demonstrate
Standard business sponsorship needs a lawfully operating business with no relevant adverse information, a record of or commitment to employing local labour, and a commitment to non-discriminatory recruitment. Approval generally lasts five years, and renewing it is a new application.
The adverse information limb catches more businesses than expected. It reaches associated entities and directors, not just the applying entity, and it is worth raising anything in the history at the outset rather than having it surface during assessment.
Your commitments
What you are committing to
This is the part that deserves a clear-eyed look before you apply.
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.
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.
None of that is a reason not to sponsor. It is a reason to have a system rather than good intentions.
Do you need it
Do you actually need it?
Three situations where the answer is no, or not yet:
The work is a defined short-term scope. 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. If you are mobilising a specialist for a shutdown or a commissioning window, sponsorship is unnecessary overhead.
The occupation isn’t on the relevant list. Sponsorship approval will not help if the nomination cannot succeed. Check the occupation first, a labour agreement or DAMA may be the route instead.
You cannot meet the salary threshold for the role. Better to know before you apply.
At the briefing we’ll give you an honest read on which of these applies, including when the answer is that you don’t need us yet.
How we prepare it
How Resource Visa prepares the application
Our principal’s corporate finance background matters here: financial statements are not something we forward to the Department; they are something we read, interpret and present.
Where the financial picture is complicated, a new entity, a restructure, a project vehicle, a loss year, it is better to explain it properly in the application than to have it raise questions.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Approval generally lasts five years, and renewing it is a new application.
No. 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.
In many cases, yes. Whether it is the right approach depends on how confident you are in the nomination.
New businesses can be approved. Expect to provide business plans, financial projections and evidence of establishment.
It can. The assessment reaches associated entities and individuals, not only the applying business. Raise it at the outset so it can be addressed in the application rather than discovered during assessment.
Breaches can lead to sanctions, including bars on sponsoring, cancellation, infringement notices, civil penalties and enforceable undertakings. Many breaches are administrative, such as a missed notification deadline, rather than deliberate.
Reviewed by a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1686595) · Last reviewed [date]
Keep reading
Related pages
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.
Sponsor Obligations & Monitoring
What sponsorship commits your business to: records, notifications, equivalent terms, and what happens when the Department asks.
Sponsor Compliance Check
Find out where your sponsorship obligations stand before the Department does.
Considering sponsorship for the first time?
Twenty minutes. No obligation. Direct with a Registered Migration Agent. Tell us the role, the site and the date.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm AWST