482 Sponsor Obligations: What an Employer Must Do (and Must Not)

Sponsorship obligations bind a 482 sponsor from the day its sponsorship is approved: it must pay at least the nominated salary, keep the worker in the nominated occupation, tell Home Affairs of listed changes within 28 days, keep records, never pass sponsorship costs to the worker and pay return travel on request. Several obligations run for 2 years after the sponsorship ends and monitoring for up to 5 years, and they apply in full even when a lawyer handles the paperwork (Department of Home Affairs, sponsor obligations and Core Skills stream pages). The first step after approval is to set up the records Home Affairs can ask for (pay, duties and location, the employment contract and every notification), because a request must be answered in the manner and time Home Affairs sets.

What are the sponsor’s obligations?

The Home Affairs sponsor obligations page and regulations 2.78 to 2.87C of the Migration Regulations 1994 give a standard business sponsor ten obligations:

1. Cooperate with inspectors.
2. Pay at least the nominated earnings, on terms no less favourable than an equivalent Australian’s.
3. Pay return travel within 30 days of a written request.
4. Pay the costs of locating and removing a sponsored person who becomes unlawful, up to $10,000.
5. Keep records.
6. Provide records and information when asked.
7. Notify listed events within 28 days.
8. Keep the worker in the nominated occupation.
9. Pay all sponsorship and recruitment costs, and recover none from the worker.
10. Do not recruit in a discriminatory way.

Accredited sponsors carry the same obligations. Two Skills in Demand changes apply: from 7 December 2024 the occupation obligation ends when the worker stops working for the sponsor (Home Affairs news item 1274), and from 29 November 2025 the obligation definitions expressly cover Skills in Demand holders (Skilled Visa Reform Technical Measures Regulations 2025). The obligations are the last of the steps in how to sponsor an employee in Australia.

What must you tell Home Affairs, and when?

Listed events must be reported in writing within 28 days.

Events for every sponsor

• The worker’s employment ends or is expected to end, including any change to the end date.
• The worker did not start work.
• The worker’s duties change.
• The sponsor paid return travel for the worker or a family member.
• The business becomes insolvent or ceases to exist as a legal entity.
• A change to the business’s legal or trading name, registration details, structure, contact person, owners, directors or partners, or address.

Events for companies, individuals, partnerships and associations

• Companies: a new director; an administrator appointed; a resolution or court order to wind up; a provisional liquidator appointed; a court-approved compromise or arrangement; a receiver or controller appointed; deregistration started; a restructuring practitioner appointed.
• Individuals: a personal insolvency agreement, debt agreement, sequestration order or bankruptcy, a declaration of intention to present a debtor’s petition, or a composition or scheme of arrangement.
• Partnerships: a new partner, or any of the events for an individual or a company.
• Unincorporated associations: a new member of the managing committee, or any of the events for an individual or a company.

How to notify

Use the Notification of sponsor changes form in ImmiAccount, or email the address Home Affairs gives on its sponsor obligations page.

When the worker’s employment ends, the worker has up to 180 days to find a new sponsor, get another visa or leave Australia. Until one of those happens, the sponsor stays bound, for example to pay return travel on request (Home Affairs change in situation page). The worker’s side of that window is explained under 180-day rule and your options.

Which costs cannot be recovered from the worker?

Under regulation 2.87 of the Migration Regulations 1994, the sponsor must not, or attempt to, transfer or charge these costs to the worker or the worker’s family:

1. The sponsorship fee.
2. Nomination charges.
3. The Skilling Australians Fund levy.
4. Migration lawyer costs for the sponsorship and nomination applications.
5. Recruitment agent fees.
6. Advertising.
7. Screening, shortlisting, interviewing and reference checks.
8. Salaries of recruitment or human resources staff.
9. Outsourced background checks, police checks and psychological testing.
10. Answering candidates’ queries and advising unsuccessful applicants.
11. Travel, in Australia or overseas, to interview or meet applicants.

The government charges are added up, by business size and years, in the guide to sponsorship visa Australia cost.

Which records must you keep?

The Home Affairs sponsor obligations page lists the records a sponsor keeps, in addition to those other laws require:

1. Written requests for return travel, including when each was received.
2. How and when travel costs were paid, how much, and to whom.
3. Every notification, with its date, method and where it was sent.
4. The tasks the worker performed and where.
5. Earnings paid to the worker.
6. Money applied or dealt with on the worker’s behalf or at the worker’s direction.
7. Non-monetary benefits, with their agreed value and when they were provided.
8. The terms and conditions of any equivalent worker in the workplace.
9. The written employment contract.
10. Records of training obligations, where they apply, and records required under a labour agreement.
11. Recruitment records showing no discrimination on citizenship or visa status.

Items 5 to 8 are not required where the worker earns $250,000 or more. Records must be kept in a reproducible format, and some must be capable of verification by an independent person. The advertising records from the nomination belong in the same file; what they must show is set out under 482 LMT rules.

When do the obligations end?

• Notify, keep records, provide records and bear costs: 2 years after the sponsorship ends and the business no longer employs a sponsored visa holder.
• Cooperate with inspectors: 5 years after the sponsorship ends or the worker stops working for the sponsor; monitoring runs for up to 5 years after the sponsorship ends.
• Costs of locating and removing an unlawful non-citizen: 5 years after the person leaves Australia.
• Pay, occupation and return travel: when the worker’s employment or visa ends, as set out in the table.

An Australian migration lawyer makes compliance more likely here because the 28 days notices, the record list and the no-cost-recovery rule run for years after the worker leaves, and a missed notice or an unrecorded payment is enough for a bar or a civil penalty. No adviser can promise an outcome.

What happens if you breach an obligation?

Section 140K of the Migration Act 1958 and the Home Affairs sponsor obligations page set out six kinds of action:

1. A bar on sponsoring more workers for a set time.
2. Cancellation of all the sponsor’s approvals.
3. Refusal of future sponsorship applications.
4. A compliance notice under section 140RB, available since 1 July 2024 (Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Act 2024).
5. An enforceable undertaking.
6. An infringement notice, or a court civil penalty of up to 240 penalty units for each failure under section 140Q(1); one penalty unit is $364 from 1 July 2026.

Home Affairs publishes the names of sanctioned sponsors on the register of sanctioned sponsors that the Australian Border Force keeps. How monitoring, bars and cancellation work is covered under 482 sponsor sanctions.

What can a sponsored worker do?

A worker whose sponsor pays less than the nominated salary, deducts sponsorship or recruitment costs, requires a different job or forces excessive hours can report the sponsor to Border Watch, and does not need to give a name (Home Affairs migrant worker protections page). The Fair Work Ombudsman visa holders page says visa holders have the same workplace rights as any employee, that contacting the Ombudsman for help will not lead to the visa being cancelled, and that an employer cannot cancel a visa; only Home Affairs can.