How to Find an Employer to Sponsor You for a 482 Visa

To find an employer to sponsor you for a 482 visa, first check that your occupation is on the 456-occupation Core Skills Occupation List or in the Specialist Skills groups and that the salary reaches $79,423, then approach employers that are approved sponsors or willing to become one. The employer, not the worker, applies to become a sponsor, advertises the role, nominates it and pays every sponsorship cost, while you need 1 year of full-time experience in the last 5 years and English at the required level. The six steps below give the check to run at each stage before an employer is asked.

Is your occupation eligible?

An occupation is eligible for a 482 if it passes one of two stream tests. For Core Skills, it must be one of the 456 occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List in LIN 24/089 on the Federal Register of Legislation, which uses ANZSCO 2022 codes and sets 16 caveats that exclude some positions, such as those in businesses with fewer than 5 employees for certain occupations. For Specialist Skills, it must be in ANZSCO Major Group 1, 2, 4, 5 or 6 and pay at least $146,576 (Migration Regulations 1994, regulation 2.72(8)). An occupation outside both tests needs a labour agreement or a DAMA.

The list is not a ranking. Jobs and Skills Australia states that the Core Skills Occupation List “is not a prioritised list in any way”, and that there is no limit on the number of Skills in Demand visas that can be granted for any one occupation. Each occupation’s code and caveats are on the skilled occupation list page.

Are regional employers easier to find?

Regional employers have routes that employers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane do not; that is a difference in rules, not a measure of how easy an employer is to find. Home Affairs lists 13 Designated Area Migration Agreements, each a labour agreement framework for a defined region; each agreement’s occupations and concessions are negotiated per head agreement and published by the designated area representative, not by Home Affairs. The 494 visa is open to employers everywhere except Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and the 186 nomination fee is nil for a TRT position in regional Australia. The regions and their published terms are on the DAMA occupation list page.

What should you tell an employer?

Six facts a worker can bring to an employer before it decides:

1. The occupation and its ANZSCO code.
2. The stream and salary floor it implies: Core Skills at $79,423 or more, or Specialist Skills at $146,576 or more.
3. Your criteria: experience, English and skills-assessment status, with evidence.
4. Your current visa, and whether it allows a 482 application in Australia.
5. If you already hold a 482: the new employer needs only a new approved nomination, with no new visa unless your visa is expiring, you move from a labour agreement employer to a standard sponsor, or the occupation changes; and how many of your 180 days at a time and 365 days in total you have used (Home Affairs change-in-situation page).
6. What the employer must do, set out in the next section.

What will the employer have to do?

The employer carries six obligations, all at its own cost:

1. Become a standard business sponsor, or confirm it already is one: the application costs $420 and approval lasts 5 years.
2. Test the labour market unless exempt: 2 advertisements, each accepting applications for at least 4 weeks, within the 4 months before lodging the nomination.
3. Nominate the position for $330 and pay the Skilling Australians Fund levy: $1,200 or $1,800 for each year nominated, depending on turnover.
4. Pay at least the salary floor and the market rate, on terms no less favourable than an Australian doing the same work.
5. Meet sponsor obligations: tell Home Affairs within 28 days if the employment ends, keep records, and pay reasonable return travel if asked in writing.
6. Never pass sponsorship costs to the worker (Home Affairs cost of sponsoring page).

An employer that has never sponsored faces the sponsorship, labour market testing, nomination and levy steps for the first time, so a worker who can tell it that an Australian migration lawyer will prepare that evidence gives the employer a route that makes approval more likely than a first-time sponsor lodging alone.

How long does sponsorship take?

Home Affairs published 24 days for half of standard business sponsorship applications and 57 days for half of 482 nominations (global visa processing times, 24 September 2026). The sponsorship application and the nomination can be lodged together, but the sponsorship must be approved before the nomination is.

Can you pay an employer to sponsor you?

No. Asking for, receiving, offering or providing a benefit in return for sponsoring a visa is prohibited under section 245AR and related sections of the Migration Act 1958, and criminal and civil penalties for it were introduced in December 2015 (Home Affairs work visa scams page). The consequence reaches the worker too: a 482 applicant who engaged in that conduct in the previous 3 years fails a visa criterion (Schedule 2 clause 482.213 of the Migration Regulations 1994), unless the conduct is disregarded.

Home Affairs tells workers to be careful of any job offer that expects an upfront payment or the return of part of their pay. Payment demands, visa threats and sponsors charging costs are reported to ABF Border Watch; pay and entitlement problems go to the Fair Work Ombudsman (Home Affairs migrant worker protections page).

How do you check that an employer can sponsor?

Ask the employer. Home Affairs had not published a register of approved sponsors: the Migration Act power to publish one (section 140GD, added by the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Act 2026) was awaiting commencement at the Act’s compilation of 4 June 2026. Home Affairs does publish the names of sanctioned sponsors: its sponsor obligations page says a sanctioned sponsor’s business name, or a person’s name, can be made public. Where an adviser or any other third party is involved, the work visa scams page tells workers to make sure they are registered.

Supplementary: what visa sponsorship means

Sponsorship is the employer’s approval to nominate a named worker, and it comes with obligations that continue after the worker starts. What sponsorship means, who can sponsor and the three approvals are set out on the sponsorship visa Australia page.