Sponsoring a Working Holiday (417) Visa Holder: What the Employer Must Know

Your business can sponsor a working holiday visa holder for a Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) if three things hold: the job is on the Core Skills Occupation List, it pays at least AUD 79,423 a year plus superannuation, and your business is, or becomes, an approved sponsor. The worker applies from inside Australia.

The deadline that catches employers is not the visa expiry but condition 8547: a working holiday visa holder may not work for one employer for more than 6 months without written permission from Home Affairs. A permission request lodged before the 6 months end lets the worker keep working for you until Home Affairs decides.

The same rules apply to the Work and Holiday visa (subclass 462).

Can you sponsor a working holiday visa holder?

A 417 holder is in Australia on a valid visa, so they can be nominated and can lodge the 482 application onshore. Nothing in the 482 rules excludes working holiday makers. An application lodged before the 417 expires gives the worker a bridging visa to stay on while the 482 is processed.

What the 417 does not do is make the job sponsorable. The three employer-side tests are the same as for any 482: the occupation, the salary and the sponsorship. The worker then has to meet the experience, English and skills rules for that occupation. The order below is the order in which to check.

Does the job qualify for a 482?

The job has to match an occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List (the 456 occupations open to the main 482 stream), by duties and not just by title. Chefs, cooks, electricians, carpenters, motor mechanics and registered nurses are on it. Bar attendants, waiters, farm hands and general labourers are not.

You must pay at least the Core Skills Income Threshold of AUD 79,423 a year plus superannuation, for nominations lodged between 1 July 2026 and 30 June 2027. You must also pay at least what an Australian in the same job at your site earns (the annual market salary rate); the higher figure applies.

A working holiday maker on casual hospitality rates is usually well below AUD 79,423. Converting the role to full-time at that salary is an employer decision, and the pay has to be real: it is written into the nomination and checked afterwards.

If the occupation is not on the list, or you cannot pay AUD 79,423, the standard 482 is closed. Some regional and industry employers can still sponsor under a DAMA or labour agreement, which can allow occupations and salaries the standard list does not. Our 482 visa requirements guide sets out every employer test.

What must your business do to sponsor a 417 holder?

The 482 has three approvals. Your business lodges the first two applications and the worker lodges the third.

1. Become a standard business sponsor (if you are not one already) — a one-off approval of your business, valid for 5 years, lodged online with your registration and financial records. The charge is AUD 420. Our standard business sponsorship guide covers the evidence.
2. Advertise the job (labour market testing) — two or more advertisements, each running at least 4 weeks, in the 4 months before the nomination, with the salary shown if below AUD 96,400. You run these even if the 417 holder already does the job. Keep every application and your reasons for rejecting it.
3. Nominate the position — the nomination (your sponsorship paperwork for this one job) names the occupation, the worker, the salary and the site. You pay the AUD 330 nomination charge and the Skilling Australians Fund levy at lodgement: AUD 1,200 a year of visa if turnover is under AUD 10 million, otherwise AUD 1,800.
4. The worker applies for the 482 — with the nomination reference, their experience evidence, English result and, where the occupation and passport require it, a skills assessment. The visa charge starts at AUD 4,015.

The sponsorship, nomination and visa applications can be lodged together, and usually are, because the 417 clock is running. The ads are the slowest part: run them first, and prepare the sponsorship and nomination while they are live. Our labour market testing guide has the ad requirements.

How does the six-month rule (condition 8547) affect the timing?

Condition 8547 is written on every Working Holiday (417) visa and every Work and Holiday (462) visa (Schedule 8 of the Migration Regulations; clause 417.611 puts it on every 417). It says the holder must not be employed by any one employer for more than 6 months without the prior written permission of the Department.

Home Affairs counts the 6 months from the day the worker started with you, in calendar months, whether the work was full-time, part-time, casual or voluntary. Hours worked do not matter. Workplace training counts as work.

“Employer” means the business the worker actually works for. A labour-hire agency cannot reset the clock by placing the same worker in the same job through a different agency or a related company.

When can a 417 holder work for you longer than 6 months without asking?

Since 1 January 2024, Home Affairs lists these situations where no permission is needed:

• Different locations for the same employer — as long as work at any one location does not pass 6 months. Two hotels in one chain, two sites of a business with the same ABN, and a switch to or from working from home all count as a change of location.
• Plant and animal cultivation anywhere in Australia — harvesting, packing, pruning, maintaining crops or livestock, processing plant and animal products, shearing, butchery and dairy manufacturing.
• Natural disaster recovery work anywhere in Australia — construction, clean-up, restoration and support services in affected areas.
• Five critical sectors anywhere in Australia — agriculture and food processing; health; aged care and disability services; childcare; and tourism and hospitality, which covers hotels, hostels, cafes, restaurants, pubs, catering and tour operators.
• Four industries in Northern Australia only — fishing and pearling, tree farming and felling, construction, and mining, within the postcodes Home Affairs lists for Queensland, Western Australia and all of the Northern Territory.

A restaurant, hotel, farm, aged care home or childcare centre anywhere in Australia can therefore keep a 417 holder past 6 months without asking. A Melbourne builder, a city mechanic or an office employer cannot. Check the Home Affairs 6-month work limitation page for your sector and keep a dated copy.

How do you ask for permission?

The worker lodges the online form “Permission to work longer than 6 months” with Home Affairs. The two published grounds are a pending application for a visa allowing ongoing full-time work, or work that is critical to the employer, supported by your letter. A lodged 482 application fits the first ground exactly.

The second ground is narrower than it sounds. The Department’s instructions to visa officers say permission is approved only in limited circumstances; their examples are a specialised project that has run over by days or weeks, and disaster recovery work. A letter saying the worker is hard to replace is rarely enough.

Timing decides what happens next. Lodged before the 6 months end, Home Affairs says the worker can keep working for you until a written decision arrives, and it tells employers to rely on its web page as confirmation. Lodged after the 6 months end, the worker must stop and wait for the decision.

Where the ground is a pending 482, visa officers are instructed to grant permission for that visa’s estimated processing time, until the 482 is decided or the 417 expires, whichever comes first. The Department’s target for a decision is 14 days. Home Affairs warns that volumes are high and it does not confirm receipt.

What happens when the 417 expires before the 482 is decided?

A 417 lasts 12 months, and a 482 application lodged onshore joins a queue. As at 29 October 2026, the Home Affairs 482 visa page showed these lodgement months being processed:

• February 2026 — construction, healthcare, teaching, agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and resources jobs, and law enforcement and defence interests.
• July 2026 — the Specialist Skills stream (salary of AUD 146,576 or more).
• January 2026 — other applicants who were in Australia when they applied.
• October 2025 — applicants outside Australia whose application is not combined with another person’s.
• October 2025 — all other applicants outside Australia.

So a hospitality or trades worker in Australia should expect the 417 to end before the 482 is granted. That is normal, and the law provides for it.

When a 417 holder lodges a 482 application in Australia, Home Affairs grants a bridging visa A. It starts the day the 417 ends and keeps the worker lawful until the 482 is decided. It carries condition 8547 across (clause 010.611 of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations), but not the study limit.

Home Affairs’ published position is that the count applies to each visa separately, so it starts again when a bridging visa carrying condition 8547 comes into effect. The Department’s instructions to visa officers say the same: 6 months on the 417 can be followed by up to 6 more on the bridging visa.

We still lodge the permission request before month six. It costs nothing, and it covers the gap when the 417 has months left to run after the 482 is lodged.

If the bridging visa’s own 6 months are also running out, the worker can apply for a new bridging visa A and ask Home Affairs to remove condition 8547 on the ground of a compelling need to work. Home Affairs says it may do so, and its instructions point bridging visa holders to that step.

What must the worker show?

The worker’s side of the 482 is the same as for any applicant in the Core Skills stream:

• At least 1 year of relevant work experience in the last 5 years — full-time, or part-time and casual work equal to 12 months full-time, in the nominated occupation or a related field at the same skill level, anywhere in the world. Paid months with you on the 417 count; unpaid work does not.
• English — IELTS 5.0 in each part, or an equivalent score in another approved test, taken in the 3 years before applying. United Kingdom, Irish, Canadian, New Zealand and United States passport holders are exempt. Most other 417 passports (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) need a test unless another exemption applies.
• A skills assessment, for some occupations and passports only — required before lodging where the occupation and the passport are both listed in the Department’s instrument (24 occupations). Of the 417 passports only Hong Kong is listed; some 462 passports (China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Brazil) are. Our occupation pages list them.
• Health and character — health examinations as requested, and police certificates for every country lived in for 12 months or more in the last 10 years.

Licensed trades add one more step. An electrician or plumber must hold or be eligible for the state licence, which for overseas-trained workers runs through a Trades Recognition Australia assessment and supervised work. Our electrician page explains the sequence.

What does sponsoring a 417 holder cost the employer?

The law fixes the employer’s side: the sponsorship, nomination and levy charges, and the cost of recruiting the worker, cannot be recovered from the worker. The visa charge and the worker’s own costs (English test, police checks, health examination) are open to agreement.

Our fixed professional fees are charged per stage, so you pay only for the stages you need. They are on the fees page, and every government charge for the 482 is on our Australian visa fees and thresholds page.

Where does sponsoring a working holiday maker go wrong?

In our experience the common failure is the calendar. The employer decides in month five, the ads take four weeks, and the worker passes 6 months before anyone has lodged the permission request. From that day the worker cannot lawfully keep working for you until Home Affairs decides.

The exposure is the employer’s as much as the worker’s. Allowing a visa holder to work in breach of a work condition is a civil penalty provision and a criminal offence under section 245AC of the Migration Act. Home Affairs lists civil penalties up to AUD 87,360 (individual) and AUD 436,800 (company), per worker.

Check the worker’s conditions in VEVO (the Department’s free online work-rights check) on day one, and diarise month six.

The second failure is assuming the bridging visa fixes everything. It carries condition 8547, and if the 482 was lodged only days before the 417 expired, the worker may already have been past 6 months for weeks. The bridging visa starts a new count; it does not cure a breach that has already happened.

The third is the skill level of the experience. Backpackers in kitchens are often employed as kitchen hands or cooks, and the employer then wants to nominate a chef. The Department’s instructions do not count lower-skilled work toward the chef requirement. Test the 12 months against the nominated occupation before you spend on ads.

The fourth is paying the market rate on paper only. A nomination at AUD 79,423 for a worker who stays on casual award rates breaches your sponsorship obligations once the visa is granted, and the Department compares payslips with the nomination.

The fifth is skipping the ads because “we already have the person”. Labour market testing is required by law for standard business sponsors (section 140GBA of the Migration Act), and a nomination without compliant advertising is refused unless an exemption applies. The exemptions, mainly international trade obligations, rarely cover a working holiday maker.

Where the role cannot be sponsored, tell the worker early. A 417 holder who completes 3 months of specified work can apply for a second Working Holiday visa, and your business gets another 6 months with them (or longer in an exempt sector) under the new visa’s own count.

Frequently asked questions

Can a working holiday visa holder be sponsored for a 482 while in Australia?

Yes. A 417 or 462 holder can be nominated and can lodge the 482 application onshore before the working holiday visa expires. A bridging visa A then keeps them lawful until the 482 is decided. The job must be on the Core Skills Occupation List and pay at least AUD 79,423 a year.

Does the worker have to stop at 6 months once we have applied for the 482?

Not if the permission request was lodged before the 6 months ended: Home Affairs says the worker can keep working for the same employer until it makes a written decision. If the request is lodged after the 6 months, the worker must stop working for that employer until a decision is made.

Does the 6-month limit start again on the bridging visa?

Yes. Home Affairs says condition 8547 applies to each visa separately, and the count starts again when a bridging visa carrying the condition comes into effect. We still advise lodging the permission request before month six, so the question never needs to be argued.

Which employers do not need permission to keep a 417 holder past 6 months?

Employers in plant and animal cultivation, disaster recovery, agriculture and food processing, health, aged care and disability services, childcare, and tourism and hospitality anywhere in Australia; and fishing and pearling, forestry, construction and mining in Northern Australia. An employer with more than one site can rotate the worker, up to 6 months at each.

Can a 417 holder’s time with us count toward the 482 work experience requirement?

Yes. The 482 Core Skills stream needs at least 1 year of relevant experience in the last 5 years, anywhere in the world, and paid work in the nominated occupation on a working holiday visa counts toward it. Unpaid work and work at a lower skill level do not.