What Documents Does a WA Employer Need to Sponsor a 482 Visa Applicant?

The documents to sponsor a 482 visa applicant change at each stage of the application, because a 482 sponsorship is not one approval — it is three, decided against three different sets of criteria, and each one is supported by its own evidence.

Most of the paperwork problems we see in a 482 matter come from an employer assembling one folder for the whole application. The labour market testing evidence that supports the nomination is not the same evidence that supports the sponsorship approval, and a skills assessment is only relevant to some occupations and some passports. Knowing which document answers which question is what keeps a nomination from stalling on a request for something that was never collected.

Where the 482 sits among the employer-sponsored pathways

The subclass 482 Skills in Demand visa is one of three employer-sponsored pathways set out in the Migration Regulations. The subclass 186 Employer Nomination Scheme leads to permanent residence directly, and the subclass 494 Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa is tied to a regional position. This page deals with the documents relevant to a 482 sponsorship and nomination specifically. The 186 and 494 pathways carry their own nomination criteria, which are not set out here.

Source: Migration Regulations 1994, Schedule 2, Parts 482, 186 and 494, compilation F2026C00667, 1 July 2026.

A 482 sponsorship is three approvals, not one folder of documents

The Migration Act treats a 482 matter as three separate decisions. The Minister must approve your business as a work sponsor. The Minister must separately approve the position you want to fill as a nomination. Only then does the person you have identified apply for the visa itself.

Each of those three decisions is made against its own criteria, and the evidence that answers one does not answer the others. A nomination cannot be approved on the strength of a well-documented sponsorship approval, and a visa application cannot proceed on the strength of a well-documented nomination. Treating the whole matter as a single document pack is the single most common reason evidence goes missing partway through. We keep the three evidence sets apart from the outset when preparing a WA employer's sponsorship and nomination.

Source: Migration Act 1958, sections 140E (approval of sponsors) and 140GB (approval of nominations), compilation C2026C00232, 4 June 2026.

What supports the sponsorship approval itself

The sponsorship approval decision turns on whether your business is lawfully and actively operating, and whether it can meet the obligations that come with being an approved sponsor. The Act leaves the detail of what evidence answers that question to the Regulations, and the specific documents the Department currently asks for — extracts confirming the business is trading, financial records, staffing information and the like — are confirmed at the time the application is prepared. Our standard business sponsor page covers the sponsorship application itself in more detail.

What is fixed, and worth planning around from the outset, is that this is a decision about your business, made before any position or any candidate is considered. A sponsorship application assembled around one role rather than around the business itself is answering the wrong question.

Source: Migration Act 1958, section 140E, compilation C2026C00232, 4 June 2026.

Evidence the position is on the current occupation list

Before any nomination evidence is assembled, the occupation itself has to be checked against the Core Skills Occupation List. Some occupations on that list carry a further condition — the list calls it an applicable circumstance — that excludes the occupation for certain kinds of position even though the occupation code itself is listed. A hospitality role described as a chef or a cook, for example, is excluded where the position is in a limited service restaurant, whatever the job title on the position description says.

This is a threshold check, not paperwork in the ordinary sense: if the occupation and the position together do not clear it, no amount of labour market testing or skills assessment evidence changes the outcome. It is worth confirming for the specific occupation before any of the later-stage evidence is collected.

Source: Migration (Specification of Occupations—Subclass 482 Visa) Instrument 2024 (LIN 24/089), sections 6(2) and 7(2), compilation F2025C01064, Compilation No. 3, 7 November 2025.

Evidence of labour market testing

Unless the occupation is a select occupation, the nomination has to be supported by evidence that the position was genuinely tested in the Australian labour market before it was offered to an overseas candidate. The requirements are specific, and most of the documents an employer needs for this stage are generated at the time of recruitment — not reconstructed afterwards.

At least two advertisements are required, all within the four months ending on the day the nomination is lodged, with applications or expressions of interest open for at least four weeks from the first advertisement's publication. The placement and content rules for each advertisement are set out on our labour market testing page.

The evidence itself is a copy of the advertising material for most positions, or a written submission explaining why no suitably qualified and available Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible temporary visa holder was found, where the position or occupation falls into the select category.

The practical trap sits between two of these requirements at once: the whole four-week open-applications window has to fit inside the four-month period that closes on the day the nomination is lodged. Advertising started too early, or a nomination lodged too soon after the advertising closed, can both leave the evidence falling outside the window.

Source: Migration (LIN 18/036: Period, manner and evidence of labour market testing) Instrument 2018, sections 6(1), 7(1), 8(2)–(7) and 9(2)–(3), compilation F2024C01268, Compilation No. 5, 7 December 2024.

Evidence of a mandatory skills assessment, where one applies

For a defined set of occupations and passport countries, a mandatory skills assessment from the relevant assessing authority is required before the nomination can proceed — this sits alongside labour market testing, not instead of it. Whether it applies to a given matter turns on the specific occupation code and the applicant's passport country, both of which are set out in the mandatory skills assessment instrument rather than following a general rule.

Where it applies, the assessment itself is the document: a current, positive assessment from the named assessing authority for that occupation, obtained before the nomination is lodged rather than sought afterwards to answer a request from the Department.

Source: Migration (IMMI 18/039: Mandatory Skills Assessment—Subclass 482 Visa) Instrument 2018, compilation F2025C00062, Compilation No. 2, 14 December 2024.

What you must keep once you are an approved sponsor

Approval does not end the paperwork. Once your business is an approved sponsor, ongoing obligations under the Migration Regulations require records to be kept and, on request, produced — including records showing the sponsored person is working in the nominated occupation, and records relevant to the other obligations that apply for as long as the sponsorship is in effect.

A sponsor who has not kept these records is exposed at the point a request is made, not before. The safer practice is to treat the record-keeping obligation as continuous from the date of approval, rather than as something to assemble when the Department asks.

Source: Migration Regulations 1994, Division 2.19, regulations 2.82 (keeping records) and 2.83 (providing records and information), compilation F2026C00667, Compilation No. 288, 1 July 2026. Sanctions for a failure to satisfy a sponsorship obligation, including cancellation of approval or a civil penalty, are set out in sections 140K, 140M and 140Q of the Migration Act 1958, compilation C2026C00232.

What we would ask at the outset

• Does your business currently hold sponsorship approval, or is this a first-time application?
• What is the occupation you want to nominate, and does the position match it in substance, not only in title?
• Has the role already been advertised, and if so, when and where?
• What is the candidate's passport country, and has a skills assessment already been considered?
• Is the position based in a regional area, in case a 494 nomination is a better fit than a 482?

The answers determine which documents are still to be collected and in what order, so that labour market testing evidence is not generated too early or too late for the window it has to sit inside. There is no charge for that initial discussion.

Further detail on the sponsorship process as a whole, and on the ongoing obligations a sponsorship carries once approved, is set out on our employer sponsored visas page and on our labour market testing page. The components of the cost are set out on our cost of sponsoring an employee page.

Questions WA employers commonly ask

Speak with a registered migration agent

We cannot tell you in advance whether a specific sponsorship or nomination will be approved, and no registered agent will do so. What we can do is set out which documents answer which stage of the application, so that evidence is not collected for the wrong question or generated outside the window it has to sit inside.

This page reflects the law as at 27 September 2026. It is general information, not advice about your circumstances.