482 visa salary threshold: what your employer must pay you now

The date your employer lodges the nomination decides which year's threshold applies: not the day you apply for the visa, and not the day you start work. An offer agreed in June but lodged on or after 1 July is tested against the new year's threshold.

Your salary can be the same on both sides of 1 July and still pass in one year and fail in the next. The threshold is updated every 1 July, and the nomination is tested against the year it was lodged in, so a few days of delay by the employer can change the figure your pay must reach. You do not control the lodging date, which is why you ask for it.

The figure above is the Core Skills income threshold: the least an employer can pay a worker nominated in the Core Skills stream of the Skills in Demand (subclass 482) visa, as the Department of Home Affairs states it. It is a salary floor, paid by the employer. You do not show it in a bank account.

The threshold is also only half the test. The employer must work out the annual market salary rate for the job, what an Australian worker doing the same work at the same workplace and location earns or would earn. Your pay must be at least that rate, and both must be at least the threshold. So the threshold is the lowest possible answer, not the usual one. Salaries above a high-income level the department sets are exempt from the market-rate comparison.

Which stream, and what counts

A nomination lodged before the latest change date shown above is assessed at the threshold that applied when it was lodged.

The Specialist Skills stream has its own, much higher threshold, and it is not the Core Skills threshold. If your offer is in that stream, the Core Skills figure is not your test.

The threshold is counted without non-monetary benefits such as accommodation or a car: they cannot make up a salary that falls short of it.

Reading the offer

Your employer carries the cost of getting the job approved; your own visa application is the part that can fall to you.

Paid by the employer:

• Your salary, at or above the threshold and the market salary rate for the job.
• The cost of becoming a sponsor, the nomination charges, recruitment costs such as advertising and recruitment agents' fees, and any migration agent's fees for the sponsorship and nomination applications. The department's sponsorship obligations say the employer must pay these itself.

Can fall to you:

• The visa application charge for your own visa, unless your employer chooses to pay it.
• A migration agent's fee for your own visa application, if you hire one, listed apart from any government charge.

Ask:

1. Which stream is the nomination in, Core Skills or Specialist Skills?
2. On what date was, or will, the nomination be lodged, and does that date fall before or after the next 1 July?
3. What market salary rate has the employer set for the job, and how was it worked out?
4. Is the salary in the nomination your guaranteed pay, not counting accommodation, a car or other non-cash benefits?
5. Has anyone asked you to pay for the sponsorship, the nomination, your recruitment, or the employer's migration agent, directly or through your pay? The employer must pay these.
6. Is the adviser registered? In Australia, only registered migration agents, lawyers and a short list of exempt people may lawfully give immigration assistance. The Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority explains how to choose one and check the register.

The box below gives general information only: in Australia, advice on your own application should come from a registered migration agent or a lawyer, and the register it links to shows whether an agent is registered.

General information, not legal advice.