Employer Sponsored Visa

The TSS visa comprises of a Short-Term stream of up to 2 years (unless international trade obligations apply), and a Medium-Term stream of up to 4 years.

The Short-term stream is designed for Australian businesses to fill gaps in their businesses with foreign workers where they are experiencing skills shortages on a temporary basis, and where a suitably skilled Australian worker cannot be sourced.

The Medium-term stream will allow Australian employers to source foreign workers to address shortages in a narrower range of highly skilled and high-value need occupations, where a suitably skilled Australian worker cannot be sourced.

The permanent employer sponsored visa program allows overseas employees to apply for Australian permanent residence. This visa can be applied for in both non-regional and regional areas in Australia. There are two streams in the 186 Employer Nominated sponsorship visa which are as follows:

Temporary Residence Transition stream is for overseas applicants who have been with the same employer on a 482/457 visa for 3 years or 2 years if their 457 was applied for prior to 18^th April 2017;

Direct Entry stream is where an overseas applicant is required to have a skills assessment in an occupation on the Medium- and Long-Term Strategic Skills List (MLTSSL) and have 3 a minimum of 3 years’ post qualification experience in this occupation, which could have been anywhere in the world.

From 16^th November 2019 new applications for subclass 187 visas under Direct Entry stream are no longer accepted. Only current eligible subclass 457 or 482 transitional workers can still apply for a subclass 187 visa under Temporary Residence.

The subclass 187 permanent employer sponsored visa program allows overseas employees to apply for Australian permanent residence. The sponsor and the position are required to be based in a regional part of Australia.