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Australia · Visa guide

Australia Work Permit (Information Only)

Information about work-permit pathways across countries. Lifeset Overseas does NOT process work permits — work permits require a separate MEA Recruiting Agent (RA) licence under the Emigration Act. These pages exist for applicant awareness only; we cannot assist with these applications.

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Australia Work Permit (Information Only) — overview

What this page is, and what it is not

This is an informational reference to Australia's main work-permit pathways: the Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482), Employer Nomination Scheme (186) and Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (494). Lifeset Overseas does not process work permits — see the disclaimer at the top of this page. We hold a Punjab travel-professional consultancy licence, not an MEA Recruiting Agent licence under the Emigration Act, and arranging overseas employment requires the latter.

We publish this because half the harm done to families in Punjab comes from not understanding how these systems work. If you can read the structure below, you can tell a genuine offer from a fraud.

The single most important thing to understand

In Australia, a work permit is not something you buy and not something an agent can hand you. It starts with an employer, and the employer carries most of the process. Anyone who offers to sell you a job, a sponsorship, a nomination or a permit for a fee is describing something that does not legally exist in the way they are presenting it.

If someone asks you for money to "arrange" employment abroad, ask them for their MEA Recruiting Agent registration number and verify it before you part with anything. We do not hold one, which is precisely why we will not take this work.

How the pathway actually runs

The steps below are the real sequence. Note how much of it happens before you personally apply for anything — that shape is the tell. A process that starts with you paying a fee is not this process.

What we can help with instead

We cannot help you with a work permit. We can help you with:

  • Study routes to Australia and elsewhere, which in several countries lead to post-study work rights in their own right
  • Visitor and family visas
  • Permanent-residence routes that are points-based rather than employer-sponsored
  • Refusal recovery — CAIPS/GCMS notes, understanding what actually went wrong, and rebuilding a file

If a work permit is genuinely your goal, take this page as background and speak to a firm that holds the right licence.

Before you trust any figure

Salary thresholds, fees, occupation lists and quotas in this area change at least annually, and often mid-year. This page deliberately describes the structure rather than printing numbers that would quietly go stale. For current figures, always read immi.homeaffairs.gov.au directly — not an agent's screenshot, and not this page.

7 items

Documents you need

  • An approved sponsoring business

    The employer must be an approved Standard Business Sponsor before nominating anyone.

  • An approved nomination for your role

    Tied to a specific occupation code and a market-rate salary.

  • Occupation on the applicable skilled list

    Lists are revised and occupations are added and removed — check the current list, not last year’s.

  • A positive skills assessment

    From the assessing authority for your occupation, where the stream requires it.

  • Relevant work experience

    Usually a minimum period in the nominated occupation or a closely related field.

  • English language ability

    IELTS, PTE or equivalent at the level set for the stream.

  • Health and character

    Medicals through a panel physician and police clearances for every country you have lived in.

5 steps

How the process works

  1. Step 1

    Employer becomes an approved sponsor

    Entirely the employer’s application, not yours.

  2. Step 2

    Employer lodges a nomination

    For your specific occupation, salary and location.

  3. Step 3

    Skills assessment where required

    Run this in parallel — assessing authorities take time.

  4. Step 4

    You lodge the visa application

    With identity, skills, English, health and character evidence.

  5. Step 5

    Medicals, biometrics and decision

    Processing varies by stream and occupation.

4 answers

Frequently asked questions

  • No. We hold a Punjab travel-professional consultancy licence, not an MEA Recruiting Agent licence, and we do not place anyone in overseas employment.

  • Not for these subclasses — they are employer-sponsored by definition. Points-tested skilled migration is a different, non-employer route.

  • No. Australian law prohibits asking a visa applicant to pay for sponsorship-related benefits. Treat any such request as a fraud.

  • Some streams create a pathway to subclass 186 after a qualifying period. It depends on the stream, the occupation and the rules at that time.

A real way forward

Work visas aren’t our licence — a real route to Australia is.

Employer-driven work visas need a separate licence we don't hold — so this page is information only. But if your real goal is to build a future in Australia, we can help with a study route, a family route, or permanent residency where it exists. Talk to us and we'll map the honest path that actually works for you.

  • Honest route mapping

    We assess your profile and show you which Australia pathway can realistically work for you.

  • A file built to win

    Study, family or PR — whichever route fits, we build and stress-test the documents properly.

  • One consultant, end to end

    The same person stays with your case from the first call to the decision.

  • Licensed & honest

    A Government-of-Punjab licensed consultancy. We never take a case we believe will fail.

Contact us

licensed (No. 849/DC/PTA/PLA/LC-3/2024)Fixed fees agreed upfrontWe won’t take a case we believe will fail

Other Australia visas

Before you pay anyone for a Australia work permit

Only a firm holding an MEA Recruiting Agent licence may recruit you for overseas employment. That register is public, and checking it takes about a minute — it is the single thing that separates a legitimate agent from the people this route is famous for.

  • Ask for the RA licence number and look it up on the Ministry of External Affairs’ own eMigrate portal. A genuine agent will give it without being pushed.
  • A licensed agent’s fee is capped by law and receipted. Nobody legitimate asks for cash with no paperwork.
  • No agent can promise you a job offer, and an offer letter that arrives before any interview is the oldest warning sign there is.
  • Never hand over your original passport. Not to them, and not to us.

For information only — we do not handle work permits. Lifeset Overseas does not process work permits for Australia or any other country: that requires an MEA Recruiting Agent licence under the Emigration Act, which we do not hold. Our licence (No. 849/DC/PTA/PLA/LC-3/2024) covers visa consultancy and travel services. We can explain how this route works and how to check somebody who says they can do it — we cannot apply for it on your behalf, and we will not take a fee for trying.

Most people who ask us about work permits are really asking about something else.

A course with a post-study work route often reaches the same place, legally, through a door we can open for you — and it is a route nobody can take your money for and disappear. If you tell us what you are actually trying to achieve, we will tell you honestly whether that fits, including when it does not.

Ask about study or PR routes

Or read the study visa route first — no phone number required.