Fact Sheet 48 - Helping Skilled and Business People
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The Australian Government is committed to helping highly skilled individuals and successful business people to settle permanently in Australia.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has introduced specific initiatives designed to help Australian businesses obtain overseas staff with a minimum of formalities, and to help overseas people either conduct or establish business in Australia.
These measures recognise that Australian businesses must have access to skills, ideas, contacts and technology from overseas to be successful in today’s increasingly global economy. They may need to recruit overseas staff with qualifications and relevant work experience to meet specific skill shortages in Australia.
There are also benefits for Australia in attracting experienced overseas business people to either establish or join businesses in Australia, bringing with them investments, new ideas and the prospect of creating new jobs.
Skilled migrants for permanent residence
There are a number of categories in the Skill Stream to enable successful business people and highly skilled and qualified people to migrate to Australia. These include:
- Skilled – Independent: for skilled people who are not sponsored but are selected on the basis of their skills, age and English language ability.
See:
Fact Sheet 24 Overview of skilled migration to Australia
Fact Sheet 25 Skilled categories - Skilled – Sponsored: for skilled people who are sponsored by an eligible Australian relative in Australia or nominated by a state or territory government. Applicants are selected on the basis of their skills, age and English language ability.
See:
Fact Sheet 24 Overview of skilled migration to Australia
Fact Sheet 25 Skilled categories - Skilled – Regional Sponsored: for skilled people who wish to live and work in a Specified Regional Area ('designated' or 'regional' area) in Australia but are unable to meet the criteria to be granted a permanent visa.
Applicants for this visa must be sponsored by an eligible Australian relative or nominated by a state or territory government. Successful applicants are granted a three-year temporary visa to give them time to satisfy the residence and employment criteria for a permanent visa.
See:
Fact Sheet 26 State Specific Regional Migration - Skill Matching Database: The Skills Matching Database lists the educational, occupational and personal details of Skilled – Independent category applicants and Skilled – Sponsored applicants.
The database is regularly updated and distributed to all state and territory governments and a network of regional development authorities.
Employers can nominate people from the database to fill vacancies that cannot be filled through the local labour market. State and territory governments can nominate people from the database on the basis of skill shortages they have identified.
See: Fact Sheet 28 Skill Matching Database - Business Skills: Under the Business Skills (provisional) category, people with backgrounds as business owners, senior executives or investors can apply for a provisional (temporary) visa in the first instance. After satisfactory evidence of a specified level of business or investment activity in Australia, Business Skills (provisional) visa holders can apply for permanent residence. In line with their economic development objectives, state and territory governments can also sponsor applicants in these categories with lower level criteria applying to sponsored applicants. High-calibre business migrants, sponsored by a state or territory government, may obtain up-front direct permanent residence under the Business Talent (migrant) category.
See:
Fact Sheet 24 Overview of skilled migration to Australia
Fact Sheet 27 Business skills migration - Employer nomination: people nominated or ‘sponsored’ by employers through schemes such as the Employer Nomination Scheme, Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme and negotiated Labour Agreements or Invest Australia Supported Skills agreements.
See:
Fact Sheet 24 Overview of Skilled migration to Australia
Fact Sheet 26 State Specific Regional Migration
Temporary entry – short stay
The department has also established a range of services providing for streamlined entry to Australia of business people applying for either short or long-term temporary stay.
The Business (short stay) visa may be issued for either single entry or for multiple entry. Holders of a multiple entry visa may make any number of journeys to Australia for up to three months on each occasion. Multiple entry visas may be valid for up to 10 years, or the life of the passport (to a maximum of 10 years). Applicants must apply for this visa outside Australia.
The Sponsored Business Visitor visa allows federal, state and territory members of parliament, government agencies or instrumentalities, local government mayors or organisations specified by the minister, to offer sponsorship to business visitors wishing to temporarily enter Australia for up to three months for business purposes. All applications for this visa must be lodged onshore by the sponsor.
The Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) allows tourists and business visitors to obtain visas for Australia at the time they make their travel arrangements. The ETA system is accessible by travel agencies and airlines in the United States, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, the United Kingdom and many European countries. ETAs can also be applied for over the Internet.
See:
www.eta.immi.gov.au
Fact Sheet 55 The Electronic Travel Authority
The APEC Business Travel Card provides business people with simplified entry to a number of economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum. Holders must be passport-holders of one of the participating economies – currently Australia, Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong (China), Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Chinese Taipei and Thailand. China and Indonesia have also joined the scheme and will commence issuing cards in the near future. Cardholders enjoy express immigration clearance and pre-cleared entry to participating economies.
Temporary long stay visa options
The Subclass 457-Business (Long Stay) visa allows skilled people to work in Australia for an approved employer for a period from three months up to four years. The prospective employer must first apply to become a standard business sponsor, which allows them to sponsor an agreed number of overseas workers for a two year period. Once an approved sponsor, the employer must nominate the position to be filled by the overseas worker. The position must meet minimum skill and salary levels and the overseas worker must work in the position they were nominated for.
A Labour Agreement is a formal arrangement negotiated between the Australian Government – represented by this department and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) – and an employer or an industry association. Labour agreements enable Australian employers to recruit a specified number of workers from overseas in response to identified or emerging labour market (or skill) shortages in the Australian labour market. They operate in an environment of enhancing the employment prospects for Australians by undergoing a commitment for improved training for Australians. Employees may come to Australia on either a temporary or a permanent basis. Agreements are normally negotiated for a period of two to three years.
Business services
The department provides superior client service to business clients to ensure the Australian commercial environment continues to benefit from the entry of business migrants.
The department operates effective services for business clients, including:
- a Labour Market Branch and an Education and Tourism Branch in its Canberra headquarters to ensure that the needs of business are taken into account in developing the department’s business entry policies and procedures
- a series of Business Centres in each of its state and territory offices which offer a comprehensive and streamlined service for business people
- Business Skills Processing Centres located in three cities – Hong Kong, Taipei and in Perth, providing timely and consistent assessment of all applications for business migration.
Access to retirement savings
Eligible temporary residents are now able to access their retirement savings (superannuation) upon permanent departure from Australia. For more information on accessing this money visit the Australian Taxation Office's website.
See: www.ato.gov.au > For Superannuation > Super for temporary residents
Further information is available on the department's web site.
See: www.immi.gov.au
The department also operates a national telephone service inquiry line.
Telephone: 131 881
Hours of operation: Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm (recorded information available outside these hours) for the cost of a local call anywhere in Australia.
Fact Sheet 48. Produced by the National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra.
Revised September 2007.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2007.