Fact Sheet 51 - Professional Development Visa
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The professional development visa (PDV) enables Australian organisations to deliver tailored training to professionals, managers and government officials from overseas. The training programs are designed to enhance the overseas participant's professional or managerial skills and meet the needs of overseas employers.
There are three steps to applying for a professional development visa:
1. An Australian organisation establishes a professional development agreement with an overseas employer
2. The Australian organisation applies for sponsorship approval
3. The approved Australian sponsor lodges visa applications on behalf of the overseas participants.
Professional development agreement
Sponsors must have a formal professional development agreement (eg a Memorandum of Understanding) with an overseas employer intending to nominate participants in the Professional Development Program (PDP). The agreement must specify which parties to the agreement will meet the various costs associated with the program (including travel, tuition, accommodation, living expenses and health insurance).
Participants are permitted to fund all of the above other than tuition, which must be met by the overseas employer or the Australian organisation that is party to the agreement.
The professional development agreement must include details of the PDP. The Australian training provider should design a PDP to meet the needs of the overseas employer. Training programs must be primarily academic in nature (ie at least 55 per cent classroom based) and must not normally exceed 18 months in duration.
Sponsorship approval
To be able to lodge valid visa applications, an Australian organisation must become an approved professional development sponsor. During the sponsorship approval process the Australian organisation, the PDP and the overseas employer will be assessed.
Undertakings
Australian sponsoring organisations are required to enter into enforceable undertakings relating to their conduct and the conduct of their sponsored overseas participants. Sponsors also accept responsibility for any additional financial costs that may arise from the overseas participant's stay in Australia. Sponsors must also agree to cooperate with the department's monitoring regime.
Security bond
Sponsors will normally be requested to lodge a security bond as part of their sponsorship approval, unless the participants are nationals of an Electronic Travel Authority country, or the sponsor is a Commonwealth department or agency. A list of eligibile countries is available on the website.
See: Fact Sheet 55
The purpose of requiring a security bond is to:
- encourage the sponsor to carefully pre-assess the genuineness and the intentions of the visa applicant and overseas employer(s)
- meet the potential costs incurred relating to breaches of undertakings (eg location, detention and removal costs).
The security bond for each professional development program is $A15 000.
Sanctions
Sponsors are required to acknowledge that specified sanctions may result from non-compliance with the undertakings.
Sanctions may include:
- barring the sponsor for a specified period from sponsoring more people or from making future applications
- specified amounts may be forfeited from the security bond
- cancelling approval as a sponsor.
The PDV sanctions matrix available from the Hobart PDV Processing Centre details breaches of undertakings and the sanctions that may apply.
Visa applications
When the sponsorship is approved, the Australian organisation may sponsor visa applicants to undertake the approved PDP. There is no limit on the number of valid sponsorships an organisation may hold or the number of overseas participants who may be sponsored under each approved sponsorship.
All visa applications must be lodged by the approved sponsor (on behalf of the visa applicant) at the Hobart PDV Processing Centre. Visa applicants must be outside Australia at the time they apply for and are granted a PDV.
A Professional Development visa applicant must be employed by:
- an overseas business; or
- a foreign government department or agency; or
- a multilateral agency.
A Professional Development visa applicant must:
- have managerial or other professional skills relevant to the PDP
- meet general health and character requirements
- be sponsored by an approved PDP sponsor.
Note: A multilateral agency is one in which at least three national governments participate – eg United Nations, World Bank.
Visa conditions
The following are among the mandatory conditions, which apply to the PDV:
- no further stay
- no work that is not part of the approved PDP
- no deviation from the approved PDP.
Family members seeking to accompany or visit the professional development visa holder will need to apply for an appropriate visitor visa. No dependants are allowed on this visa.
More information
To obtain more information on the PDV, you can access the following:
- PDVPC dedicated email box
Email: profdev@immi.gov.au - The department's website
See: http://www.immi.gov.au/students/sponsored/pdv/index.htm
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 51. Produced by the National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra.
Revised 30 January 2007.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2007.