Moving to Australia? Don’t make the same visa mistakes I did.

There’s a better way to do it. Learn from my mistakes.

I’ve spoken with a few dozen people over the years about moving to Australia and, just like me when I moved here, they don’t know the first thing about visas. The usual questions are:

• What visa do I need?
• How does sponsorship work for different visas?
• Are visas expensive? And who pays for them?
• Do I stay on one visa or are there different ones I should know about?

“You guys talking about visas?”

For those who aren’t familiar with visas, think of them like tickets to an amusement park. First off, you need one to enter the park. Once you’re inside the park though, what you can do (e.g. different rides you can go on) will be dictated by the type of ticket you have.

It’s basically the same with visas. You need some sort of visa to even enter a country, but what you’re allowed to do in that country (e.g. visit, work, etc.) will depend on the type of visa you have.

Before we dive in, there are a few things I’ll call out:

• There’s no one size fits all approach to this. Look though the Australian immigration website to make sure you’re eyeing the right visa. That said, most of the visas I have held (which I’ve covered below) are very common and many other expats have had these as well.
• Visas and their specifics will change over time. What I’ve included below is accurate as of the time of this writing, but it’s worth being mindful of and doing some extra research.
• Your journey will be different if you’re transferring to Australia on a work-sponsored visa with your company, versus if you’ve quit your job and vagabonded your way here to start from scratch like I did. If the former sounds like you, skip to visa #3. If you’re like me and the latter applies, you’ve got more reading to do — start with visa #1.
• I cover a lot of ground in this article and have split it out by sections, so treat it like a choose your own adventure and read what’s most relevant to you. Now, go knock yourself out (or fill your boots, as the locals say)!

#1 Electronic Travel Visa (subclass 601). This is solely a tourist visa. Do not enter Australia on this visa if you’re trying to move here and work. I’m embarrassed to say that I did this and learned quickly that I had made a mistake. I thought the right thing to do was come here on a travel visa, start interviewing and have my new company sponsor me on a corporate work visa once they hired me. Turns out, that’s not even close to how it works. If you want to work in any capacity, you should enter on a different visa.

Me, about two days into my first Australian job search.

#2 Work and Holiday Visa OR the Working Holiday Visa (subclass 462 or subclass 417). If you want to work in any capacity, one of these is probably the visa you should get before moving here. The difference between the two is simply which country you’re coming from, so if you’re American like me you’ll need the 462. If you’re from the UK, for instance, you’ll need the 417. Check the country requirements in the link above.

This visa allows you to stay in Australia for up to one year and lets you work short-term jobs (e.g. barrista, bartender) to pay for your holiday over here. You can also do farm work (e.g. picking fruit) for three months to become eligible for a second year on this visa. P.S., that’s not a joke.

Additionally, you need to both apply for and be granted this visa while you are outside of Australia. I didn’t do this and had to lie to my new company about having the right visa, then I secretly made an impromptu trip to Bali for two weeks to go get it before I could start work. Bali is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I still wish I had known this little detail at the time.

Even if you’re looking for a corporate job, you should still enter Australia on this visa. Here’s why. Your new company is going to want you to start on this visa for a couple of reasons:

• It costs them nothing because you’ve paid for it yourself. (At the time of this writing, both visas cost $635 AUD.)
• They can fire you in your first 6 months, while you’re in your probationary period, without repercussions like losing the money they would have paid to sponsor you.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that most Australian employers are not very cutthroat and that Australian labor laws are very employee-friendly, so as long as you do a decent job you’re probably fine here. But the point still stands — companies have invested nothing in you while you are on this visa, which makes it easier for them to hire you.

#3 Work sponsored visas.

After you’ve passed your six-month probation while working on the 462 or 417 visa, your company will then likely pay to sponsor you and put you on a longer-term, professional visa.

There are plenty of these that you can have, depending on your circumstance, but the one I was on is the 482 visa, which is called the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa. This used to be called the 457 visa, but was phased out in favour of the 482.

As the name suggests, you need to be sponsored in a job that Australia has listed on a “skill shortage list,” meaning they are willing to essentially import the talent required for that job from other countries because there is a supply gap in the Australian economy for that labor.

There’s one very important thing to call out. If you’re on a work visa and want to change your job, you need to get another company to pick up your sponsorship and employ you in that same type of job. So if you’re a management consultant, for instance, and want to leave your company, you’ll need to go be a management consultant somewhere else. Otherwise, you’ll need to go through the whole visa application process again for a new visa that corresponds to your new profession.

The reason that sucks is because it restarts the clock for your permanent residency (or PR) eligibility. There are a few different ways you can attain PR, which I’ll also cover below, but in many cases you will need to work with your company for three years before you are eligible. If you change career paths and require a new visa, it restarts the three year clock for PR, which brings us to my fourth visa.

#4 Visa subclass 186 — otherwise known as permanent residency.

Even if you don’t want to stay forever, there are a few big benefits to PR. This visa gives you access to Medicare, better private heath plans and even little things like better phone plans if you can believe it. But the biggest benefit is that it gives you the ability to test the job market.

Once you have PR, you are no longer tied to a work-sponsored visa and have many of the same rights as Australian citizens, minus the ability to vote. This is essentially the equivalent of a Green Card in the US, so it’s a pretty powerful thing to have because you can go out and get that higher paying job that you weren’t eligible to have before.

That feeling when you can finally, legally test the job market again.

The other amazing thing PR gives you is a pathway to become an Australian citizen in just a few years, should you want to go that route.

Getting permanent residency. This can be a lengthy, expensive and painful process. It doesn’t need to be as painful for you as it was for me though, so let’s break it down. From the 482 (Temporary Skill Shortage) visa, there are two main pathways to PR:

Pathway #1. Temporary Resident Transition (TRT). This way is easier and slightly less expensive, but takes longer. The eligibility criteria is:

• Be employed in an occupation on the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List with your company in Australia while holding a subclass 482 or Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa for at least three years.
• Pro tip: If you start work on the 462 or 417 visa and your company does not sponsor you on a TSS visa until you’ve passed your six months of probation, you will not be eligible for the TRT pathway at the three-year mark. You need three years on the TSS visa, not three years total.
• You also must pass a health check.
• Cost: roughly $10,000 AUD. It can also be free, depending on your company. I’ll explain more below.

Pathway #2. Direct Entry. This way is more challenging and expensive, but faster. This eligibility criteria is:

• For people whose occupation is on the Medium and Long-term Skills Shortage List, you need to pass a formal skills assessment in your occupation from an authorised agency and have at least three years’ work experience in your occupation.
• Pro tip: If you were in the same, or a similar, role prior to Australia, you may not need to wait three years before being eligible for PR.
• You also must pass a health check.
• Cost: roughly $12,500 AUD. It can also be free, depending on your company. I’ll explain more below.

Cost of permanent residency.

While my total out of pocket costs were approximately $12,500, you might be able to get yours for free. Let’s talk about how.

Some companies may pay for your PR up front, but make you sign what’s called a “clawback” agreement. This basically says that you will stay with the company for a certain number of years — usually two — after you get PR, otherwise you will need to pay your company all, or a portion of, the fees they paid for your PR application. My company didn’t offer this but lots of companies out there still do, so definitely look into this.

What I learned from the Direct Entry process. I went Direct Entry because in my personal circumstance, it sped up my time to PR by approximately nine months and the opportunity cost of that decision made sense to me. Here’s what I learned:

• The only “authorised agency” allowed to do your skills assessment at the time of this writing is called VetAssess. They charge ~$2,000 AUD to confirm that you are, in fact, qualified and employed in the role that you’ve claimed on your PR application.
• I was warned that VetAssess can be sticklers with their assessment process. Specific formats are required for your application. You may also need to rewrite your resume and project history using key phrases that make it clear to the assessors that you do indeed have this experience. The people assessing you have often not done the jobs they’re assessing, so unless something sounds exactly like the job description they have in front of them, they’re liable to decline your application.
• One thing that helped me was reaching out to former assessors at VetAssess on LinkedIn and asking them for tips. I found someone who is also a registered migration agent and does his own immigration consulting, so he very kindly worked with me to help make sure my application was in good standing before I submitted to VetAssess. He was incredibly helpful, so I would recommend reaching out to him if you have specific legal or process questions about your immigration.

So while my journey was a bit painful at points, permanent residency has a lot of benefits, so if it’s within reach for you and makes sense in your life, I would highly recommend it! Just be aware of some of these pain points before you get into it so you can try to make things a bit easier on yourself.

This is not migration advice and I am not a registered migration agent. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at dcdiscovers@gmail.com.