Established business stream-Business criteria

• Demonstration that recruitment policy gives first preference to Australian workers. Relevant considerations to include: percentage of workforce that is Australian and training of Australians.
• Labour market testing for the specific position.
• The business must be a good corporate citizen with no breaches of workplace or immigration law. Employees paid in accordance with an Enterprise Agreement or internal salary table that reflects current market salary rates for all occupations in the business.
• Must be publicly listed or have an annual turnover of at least $4 million for each of the past 2 years.
• Operates in STEM-related field (eg digital, biomedical, agtech).

Applicant and position criteria:

• Must meet health, character and security requirements.
• No familial relationship with directors/shareholders.
• Qualifications must be commensurate with the highly skilled role.
• At least 3 years work experience directly relevant to position.
• Capacity to pass on skills/develop Australians.
• Position must have minimum annual earnings of $180,000.

Features:

• Available to accredited sponsors and other businesses.
• Access up to 20 positions per year (applicant and position criteria must be satisfied on each occasion).
• Flexibility in certain visa criteria, including
  • access to 4 year TSS visas
  • age cap concessions.
• Transitional pathway to permanent residence after 3 years.
• Simpler applications and faster processing.
• If the position ceases the visa holder will have 60 days to find a new sponsor and a new visa or depart Australia.

Start-up stream-Business criteria

• Demonstration that recruitment policy gives first preference to Australian workers.
• Labour market testing for the specific position.
• The business must be a good corporate citizen with no breaches of workplace or immigration law. Employees paid in accordance with an Enterprise Agreement or internal salary table that reflects current market salary rates (this can include equity) for all occupations in the business.
• A ‘start-up authority’ (entities for this role to be decided in consultation with industry) will endorse the business.
• Financial criteria to be determined in consultation with stakeholders (examples could be a working capital or capital raised threshold).

Applicant and position criteria:

• Must meet health, character and security requirements.
• No familial relationship with directors/shareholders.
• Qualifications must be commensurate with the highly skilled role.
• At least 3 years work experience directly relevant to position.
• Capacity to pass on skills/develop Australians.
• Minimum annual earnings at the market salary rate (this can include equity, but must have a cash component that is no less than the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (currently $53,900)).

Features:

• Access up to 5 positions per year (applicant and position criteria must be satisfied on each occasion).
• Flexibility in certain visa criteria, including
  • access to 4 year TSS visas
  • age cap concessions.

• Transitional pathway to permanent residence after 3 years.
• Simpler applications and faster processing.
• If the position ceases (eg the start-up ceases trading) the visa holder will have 60 days to find a new sponsor and a new visa or depart Australia.