Electrician 482 Visa: Can Your Business Sponsor One?

Is electrician on the Core Skills Occupation List?

Yes. Electrician (General), ANZSCO 341111, and Electrician (Special Class), 341112, are both on the Core Skills Occupation List with no caveat. An electrical contractor, builder, mine or facilities business can sponsor an electrician on a Skills in Demand (subclass 482) visa at AUD 79,423 a year or the market rate, whichever is higher.

Electricians who hold a passport issued by Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Macau, the Philippines, South Africa or Vietnam must apply for a Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) skills assessment before the visa is lodged, unless exempt.

Every electrician, whatever the passport, also needs a state or territory electrical licence before doing electrical work. An overseas-trained electrician reaches that licence through TRA’s Offshore Technical Skills Record, a provisional licence that allows supervised work, and gap training.

What must your business show to sponsor an electrician?

The employer rules are the same for every Core Skills occupation and are set out in our 482 visa requirements guide. For an electrical employer, these are the points that decide the nomination.

• Sponsorship — approval as a standard business sponsor (AUD 420, valid 5 years) before or with the nomination.
• A genuine, full-time electrician position — the role must involve installing, testing, maintaining and repairing electrical systems at a qualified tradesperson’s level, as ANZSCO describes. An electrical trades assistant or apprentice position cannot be nominated as an electrician.
• Salary — at least AUD 79,423 a year, and no less than an Australian electrician in the same role would earn (the market salary rate). Overtime, site allowances and vehicle use count only where they are guaranteed in the contract.
• Labour market testing — 2 ads in Australia, 4 weeks each, within the 4 months before lodging, with the salary shown if under AUD 96,400. Our labour market testing guide lists where the ads must run.
• Charges — the nomination charge (AUD 330) and the Skilling Australians Fund levy of AUD 1,200 a year (turnover under AUD 10 million) or AUD 1,800 a year, paid by the business and not recoverable from the electrician.

Which caveats apply to an electrician?

None. Neither electrician code carries a caveat on the Core Skills list, so the occupation questions are the code and the genuineness of the position.

The code should match the work. Electrician (Special Class) covers electricians working on specialised systems such as instrumentation, PLC or high-voltage installations; a domestic and commercial electrical contractor nominates Electrician (General). The visa officer reads the duty statement against the ANZSCO tasks for the code you choose.

Does an electrician need a skills assessment for the 482 visa?

Only electricians who hold a passport issued by Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Macau, the Philippines, South Africa or Vietnam. The assessing body is Trades Recognition Australia, through its Temporary Skills Shortage skills assessment program, which TRA says usually takes about 9 weeks once complete documents are in.

TRA runs electricians through the program’s licensed-occupation pathway. A successful applicant receives an Offshore Technical Skills Record as well as the outcome letter for the visa.

The TRA application must be lodged before the visa application, or the visa application is invalid. An electrician already working in Australia on a 482 in the same occupation is exempt, as is an electrician whose trade qualification was gained in Australia or in a country not on the list.

Electricians on other passports need no assessment for the visa itself. In practice almost all of them still go through a TRA assessment, because the state licensing authorities require the Offshore Technical Skills Record before they will issue a provisional licence.

How does a sponsored electrician get permanent residence?

After 2 years of full-time work with you as an electrician on the 482, you can nominate the electrician for a 186 visa in the Temporary Residence Transition stream, in the same occupation the 482 was granted for, provided the other 186 requirements are met.

The Direct Entry stream is open from the start with a positive TRA skills assessment, which the 186 rules require for an electrician on any passport unless an exemption applies, together with the stream’s other requirements. The general age limit for a 186 visa is under 45 unless an exemption applies.

Our 186 visa requirements post covers both streams.

Where do electrician nominations go wrong?

In our experience the problem in this trade is the licence, not the list. An employer sponsors a qualified overseas electrician, the visa is granted, and the electrician arrives without a provisional licence and cannot lawfully touch a switchboard.

The business then pays a tradesperson’s salary for supervised work for months, or has a genuine position with nobody licensed to fill it.

The second pattern is a skills-assessment application lodged after the visa for an Indian, Filipino or South African electrician. The visa application is invalid, the charge is normally refunded, and the months are lost.

Before you advertise, we map the TRA and state licensing steps against your start date and confirm the passport rule. If the licence will take longer than the business can carry, we say so.