Most allied health employers come to us with the same problem. They have found the right clinician — a physiotherapist in Manila, an occupational therapist in Dublin, a dietitian in Mumbai — and they need to know whether they can lawfully bring that person into the role, how long it will take, and what it will cost across the next four years.
Tolic Lawyers is a boutique migration and employment law firm. We handle both sides in the one engagement, so nothing falls through the gap between your migration adviser and your HR adviser.
There are Three 482 Visa Streams:
Core Skills Income Threshold (482 Core Skills, 186) $79,423 plus superannuation
Specialist Skills Income Threshold (482 Specialist Skills) $146,576 plus superannuation
TSMIT (494, 187) $79,423 plus superannaution
Labour Agreement Stream ($79,423 plus superannuation) for some LA agreement salary concessions can apply.
Employers must also pay the CSIT/ TSMIT or annual market salary rate whichever one is higher, where there is no equilavent australian working in the business.
In practice, that means we:
• Assess whether the role can be sponsored at all — occupation match, list position, caveats and applicable circumstances, before you spend money on a nomination.
• Prepare and lodge standard business sponsorship, nomination and visa applications for the Subclass 482, 186 and 494 programs.
• Build the annual market salary rate evidence that survives scrutiny, using award rates, enterprise agreements and comparable-role data.
• Draft employment contracts and offer letters written for sponsored clinicians, including probation, restraint, cost-recovery and termination clauses that do not breach sponsorship obligations.
• Advise on modern award coverage and classification across the Health Professionals, Nurses, Aged Care and SCHADS awards.
• Run labour market testing correctly and keep the evidence in a form that satisfies the Department.
• Map each sponsored clinician’s pathway to permanent residence from day one, rather than three years later when the visa is about to expire.
• Assess Labour Agreement and Designated Area Migration Agreement options where the standard program does not reach — including aged care arrangements and regional agreements.
• Prepare you for monitoring, respond to Department requests, and act on sponsorship bar and cancellation issues.
• Train your HR and practice management team so the obligations are met in the ordinary course, not remembered in a panic.
Who we assist
Private allied health practices
Physiotherapy, podiatry, speech pathology, dietetics, exercise physiology and multidisciplinary clinics — often sponsoring for the first time and needing the whole framework built from scratch.
Aged care providers
Residential and home care providers recruiting allied health staff to meet care minute and quality standard obligations, including through aged care labour agreement arrangements.
NDIS providers
Registered and unregistered providers building therapy teams, where worker screening, registration group scope and sponsorship obligations all have to line up.
Hospitals and day surgeries
Private hospital groups and specialist centres recruiting into allied health and clinical support roles alongside nursing and medical recruitment.
Community and primary health
Community health organisations, Aboriginal medical services and primary care networks, including roles in regional NSW that open up the Subclass 494 program.
Recruiters and labour hire
Healthcare recruitment agencies placing overseas clinicians, where the on-hire arrangement determines which sponsorship structure is available.
Allied health roles available for nomination
Occupation selection is the single most consequential decision in a nomination. The Department assesses the genuine duties of the position, not the job title on the offer letter. A dietitian who spends most of the week running a food service operation is a different nomination question from a dietitian in clinical outpatient practice.
Some commonly used occupations from the Core Skills Occupation List
| Code | Occupation | Practical note | |
| 251111 | Dietitian | Skills assessment through Dietitians Australia where required. Not an AHPRA-registered profession — credentialling runs through the Accredited Practising Dietitian program instead. | |
| 252511 | Physiotherapist | AHPRA registration required before practice. Registration timing usually drives the whole recruitment schedule. | |
| 252411 | Occupational Therapist | AHPRA registered. High demand across NDIS and aged care; strong permanent residence pathway. | |
| 252712 | Speech Pathologist | Self-regulated through Speech Pathology Australia. Certified Practising status is usually a practical condition of employment. | |
| 252611 | Podiatrist | AHPRA registered. Common in aged care and diabetes services. | |
| 252711 | Audiologist | Self-regulated. Employer credentialling requirements matter for hearing services program work. | |
| 272511 | Social Worker | Frequently nominated in NDIS, aged care and community health settings. | |
| 272311 | Clinical Psychologist | AHPRA registered, with area of practice endorsement considerations. | |
| 251912 | Orthotist or Prosthetist | Self-regulated through the Australian Orthotic Prosthetic Association. | |
| 251212 | Medical Diagnostic Radiographer | AHPRA registered under medical radiation practice. | |
| 251214 | Sonographer | AHPRA registration plus accredited qualification requirements. | |
| 251411 | Optometrist | AHPRA registered. Regional practices often have Subclass 494 options. |
Pathways
The four ways an allied health role gets filled from overseas
Choosing between them is a commercial decision as much as a legal one. It turns on where the role sits, what you can pay, whether the clinician is already onshore, and how quickly you need them working.
Subclass 482 — Skills in Demand
The workhorse. The Core Skills stream requires the occupation to sit on the Core Skills Occupation List and a salary at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold or the market rate, whichever is higher. The Specialist Skills stream removes the occupation list requirement but demands a materially higher salary, and is rarely reached by standard allied health remuneration. Labour market testing applies, with limited exceptions.
Subclass 186 — Employer Nomination Scheme
Permanent residence. The Temporary Residence Transition stream is the natural destination for a clinician already working for you on a 482, with a shortened qualifying period compared to the old rules. The Direct Entry stream suits an experienced clinician you want to bring straight to permanent residence, but carries skills assessment and experience requirements that catch people out.
Subclass 494 — Regional
For positions in designated regional areas, which covers far more of NSW than most employers assume. Requires a Regional Certifying Body assessment, and leads to permanent residence through the Subclass 191 visa. Often the answer for community health and aged care roles outside metropolitan Sydney.
Labour agreements and DAMAs
Where the standard program does not reach — an occupation off the list, an English or salary concession you need, or an aged care workforce at scale. These take longer to establish and require evidence of genuine need, but they change what is possible for a provider that plans ahead.
Where sponsorship and Fair Work collide
A sponsored clinician has every entitlement an Australian employee has, plus a layer of sponsorship obligations sitting on top. Getting the employment law wrong does not just create a wage claim — it creates a sponsorship breach.
Award classification
Allied health professionals in private practice are generally covered by the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020. Nurses fall under the Nurses Award, aged care personal care workers under the Aged Care Award, and disability and community services staff under SCHADS. Classifying a clinician at the wrong level or under the wrong award produces years of back-pay exposure.
Equivalent terms
You must provide terms and conditions no less favourable than an equivalent Australian worker performing equivalent work at the same location. That obligation is enforced through your market salary evidence, and it is one of the first things looked at on monitoring.
No cost recovery
Sponsorship and nomination costs cannot be passed to the visa holder or recovered later through the contract. Clawback clauses drafted for domestic staff routinely breach this. We rewrite them so they are enforceable and compliant.
Underpayment exposure
Intentional underpayment of wages became a criminal offence under the Closing Loopholes reforms. For a sponsoring employer, an underpayment finding also puts sponsorship approval, existing nominations and future recruitment at risk simultaneously.
Ending the relationship
Terminating a sponsored clinician triggers reporting obligations and a limited window for the visa holder to find a new sponsor. Performance management, redundancy and resignation all need to be handled with the visa consequences in view.
Records and monitoring
Record-keeping obligations run for the life of the sponsorship. We build the record set at the start so a Department site visit or Fair Work inquiry is an inconvenience rather than an event.
How we work
From first call to clinician on the floor
- Scoping callWe work out what you are actually trying to solve — one hire, a team, or a recurring pipeline — and whether sponsorship is the right instrument at all.
- Eligibility and strategy adviceWritten advice on occupation match, list position, stream selection, salary requirements, registration pathway, timeline and total cost. You get a decision-grade document, not a quote.
- Sponsorship and labour market testingWe establish or renew your standard business sponsorship and run labour market testing so the advertising is compliant and still valid when the nomination is lodged.
- Contract and position descriptionEmployment documents drafted in parallel with the nomination, so the contract, the position description and the nominated occupation all say the same thing.
- Nomination and visaLodged decision-ready. The Department is now far less forgiving of incomplete applications, and a complete file beats a fast one.
- Onboarding and obligationsRegistration, arrival, record-keeping and a compliance calendar so your obligations are met without anyone having to remember them.
- Permanent residenceWe diarise the transition point and move the clinician to permanent residence when they qualify — which is how you keep the person you spent four years training.
Start with a scoping call
Tell us the role you are trying to fill and where the candidate is. We will tell you whether it can be done, roughly what it costs, and what the timeline looks like — before you engage us for anything.
Call (02) 8077 2562
Parramatta NSW 2150
Phone(02) 8077 2562
Disclaimer: This page is general information about Australian migration and employment law and is current as at July 2026. It is not legal advice and does not take account of your circumstances. Income thresholds, occupation lists, caveats and fees change. Obtain advice before lodging any application or making any employment decision. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
