The subclass 186 is permanent. No renewals, no visa conditions tying you to one employer, no counting down the months on a grant letter. You can work for anyone, study, leave and re-enter Australia, and apply for Australian citizenship once you meet the residence requirement. Your partner and children get the same.
That is the whole point of it, and it is why most people on a 482 in Brisbane are aiming here.
Robbie Toor (MARN 1170356) has been lodging Employer Nomination Scheme applications from South Brisbane since 2011.
What is the subclass 186 visa?
It is a permanent residence visa granted to a skilled worker nominated by an approved Australian employer. Two applications run together: your employer lodges the nomination, you lodge the visa.
The employer has to be lawfully operating, the position has to be genuine and ongoing, and the salary has to meet both the Core Skills Income Threshold ($79,423 for nominations lodged from 1 July 2026) and the annual market salary rate for the role. The higher figure wins.
Unlike the 482, once the 186 is granted it is not tied to that employer. People often assume they are locked in for some period afterwards. You are not, although leaving the week after grant is a bad look if the Department ever revisits whether the position was genuine.
186 visa streams: TRT, Direct Entry and Labour Agreement
Three streams, and the one you fit determines almost everything about how hard the application is.
Temporary Residence Transition (TRT) is for people already working for their sponsor on a 482 or a legacy 457.
Direct Entry is for people who have not done that time, including applicants offshore.
Labour Agreement applies where the employer has a negotiated agreement with the government, including a DAMA. These agreements can carry concessions on age, English or salary that the standard streams do not offer.
Temporary Residence Transition stream eligibility
TRT is the easier road, and the gap widened after the 2023 and 2024 reforms.
You need two years of employment in your nominated occupation with your sponsoring employer, completed in the three years before the nomination is lodged. It used to be three years.
What TRT does not require is the part people underestimate. No skills assessment. No occupation list. That second point matters more than anything else on this page: if your occupation is removed from the Core Skills Occupation List tomorrow, a TRT nomination is not affected. Direct Entry would be.
All 482 streams now feed into TRT. The old rule where a Short-Term stream visa led nowhere is gone.
Direct Entry stream eligibility
Direct Entry is for applicants who have never held a 482, or who have not done the qualifying employment. It is a genuinely different application, and it is underserved by most agency websites, which treat it as a footnote to the 482 pathway.
You need:
- A positive skills assessment for your nominated occupation from the relevant assessing authority.
- At least three years of relevant full-time work experience.
- Your occupation on the Core Skills Occupation List.
- Labour market testing completed by the employer, unless an exemption applies.
Some applicants are exempt from the skills assessment, and those applicants are also exempt from the three-year experience requirement. Whether you fall inside that exemption is worth checking before you pay an assessing authority.
Direct Entry suits people recruited from overseas into a role Australia cannot fill locally, and people who have been in Australia on another visa entirely. If you are already on a 482 and eighteen months into the job, waiting six more months for TRT is usually smarter than forcing a Direct Entry application.
Moving from a 482 to a 186: what changes
The qualifying period is two years, not three. Time with any approved sponsor counts, so changing employers does not reset you to zero the way it once did. Every 482 stream now leads here.
What still catches people is timing. If your 482 expires before the 186 nomination and visa are lodged, you lose your status and the problem becomes much larger than a paperwork gap. Start the conversation with your employer around the eighteen-month mark, not the week before expiry.
We have set out the full breakdown of the 482 to 186 pathway separately, including the traps around leave, reduced hours and employer changes.
Age and English requirements for the 186 visa
You have to be under 45 when the nomination is lodged. Not when you started the job, not when you first thought about it.
There are exemptions. The most commonly used one applies to TRT applicants aged 45 or over who have earned at or above the Fair Work high income threshold, which is $190,100 from 1 July 2026, for the required period. Other exemptions exist for certain academics and medical practitioners. They are narrow and heavily evidenced. If you are approaching 45, the birthday is a deadline and should be treated like one.
English is Competent English, equivalent to IELTS 6.0 in each of the four components. Some passport holders are exempt. An overall 6.0 with a 5.5 in writing does not pass, and that near-miss is one of the more common reasons a file gets sent back.
How long does the 186 visa take?
Recent published guidance has put the 186 at up to around 14 months, and the nomination sits inside that. Decision-ready applications move faster than incomplete ones, and the Department will not chase you for documents you should have provided.
If your 482 is running out inside that window, the bridging visa position needs to be planned before lodgement rather than discovered afterwards.
Common reasons 186 nominations get refused
The position is not genuine or not ongoing. The 186 is permanent, so the Department looks for a role that still exists in three years, not a role created to suit a visa.
The salary slipped. Somebody was nominated at threshold two years ago, the threshold went up on 1 July, and the salary did not.
The two years does not add up. Unpaid leave, a stretch of reduced hours, or a gap between visas can quietly break the qualifying period.
Age. The nomination was lodged after the 45th birthday and no exemption applies.
English fell short in one component.
Direct Entry evidence was thin. The skills assessment did not cover the nominated occupation, or the employment references did not support three years of relevant work.
Refusals carry review rights at the Administrative Review Tribunal, usually within 21 days of the notice. Both the employer and the applicant may have standing, depending on what was refused.
Why work with Visa Point for your 186 visa
Robbie acts for employers and for applicants, which is useful on a 186, because the nomination and the visa fail for different reasons and a lot of files are strong on one side and weak on the other.
He has been doing this since 2011, holds MARN 1170356, and can be checked on the public register at mara.gov.au. Consultations run in English, Punjabi or Hindi, in the South Brisbane office or by phone and video.
A recent matter
In early 2026, an IT professional living in South Brisbane came to us while holding a temporary employer-sponsored visas and approaching the next stage of their migration pathway. They were concerned about whether their occupation, skills assessment and qualifying employment history would support an employer-nominated permanent visa application. We reviewed their circumstances, identified gaps in the available evidence and prepared a revised strategy and supporting documentation. The matter subsequently resulted in a positive visa outcome.
Book an appointment
Call 0425 825 500, email visas@visapoint.com.au, or book online.
Visa Point Studies and Immigration
Suite 1.12, Level 1/88 Tribune St, South Brisbane QLD 4101
MARN 1170356
Monday to Friday 8am to 5:30pm, Saturday 10am to 2pm