What the subclass 186 visa is
The Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) visa is a permanent employer-sponsored visa. A person granted this visa can live and work in Australia indefinitely, on the strength of a nomination from a single Australian employer. Unlike a temporary work visa, it does not expire on a set date and does not require the holder to keep working for that employer once the grant is made.
The visa runs through three streams: Temporary Residence Transition (TRT), Direct Entry, and Labour Agreement. Each carries its own criteria and its own evidence set. A common misconception is that subclass 186 is a single test with three doors into it. In practice the streams behave like three separate visas that happen to share a subclass number: the file an agent builds for a TRT case and the file built for a Direct Entry case have almost nothing in common.
A second misconception worth naming directly: holding a subclass 482 visa does not, on its own, create any entitlement to a subclass 186 grant. The 482 is a temporary bridge that some people use on the way to TRT eligibility. Plenty of 482 holders never move to 186, either because they choose a different pathway or because the employment relationship or occupation does not fit the criteria when the time comes.
The factors an agent assesses
The nominating employer and the position
The Department checks whether the nominating business is operating lawfully, whether the position is genuine and full time, and whether the employer can meet the obligations that come with sponsoring someone permanently. The nomination is assessed on the business as it stands at the time it is lodged, not on how the working relationship began years earlier.
The stream pathway
For TRT, the relevant history is full-time work in the occupation the temporary visa was granted for, undertaken in Australia for an approved sponsoring employer, while the applicant held a qualifying temporary work visa. The Department looks at the continuity of that employment and the period genuinely worked, excluding unpaid leave, not simply the period the visa was held.
For Direct Entry, there is no requirement to have held a prior Australian work visa at all. Instead, the file turns on a positive skills assessment in the nominated occupation from the relevant assessing authority, plus recent, relevant work experience. The skills assessment is often the single biggest source of delay and refusal risk in a Direct Entry matter, because assessing authorities apply their own rules about how experience is counted, separately from the Department’s own criteria.
For Labour Agreement, the criteria come from the specific agreement negotiated between the employer and the Department, which can vary the standard occupation settings, age settings, or English requirements that would otherwise apply. An agent treats the agreement itself as the primary document, not the general subclass 186 criteria.
Age
An age limit applies across the subclass 186 streams, with defined exemption categories that differ by stream, covering situations such as senior academics nominated by a university, researchers nominated by a government research body or university, and certain long-serving, higher-income employees in the TRT stream. Age settings and exemption categories are published and updated by the Department, and an agent checks the current settings against the specific occupation, stream and nominator rather than working from memory.
Health, character and English
Standard health and character requirements apply, as they do across almost all visa subclasses. English language requirements differ between streams and can be reduced or set aside in specific circumstances tied to the nominated occupation, income, or the terms of a Labour Agreement.
Where it sits in a pathway
People arrive at TRT most often from a subclass 482 visa sponsored by the same employer, sometimes after an earlier student or graduate visa. People arrive at Direct Entry from a wider mix of backgrounds: some hold no prior Australian visa and apply from offshore, others hold a different temporary visa that does not satisfy the TRT criteria.
Once granted, subclass 186 usually ends the need for an employer-sponsored pathway altogether, since the holder no longer needs a sponsor to remain in Australia. Some holders later apply for Australian citizenship once they meet the separate residence requirement for that application, which is assessed on its own criteria and is not part of the visa grant.
What typically goes wrong
Continuity gaps in the TRT work history. A period of leave, a change in hours, or a gap between visa grants can break the required period of employment in a way the client did not think mattered at the time.
Skills assessment mismatches. These sink Direct Entry applications more often than anything else. The occupation the employer nominates and the occupation the assessing authority actually assessed the person against are not always the same thing, and the gap often only surfaces after lodgement.
Treating nomination approval as a done deal. The nomination and the visa application are separate applications with separate criteria. Assuming approval of one settles the outcome of the other is a mistake an agent sees regularly.
Employer conduct issues surfacing late. A sponsor’s compliance history, including obligations owed to other visa holders, can affect a nomination that otherwise looks straightforward on the individual’s side.
Assumptions about Labour Agreement terms. Agents sometimes work from a general understanding of what a Labour Agreement allows instead of confirming the actual clauses of the specific agreement in force for that employer, which can differ from agreement to agreement.