Two Different Salary Figures Are Circulating for Australia’s 482 Visa — Only One Applies to Your Nomination

If you are holding an Australian job offer and trying to work out whether the salary clears the sponsorship floor, you have probably found two numbers. Some pages say AUD 79,499. Others say AUD 79,423. The gap is small seventy-six dollars but if your offer is written at exactly one of them, it decides whether the nomination is approvable.

Only one of those figures is the confirmed threshold. The other is a projection published months before the change took effect, which never got corrected.

Quick answer: From 1 July 2026, Australia’s Core Skills Income Threshold is AUD 79,423, up from AUD 76,515. The Specialist Skills Income Threshold is AUD 146,576. The Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold is also AUD 79,423. These apply to nomination applications lodged on or after 1 July 2026, not to existing visa holders.

What changed on 1 July 2026

The Department of Home Affairs confirmed that skilled visa income thresholds increased by 3.8% from 1 July 2026, in line with changes to Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings. Thresholds are indexed annually so that wages for skilled migrants rise at the same rate as those of Australian workers, preventing skilled migration from being used to undercut local pay.

The confirmed figures, as reported by Fragomen after the change took effect: the Core Skills Income Threshold is AUD 79,423, up from AUD 76,51 the Specialist Skills Income Threshold is AUD 146,576, up from AUD 141,210 and the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, which applies to the regional programs, is AUD 79,423.

Which threshold applies depends on the visa: the Core Skills figure governs nominations under the Core Skills stream of the Skills in Demand visaand the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186); the Specialist Skills figure governs the Specialist Skills stream of the 482; and the TSMIT governs the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional visa and the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme.

Why two numbers are circulating

This is not a conspiracy or a correction the government made quietly. It is the ordinary lifecycle of an indexed figure.

The indexation formula is published in advance. The increase is driven by regulation 5.42A of the Migration Regulations 1994, which prescribes a formula linked to the ABS Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings data. Because the formula is known, migration firms publish projected figures in the months before 1 July so employers can budget.

Several did exactly that in March and May 2026, landing on AUD 79,499 for the Core Skills threshold and AUD 146,717 for the Specialist Skills threshold. One firm’s March 2026 briefing set out those figures for the 2026–27 program year, applying to all subclass 482 nominations lodged on or after 1 July 2026.

Then the actual figures were confirmed at AUD 79,423 and AUD 146,576. The post-July advisories from Fragomen, BDO, Erickson Immigration Group and Envoy Global all report those numbers. BDO’s July guidance states the Core Skills Income Threshold increased to $79,423 as part of the Government’s annual indexation of skilled migration salary settings.

The projected pages, however, are still indexed and still ranking. If a page you are reading was published before July and has not been updated since, treat its figure as an estimate.

What to do about it: check the current figure directly on the Department of Home Affairs website before you sign anything. If you cannot verify it there, do not let an offer sit at the borderline a few hundred dollars of headroom costs your employer very little and removes the risk entirely

The threshold is a floor, not the salary

This is the part that catches applicants out, and it is more consequential than the seventy-six dollar discrepancy.

Meeting the income threshold does not make a nomination approvable on its own. Sponsors must also satisfy market salary requirements, and sponsored workers must be paid no less than the approved nomination salary and in line with equivalent Australian roles. For nominations lodged from 1 July 2026, the offered salary must satisfy the applicable income threshold or the Annual Market Salary Rate whichever is greater.

So if the going rate for your occupation in your city is AUD 95,000, an offer at AUD 80,000 clears the threshold and still fails, because the market rate is higher. Nominations will not be approved if the offered salary is below the threshold regardless of market rate and the reverse trap catches just as many people.

One more detail worth knowing before you negotiate: these minimum salary levels apply to base salary only and exclude non-monetary benefits. Accommodation, a car, relocation support and bonuses do not count toward the figure. If an employer tells you the “package” clears the threshold, ask what the base salary line says.

The date that fixes your number

The threshold that applies to your case is locked by when the nomination is lodged not when it is decided, and not when you sign the contract.

Applications lodged on or after 1 July 2026 must meet the new thresholds. Current visa holders and applications submitted before that date are unaffected. A nomination lodged before 1 July 2026 is assessed against the $76,515 figure even if the decision is made afterwards, and there is no need to re-lodge.

The other thing that changed on the same day

The threshold increase arrived alongside a much larger cost change that most coverage treats separately.

Visa Application Charges are reviewed annually and generally indexed to the Consumer Price Index, with updated fees applying to applications lodged on or after 1 July 2026. This year the adjustment was not routine. One migration service centre reports that most charges rose by roughly 25% in a single step around eight times the usual July increase with a handful of subclasses climbing close to 200%, following the direction set in the 2026–27 Federal Budget handed down on 12 May 2026.

Reported new base charges include: the subclass 482 base charge rising from $3,210 to $4,015 across all three streams, with the additional applicant charge for a partner or adult dependant also $4,015 and $1,005 for a child under 18; the subclass 186 primary applicant charge sitting at around $6,140; and the student visa base charge rising from $2,000 to $2,500.

Temporary Graduate applicants were hit twice. The subclass 485 fee rose from $2,300 to $4,600 in March 2026, then again to $5,750 on 1 July 2026 and because the charge is non-refundable, a refusal now costs a graduate significantly more than it did a year ago.

That non-refundability is the point to sit with. The charge you pay is set by the date Home Affairs receives your application, and you do not get it back if the application fails. A rushed, poorly evidenced lodgement is now an expensive mistake rather than an annoying one.

One further figure matters for a narrow but important group: the Fair Work High Income Threshold increased from $183,100 to $190,100 from 1 July 2026, which is relevant to migration because it forms part of the age exemption available under the Employer Nomination Scheme.

What this means if you are job hunting from abroad

Five checks, in order, before you get emotionally invested in an offer.

1. Confirm the stream. Core Skills and Specialist Skills carry very different floors AUD 79,423 versus AUD 146,576. Ask which stream the employer intends to nominate under. This single answer reframes the whole conversation.

2. Read the base salary, not the package. Non-monetary benefits are excluded. The number on the base salary line is the number that gets assessed.

3. Ask about market rate evidence. The employer must show what an Australian doing your job in your location earns. If they have not prepared that, the nomination is not ready regardless of what they are paying you.

4. Check the sponsor’s standing. An employer without an approved sponsorship, or without the appetite to maintain ongoing salary obligations for the life of the visa, is not a route. The salary obligations continue throughout the visa period, not just at nomination.

5. Budget the full cost, including a failure. With charges up roughly a quarter and no refund on refusal, the cost of getting it wrong has moved materially.

If your offer sits below the threshold, the honest answer is that there is no workaround at your end. The floor is a floor. Either the employer raises the base salary, or the nomination is not viable and it is better to establish that in week one than after you have resigned from a job.

Key Takeaways

• From 1 July 2026 the Core Skills Income Threshold is AUD 79,423 and the Specialist Skills Income Threshold is AUD 146,576. TSMIT is also AUD 79,423.
• The AUD 79,499 figure still circulating came from pre-July projections that were not updated. Verify on Home Affairs before relying on any published number.
• The threshold is a minimum, not the salary you must also meet the Annual Market Salary Rate, whichever is higher.
• Base salary only. Cars, housing and bonuses do not count.
• The applicable figure is fixed by the nomination lodgement date, not the decision date.
• Visa application charges rose sharply on the same day and are non-refundable on refusal.

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