Australia mandates sponsorship and nomination before Training visa lodgement

How the lodgement rule changed

Australia rewrote the order of operations for the Training visa (subclass 407) on March 11, 2026. Most applicants must now hold both an approved Temporary Activities sponsor and an approved Training visa nomination before they lodge the visa application, the Department of Home Affairs said. Applications filed without those two approvals are treated as invalid and the visa application charge is refunded.

The 407 covers workplace-based occupational training and professional development. It isn't a work visa for general employment and not a route for independent job hunting.

Commonwealth agencies get a carve-out: they still need approved sponsorship, but they don't need a nomination on file before the applicant lodges.

Who feels the change

The rule reshapes the path for interns, trainees, overseas professionals and expat staff coming to Australia for structured training. Tourists and remote workers aren't in scope, because the 407 has never been a leisure or digital-nomad visa.

Applicants already inside Australia carry the sharpest risk. They must keep a valid substantive visa while the sponsor and nomination move through processing, because a 407 lodged without those approvals is invalid and won't generate a usable bridging visa.

Employers carry more of the timing burden than before. Sponsorship and nomination decisions sit upstream of the applicant's lodgement window, so any delay on the sponsor side pushes the worker's start date back.

What sponsors and applicants do now

The Department's sequence runs in three steps:

• Temporary Activities Sponsor approval: the employer or host organisation applies first, with a sponsorship fee of AUD 420.
• Training visa nomination approval: the approved sponsor then lodges the nomination tied to the specific training program.
• Subclass 407 application: only after both approvals does the applicant lodge, paying the base visa charge plus any subsequent temporary application charge that applies based on visa history and location.

The Department published the update as a formal news item, "Changes to Training visa (subclass 407) application requirements," and refreshed the subclass 407 page in June 2026 to confirm the rule is current. Sponsors planning intakes for late 2026 should build the two upstream approvals into their timeline before promising a start date.

Read our full Australia guide for the complete picture and follow our visa updates for more changes.