Registered Migration Agent · MARN 1909162

Sponsor the people your business needs — without the compliance risk.

We prepare employer sponsorship applications that survive scrutiny: defensible position descriptions, evidenced labour market testing, and nomination files built to answer the questions a case officer will actually ask.

Request an assessment How sponsorship works

Advice provided by a migration agent registered with the Office of the MARA.

1909162
MARA registration number
10+
Years in Australian migration practice
1,000+
Matters prepared and lodged
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Languages we advise in
Practice areas

Four areas. Handled properly, not processed in bulk.

Every file is prepared by a registered agent who will still be across it at decision stage.

Subclass 482 · 186 · 494

Employer sponsorship

For Australian businesses hiring from overseas, or moving an existing employee to permanent residence. We build the case for the position, not just complete the form.

  • Skills in Demand (Subclass 482) — Core and Specialist Skills streams
  • Employer Nomination Scheme (Subclass 186) — Direct Entry and TRT
  • Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Subclass 494)
  • Occupation matching against the Core Skills Occupation List
  • Labour Market Testing strategy and evidence packs
  • Sponsorship obligations, monitoring and audit readiness
Employer sponsorship
Subclass 189 · 190 · 491 · 191

Skilled migration

Points-tested pathways for applicants whose occupation and experience can carry the claim. The work sits in the skills assessment and the evidence, long before an invitation arrives.

  • Skills assessment — VETASSESS, ACS, Engineers Australia, IML, TRA
  • Reference letters aligned to the ANZSCO duty set
  • Points audit and EOI strategy in SkillSelect
  • State and territory nomination (190 / 491)
  • Subclass 191 — regional provisional to permanent
  • A straight answer when a pathway does not stack up
Skilled migration
Subclass 820 · 801 · 309 · 100

Partner & family

Partner applications turn on the quality of the relationship evidence, not the length of the statement. We audit what you have against the four statutory aspects before lodgement.

  • Onshore (820/801) and offshore (309/100) partner visas
  • Evidence audit — financial, household, social, commitment
  • Prospective Marriage (Subclass 300)
  • Parent and child visa options
  • Sponsorship eligibility and sponsorship limitations
  • Second-stage permanent processing and reminders
Partner & family
ART · s.48 · Ministerial

Refusals & appeals

Where a decision has gone against you, the next step is legal argument — not a resubmitted form. Much of this work reaches us after another adviser has already tried.

  • Administrative Review Tribunal applications and submissions
  • Natural justice and s.57 response drafting
  • Section 48 bar — options and waiver requests
  • Schedule 3 and PIC 4020 arguments
  • Sponsorship bars and visa cancellation responses
  • Ministerial intervention requests (s.351 / s.417)
Refusals & appeals

What a nomination file should contain

  • A position description mapped to the ANZSCO unit group, not lifted from a job ad
  • Organisational context showing where the role sits and who it reports to
  • Financial evidence proportionate to the size of the business
  • Labour market testing that meets the advertising rules on its face
  • A salary case benchmarked against the market, with the working shown
  • A written answer to the objection the delegate is most likely to raise
Why employers work with us

We write the file assuming it will be questioned.

Most nominations are refused on the same handful of grounds: the position is not genuine on the evidence, the duties do not sit within the nominated occupation, the salary case is unsupported, or the labour market testing is technically non-compliant.

We treat each of those as a section of the submission rather than a box to tick. That takes longer at preparation stage. It is considerably faster than answering a request for further information six months later — or arguing the same point at the Tribunal two years later.

You deal with one registered agent throughout. Not an offshore processing team, and not a salesperson who hands the file on once you have signed.

Sponsorship in detail About the practice
How we work

Four stages, and you know where you stand at each one.

1

Assessment

We look at the facts and tell you whether the application is viable — including when it is not.

2

Strategy & quote

A written pathway, the evidence it needs, realistic timing, and a fixed fee agreement.

3

Preparation

We draft the submissions and assemble the evidence. You review before anything is lodged.

4

Lodgement & carriage

We lodge, monitor, respond to requests, and stay on the file through to decision.

Selected matters

Case notes

De-identified summaries of completed matters. Every case turns on its own facts, and past outcomes are not a prediction of future results.

Subclass 482 · PIC 4020
Situation
A Skills in Demand (Core Skills stream) application lodged in March 2025 for a sponsored employee. On the papers, an ordinary file.
Difficulty
At eight months it was well beyond published processing times — in our experience the signature of a background check, and a stage at which no useful enquiry can be made. Fourteen months in, the Department issued a natural justice notice under s.57 raising PIC 4020: the occupation recorded for a period of employment in the applicant's earlier student visa application did not match the occupation claimed for the same period in the sponsorship file. The Department had also tried three times to verify the employment by telephone with the sponsor and reached no one. A PIC 4020 finding carries a three-year exclusion from most Australian visas.
Approach
Most applicants withdraw at this point. Instead we went back through the underlying records with the client to establish what the contemporaneous documents actually showed, and answered the notice as a submission — three rounds of further material, with certified translations of the employment records that supported the account.
Outcome
PIC 4020 not made out. Three-year exclusion avoided and the visa granted in July 2026.
Subclass 482
Situation
A Queensland tourism business nominating a Video Producer under the Core Skills stream.
Difficulty
A creative role in an industry where the work is more often contracted than employed, which invites questions about whether the position is genuine and full-time in a business of that size.
Approach
Nomination and visa prepared together and lodged in March 2025, with the position case — duties, organisational context and salary — built into the nomination rather than left to be explained later.
Outcome
Nomination approved January 2026. No request for further information beyond medicals; the visa followed.
Subclass 155
Situation
A permanent resident who left Australia in 2008 and had not returned since. We had obtained a Resident Return visa for the same client once before, in 2017; he came back to us in 2026 having still not travelled to Australia in the nine years between.
Difficulty
Subclass 155 is decided on residence in Australia or, where that is not available, on substantial ties of benefit to Australia together with the reasons for the absence. After nine years away the residence limb was gone, so the ties had to carry the application on their own — and the criterion gives a delegate a great deal of room.
Approach
We built the application around the limbs that were genuinely open on his facts and evidenced them properly, rather than arguing the ones that were not.
Outcome
Granted in about ten days, March 2026.
PIC 4014 · Subclass 500
Situation
A University of Sydney graduate who, acting on incorrect advice from a previous agent, overstayed by 65 days before realising his visa had expired.
Difficulty
He applied for a Bridging visa E and sat his final exams, then — while unwell — let that bridging visa lapse before applying for the next one. That produced a second period of unlawful status on top of a condition breach. On departure he was notified of a three-year exclusion under PIC 4014, barring most Australian visa classes.
Approach
We put the whole sequence on the record with evidence: where the incorrect advice came from, the illness behind the second lapse, and his academic standing — then argued the exclusion on that basis rather than asking the delegate to overlook it.
Outcome
Student visa granted February 2026. He returned to Australia and completed his degree.
Common questions

What employers ask us first

With the occupation, not the paperwork. If the role you want to fill does not sit on the relevant occupation list, or the duties do not match the ANZSCO description closely enough, nothing downstream will fix it. We start by testing that fit, then look at whether the business meets the sponsorship criteria — lawful operation, financial capacity, and a record of meeting obligations. Only then do we open a file.

Processing times are published by the Department and move constantly, so any number quoted on a website is out of date by the time you read it. What we can give you is the current published range for your subclass and stream at the time we quote, and a clear view of which parts of the timeline you control — labour market testing periods, skills assessment turnaround, and how quickly complete evidence reaches us. Incomplete files are the single largest source of avoidable delay.

More than posting a job ad. Advertisements must run on approved platforms, for the required period, within the required window before nomination, and must contain specific information including the position title, the skills required, and the salary or a salary range. Ads that omit a required element, run for the wrong length of time, or fall outside the window will generally not be accepted — and the testing has to be redone. We set the advertising up before it runs rather than assessing it afterwards.

In most cases yes, through the Employer Nomination Scheme (Subclass 186). The Temporary Residence Transition stream requires a qualifying period of full-time employment with the sponsor in the nominated occupation; the Direct Entry stream relies on a skills assessment and experience instead. Which route is better is worth deciding at the start of the temporary visa rather than at the end — the choices made at Subclass 482 stage determine what remains available later.

Sponsorship obligations continue for the life of the sponsorship and, in some cases, beyond it: paying the nominated salary, ensuring the employee works only in the nominated occupation, keeping prescribed records, notifying the Department of certain events within set timeframes, and cooperating with monitoring. Breaches can lead to barring and civil penalties. We provide a written obligations schedule on approval and remain available for questions during the sponsorship term.

No, and no registered agent may. The decision rests with the Department of Home Affairs under the Migration Act 1958 and the Migration Regulations 1994. Any adviser promising a guaranteed outcome, or quoting a success rate they cannot substantiate, is telling you something they are not permitted to say. What we undertake is to tell you honestly whether your application is viable before you spend money on it.

Start with an assessment, not a form.

Tell us the role or the situation. We will tell you whether there is a pathway, what it requires, and what it costs — before you commit to anything.

Book a consultation info@sogovisa.com