Designated Area Migration Agreements

A company-specific Labour Agreement is negotiated directly between a single employer and the Department of Home Affairs. This process typically takes many months or longer, requires the employer to demonstrate exceptional circumstances, and results in an agreement unique to that employer. It is a high bar and a lengthy process.

A DAMA uses a pre-negotiated head agreement that the regional authority has already established with the Government. Employers access it by obtaining endorsement from the Designated Area Representative, which is significantly faster and more accessible than a company-specific negotiation. The trade-off is that DAMA terms are set at the regional level rather than being tailored to a specific employer's circumstances. For most regional employers, the DAMA route is the right starting point.

The process has two stages. First, the employer applies to the Designated Area Representative for endorsement. DAR processing times vary significantly from a few weeks in straightforward cases to several months where the DAR has a backlog or requires additional documentation. You will typically need to compile organisational charts, financial statements, evidence of genuine workforce need, and completed labour market testing before the DAR will consider your application.

Second, once the DAR issues an endorsement letter, you lodge the individual Labour Agreement request with the Department of Home Affairs via ImmiAccount. Department processing typically takes additional months. Only after the Labour Agreement is approved can you nominate workers. A realistic total timeline from starting the DAR process to being able to nominate is three to six months in most cases, though this varies by region and complexity.

No. Where a federal Industry Labour Agreement (ILA) covers the sector you are hiring in, the Department requires you to use the ILA rather than a DAMA. This is one of the most common misconceptions we encounter, and it catches employers by surprise. Industries with active ILAs include aged care (the Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement), meat processing (the Meat Industry Labour Agreement) and pork processing.

This means that an aged care operator in regional NT, for example, cannot access the NT DAMA for care worker roles. They must use ACILA. The ILA and DAMA may offer different concessions and involve different DAR bodies. If you are unsure whether an ILA applies to your sector, this is the first question to resolve before investing time in a DAMA application.

It depends on which visa you hold. If you are on a Skills in Demand (482) visa under the DAMA Labour Agreement stream, you have up to 180 days after ceasing employment to find a new sponsor, change your visa status, or leave Australia. The new employer must either hold their own DAMA Labour Agreement covering your occupation or be an approved Standard Business Sponsor who can nominate you under standard terms. Moving from a DAMA nomination to a standard sponsor may mean losing DAMA concessions, particularly any age or salary concessions that applied.

If you are on a Subclass 494 SESR visa under a DAMA, changing employers is more complex. You need a new nomination and in many cases a new visa application, similar to the standard 494 process. Your PR pathway timing may also be affected if there is a gap between employers. Contact a migration agent immediately if your employment situation changes while on a DAMA visa.

Yes. You do not need to be outside Australia to be sponsored under a DAMA. Employers can sponsor workers who are already in Australia on other visa subclasses, such as a student visa, tourist visa, working holiday visa, or a different work visa. The worker must meet all eligibility requirements for the DAMA nomination and visa at the time of application, and any current visa conditions must permit the lodgement of a new application.

Workers in Australia on certain bridging visas may have limitations on their ability to apply for new employer-sponsored visas, depending on their circumstances. Workers who previously held a visa that was refused or cancelled may face additional scrutiny. If you are currently in Australia on another visa and a potential employer has offered to sponsor you through a DAMA, get advice on your specific visa situation before the employer begins the Labour Agreement process.

DAMA work spans multiple stages, from DAR endorsement through Labour Agreement approval to nomination and visa applications. Professional fees vary depending on the DAMA region, the number of workers, the complexity of the eligibility assessment and any complicating factors such as borderline skills assessments, character history or unusual occupations. We provide a clear, written fee agreement before any paid work begins, broken down stage by stage.

The best starting point is a free initial consultation. We will assess your region and occupation, confirm which DAMA applies, identify which concessions are available to you, and give you an honest estimate of professional fees and government charges before you commit to anything. There is no obligation to proceed after the consultation and no fee for that initial assessment.

Generally no. Most DAMA head agreements explicitly exclude labour hire companies from accessing the framework. The policy rationale is that DAMA concessions are designed for employers who have a genuine, direct need for workers in their own operations, not for businesses whose primary purpose is on-hiring workers to third parties. The SA DAMA, for example, explicitly excludes labour hire companies. The same exclusion applies in most other active agreements.

Businesses that provide contract services and deploy workers at client sites, but employ those workers directly and are responsible for their wages, conditions and work, may be treated differently to traditional labour hire arrangements. The distinction depends on the specific employment and contracting structure. If your business model involves placing workers with multiple clients, get specific advice on whether your arrangement qualifies before investing in a DAMA application.

DAMA sponsors carry the same obligations as Standard Business Sponsors plus additional obligations specific to the Labour Agreement. These include paying the market salary rate at all times (not just the TSMIT minimum), ensuring the worker lives and works in the designated area, keeping accurate employment records, notifying the Department of any changes to the worker's role or employment terms, and cooperating with Department inspections or audits. The sponsor must not pass the cost of recruitment or the SAF levy on to the worker.

Non-compliance can result in cancellation of the Labour Agreement, which terminates the ability to nominate further workers under the DAMA and may trigger visa cancellation for sponsored workers. DARs typically conduct annual reviews of DAMA operations and may audit employer compliance as part of that process. Compliance should be treated as ongoing, not just a hurdle at the application stage.

Each DAMA head agreement sets a maximum number of nominations that can be approved per year, managed by the Designated Area Representative. Once the annual cap is reached for a given DAMA, the DAR cannot endorse any further employer requests until the cap resets at the start of the next program year, typically 1 July. The NT DAMA III cap is 1,500 nominations per year. The WA DAMA has a broader allocation of up to 10,000 annually across metro and regional categories.

High-demand DAMAs, particularly NT and WA, can exhaust their annual caps before the year ends. Once a cap is full, an employer with an approved Labour Agreement can still nominate workers but the DAR may not issue new endorsements. Employers who are planning DAMA access should apply for endorsement and establish their Labour Agreement early in the program year rather than waiting. If your target region's cap has closed, we can advise whether another DAMA covering your location is still open.

Individual DAMA Labour Agreements typically continue for their full five-year term even if the head agreement is not renewed, and visa holders retain their conditions for the duration of their visa. The South-West DAMA is an example of this: the head agreement will not be renewed after December 2026, but the Department of Home Affairs has confirmed that existing visa holders will retain their conditions and PR pathways remain available to them.

The risk arises if you are mid-process when a head agreement expires. New Labour Agreement applications and variations may be blocked once a head agreement reaches its end. This makes monitoring the expiry dates of your relevant DAMA important, particularly for employers planning to access new workers or workers who are in the early stages of their visa with PR still years away. We monitor DAMA status for our clients and flag risks early.

Yes. Most DARs and the Department of Home Affairs require the sponsoring employer to have been actively and lawfully operating in the designated area for at least 12 months before accessing a DAMA. This requirement exists to confirm the business has genuine ongoing workforce needs rather than being established specifically to access the sponsorship framework. Evidence typically required includes ASIC extracts, business activity statements and proof of trading history.

Businesses that are newly established or recently restructured may still have options in some circumstances, particularly where they are a related entity of an established business with a trading history, or where the business has operated under different ownership. Requirements vary by DAR. If your business is relatively young, raise this in your consultation before assuming you are ineligible.

Yes. The DAMA concessions apply to the primary visa applicant only, but eligible family members can be included as secondary applicants on the same visa application. Family members who can be included typically include a spouse or de facto partner and dependent children under 18 (or older if financially dependent). Secondary applicants do not need to meet the DAMA concession requirements themselves, such as the age or English concessions, as those apply only to the sponsored worker.

Secondary applicants on a 482 SID visa generally have the right to work and study in Australia. Secondary applicants on a 494 SESR visa must also live in the regional area with the primary holder. The inclusion of family members increases the overall visa application fee and can affect processing time if family members have complex health or character matters. These should be assessed and disclosed early in the process.

The Skilling Australians Fund levy is the employer's responsibility. It is illegal for an employer to require a worker to pay or repay the SAF levy, and employment contract clauses attempting to claw back the levy from workers are unenforceable. If you have been asked to pay this levy as a worker, seek advice immediately.

For the Skills in Demand (482) visa, the levy is $1,200 per year for small businesses (under $10 million annual turnover) and $1,800 per year for other employers. For the 494 SESR visa, it is $3,000 per year for small businesses and $5,000 per year for others, paid upfront for the full five-year visa. For the 186 ENS permanent visa, it is a one-off $3,000 for small businesses and $5,000 for others. These are non-refundable Government charges payable regardless of outcome and are separate from professional fees.

The WA state-wide DAMA, which launched on 1 July 2024, is structured differently from the traditional regional DAMAs. It divides Western Australia into two categories: Category 2 (metropolitan Perth, covering specific postcodes 6000-6038, 6050-6083, 6090-6182, 6208-6211, 6214 and 6556-6558) and Category 3 (all other WA postcodes, being regional WA). Half of the annual allocation of up to 10,000 positions is reserved for each category.

Perth metro employers in Category 2 can access DAMA concessions, but the occupation list and concession terms for Category 2 are generally more restricted than those available to Category 3 regional employers. The regional WA category typically offers broader occupations, greater concessions and a shorter PR pathway. The pre-existing regional DAMAs for Pilbara, Goldfields and East Kimberley remain in operation and continue to be available for employers in those specific areas.

Both the Skills in Demand (482) and SESR (494) visas can be accessed under a DAMA Labour Agreement. The key differences are duration, regional requirements and the PR pathway. The 482 SID visa is typically granted for up to four years under a labour agreement and can be held by workers in both metropolitan and regional areas (depending on the DAMA). The PR pathway from 482 goes to the 186 ENS permanent visa, which requires employer nomination at the PR stage after two or three years (depending on the DAMA).

The 494 SESR visa is a five-year regional provisional visa that requires the worker to live and work in a designated regional area for the duration. The PR pathway goes to the 191 permanent visa, which does not require employer nomination at the PR stage, only proof of three years of regional work and meeting the income threshold. This independence from employer nomination at the PR stage is a significant advantage of the 494 pathway, particularly if the employer relationship changes before PR is lodged.

Yes, but this requires careful planning. The standard age limits for employer-sponsored visas are under 45 for the 494 SESR and under 45 for the 186 ENS. Most active DAMAs raise this to under 55 for Skill Level 1 to 4 occupations and under 50 for Skill Level 5. The age concession must apply at the time of each application, not just when the initial temporary visa was granted.

For the 186 PR pathway, the DAMA age concession applies to the ENS nomination. However, the concession only applies if the worker is being nominated under the DAMA Labour Agreement stream. If the worker transitions to standard sponsorship or the DAMA expires before the PR application, the standard age limit may apply. Workers who are close to the concession age boundary need to plan their timeline precisely to ensure the age concession is available when it is needed most.

Labour Market Testing (LMT) is mandatory for almost all DAMA nominations. The employer must demonstrate a genuine attempt to recruit Australian citizens and permanent residents before sponsoring an overseas worker. This typically means advertising the position through at least two approved channels for a minimum of 28 consecutive days within the four months before lodging the nomination, and documenting all applications received along with evidence of why no suitable Australian candidate was available.

LMT errors are the single most common reason for nomination refusal. Common mistakes include advertising through only one channel, running ads for too short a period, using vague position descriptions that do not reflect the actual role, or failing to properly document why Australian applicants were not suitable. The documentation must withstand Department scrutiny and be prepared with the nomination in mind from the very first advertisement placed.

Quite possibly. Each DAMA has its own negotiated occupation list that extends beyond the standard skilled migration lists and can include semi-skilled occupations at ANZSCO Skill Level 4 and 5. The NT DAMA III, with 325 occupations, even includes roles not classified under any ANZSCO code at all, reflecting the unique workforce needs of remote regional areas. Roles such as bar supervisors, processing workers, certain agricultural hands and specific hospitality occupations that do not appear on standard national lists are often accessible through a DAMA.

The first step is checking whether your specific role, or a closely related one, appears on the DAMA occupation list for your region. DAMA occupation lists are reviewed annually by each DAR and can change, so currency matters. If your role does not appear on any active DAMA, a company-specific labour agreement may still be available depending on your circumstances.

The Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) is the minimum salary an employer must offer a sponsored worker under employer-sponsored visas. From 1 July 2025, the TSMIT is $76,515 per year. It is indexed annually and rises each year. For many regional occupations, particularly in hospitality, agriculture and food processing, genuine market rates sit below this floor, making standard sponsorship economically impossible for the employer.

Most active DAMAs allow a concession of up to 10% below the TSMIT for eligible occupations, with a strong business case. This brings the effective minimum to approximately $68,864 for 2025. Critically, the salary must still meet the Annual Market Salary Rate for that specific role and location. The concession does not allow underpaying workers relative to their Australian counterparts. Where the local market rate exceeds the TSMIT, the higher rate applies regardless.