It is a 4-year temporary visa which can become permanent when later applying for the Business Innovation & Investment (Residence) Subclass 888 visa – presuming one has maintained an investment in Australia for 4-years or established an ownership interest in an Australian business.

You will need to spend at least 160 days in Australia on your Significant Investor visa, and be sponsored by a state or territory government to qualify for a permanent subclass 888 visa.

If you have applied for the Business Innovation stream, a 2-year extension is possible once you have held the subclass 188 visa for 3 years, giving you 6 years from the date of grant of the original visa.

Subclass Applications are by invitation only. To be invited to apply, a person must lodge an Expression of Interest, be nominated by a state or territory government, and

• have personal and business assets of AUD1.5 million (AUD400,000 must be net assets in the business), and have a business turnover of AUD3 million, or
• have obtained at least AUD1 million in funding from an Australian venture capital firm for a promising high value business idea.

The Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) allows an individual to temporarily live, study and work in Australia after he or she has finished their studies. One is only able to access this visa subclass as a primary applicant only once.

This visa grants an individual unrestricted work rights in Australia and the ability to include family members in the application including spouses, de facto and same sex partners, dependent children.

New Skilled and Employer Sponsor Regional Visas with a Pathway to PR

From November 2019, new regional provisional skilled and employer sponsor visas will be introduced to replace the current subclass 489 and 187 visas. Further, from November 2022, a new regional permanent residency visa, subclass 191, will supplant the current 887 visa.

This visa lets you visit Australia:

• to visit or for business visitor purposes
• as many times as you want, for up to a year
• and stay up to three months for each visit.​

Only certain passport holders ​can apply for this visa online. You may need to use a travel agent to apply for this visa. An ETA is an electronically stored authority for travel to Australia. You must be outside Australia when you apply and when the ETA is decided.

There are two other visas that you can apply for online to visit Australia for tourism or business visitor activities:

Electronic Travel Authority (subclass 601)​
eVisitor (subclass 651)

Tourism includes holidays, recreation and seeing family and or friends.

This visa is for young people who want to holiday and work in Australia for up to a year.

You might be able to get this visa if you:

• are at least 18 but not yet 31 years of age
• don’t have a dependent child with you at any time during your stay in Australia
• have a passport from:
  • Argentina
  • Bangladesh
  • Chile
  • Indonesia
  • Malaysia