Labour Agreement
& DAMA Package

The five types, and which visas they support

The Department’s published guide identifies five kinds of labour agreement. A company-specific agreement is available only where no industry, DAMA or project agreement already covers the occupation — so the first question in any matter is whether one of the others already occupies the field.

• Company-specific labour agreements Assessed case by case, and only where nothing else covers the occupation.

• Industry labour agreements Fixed terms set for a nominated industry, negotiated between the Department and industry representative bodies. Current agreements include dairy, meat, pork, fishing, horticulture, on-hire, advertising, restaurant, Minister of Religion and aged care — the aged care agreement requiring a union memorandum of understanding.

• Designated Area Migration Agreements Regional agreements administered by a designated area representative, which must endorse an individual business before it can lodge.

• Global Talent Employer Sponsored agreements A startup stream and an established business stream, with annual position caps. Confirm current availability with the Department before relying on this route.

• Project agreements Two-tier agreements for project companies and large activities with multiple subcontractors.

There is no fee to lodge a labour agreement request. The Department charges nothing for the request itself. Nomination charges, the Skilling Australians Fund levy and visa charges all still apply, and under a DAMA the designated area representative’s endorsement fee comes first — so the saving is the request fee, not the cost of the program.

The thirteen DAMAs, and where they are

Thirteen Designated Area Migration Agreements are in force. Each is administered by a designated area representative, and the representative’s published criteria — not a national rule — govern what concessions are available for which occupations.

There is no DAMA for the Gold Coast, or anywhere in South East Queensland. Queensland’s two DAMAs are Far North Queensland, covering the Cairns, Douglas, Mareeba, Tablelands, Cassowary Coast, Cook, Croydon, Etheridge, Torres and Northern Peninsula council areas plus Weipa, and Townsville. For a Gold Coast, Brisbane or Sunshine Coast business the routes are a company-specific agreement, an industry agreement if one covers the occupation, or a project agreement. We say this early in any Gold Coast matter, because it changes the whole shape of the work.

Expiry: the one thing nobody publishes

The Department publishes no expiry date for any DAMA. What it publishes is the structure: a head agreement is an overarching five-year deed, individual labour agreements under it generally run five years, and representatives review the terms annually.

Where an expiry is known it is because a state or a representative published it. South Australia’s two agreements are extended to 31 January 2027 while a new five-year statewide DAMA is negotiated — a date that has now moved three times in sixteen months, from 30 June 2026 to 30 September 2026 to 31 January 2027. The Goldfields DAMA is extended to 31 December 2026. Western Australia’s statewide agreement was established in July 2024 and publishes no expiry, stating only that it cannot endorse a position beyond the program’s term.

The practical consequence is that no endorsement can be assumed to outlast the agreement it sits under. We check the representative’s current published position at the date we write, and we date-stamp it in the document.

Category 1, 2 and 3 — and what each one actually gets

The Department’s guide divides locations into three categories. This framework governs company-specific requests as well as DAMAs, and it is where most of the misinformation in this area lives.

What the concessions actually look like, region by region

There is no national standard concession ceiling, and the Department publishes none. Each head agreement is negotiated, and the spread is material. Concessions also attach per occupation, not per DAMA — Orana states expressly that concessions vary by occupation and some occupations have none.

Non-monetary benefits count, within limits, in some agreements. The Northern Territory allows non-monetary benefits toward up to 10 per cent of its concessional threshold — A$6,751 — where they are quantifiable, guaranteed in the contract and consistent with what comparable Australian workers receive. Orana permits food and board up to 10 per cent of the threshold, with the total package still having to reach the full figure. Every one of these is an occupation-by-occupation question, and we put the representative’s own current criteria in the submission rather than a national summary.

Labour market testing under a labour agreement

The twelve-month window is real, and it is widely described for the wrong reason. Here is the accurate version.

Under a labour agreement or DAMA, labour market testing evidence can generally be up to twelve months old at lodgement, rather than the four months that applies to a standard Skills in Demand or 494 nomination. Western Australia’s current DAMA criteria state it plainly: advertising must fall within the twelve months immediately before lodging.

The reason is structural. A standard nomination’s testing obligation comes from section 140GBA of the Migration Act, and section 140GBA(4) caps the period in the Act itself at four months — which is why the Migration Strategy’s promised move from four months to six was never delivered and could not be done by instrument. A labour agreement’s obligation attaches at the agreement-making stage under regulation 2.76A(1), on an unquantified “recent and genuine efforts” standard, and otherwise on the agreement’s own terms. That is the room the concession sits in.

The thresholds, the levy and the figure people confuse

All three income thresholds took effect on 1 July 2026 and all are exclusive of superannuation. The threshold was not abolished and renamed — the Core Skills and Specialist Skills thresholds were added as defined terms in December 2024, while the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold continues to apply to the 494 and the legacy 187, currently at the same figure as the Core Skills threshold. Designated area representatives write “TSMIT/CSIT” for exactly that reason.

The A$96,400 figure is a different animal and is routinely conflated with the others. It is the point above which an advertisement need not state the salary, it sits in the labour market testing instrument, and it has not been indexed since 2018 — which is why a Core Skills advertisement must state salary and a Specialist Skills advertisement need not.

What the Department assesses — the actual checklist

This is the Department’s published list for a company-specific request, and it is worth reading as a list of twelve separate pieces of evidence rather than as a form.

• The online request Lodged in ImmiAccount with all relevant documents attached.

• An evidence-based business case For the overseas workers, addressing the labour market shortage or the niche skills.

• Key business details and an accountant’s statement Confirming at least twelve months of lawful, active operation in Australia and the capacity to support the workers requested.

• Financial viability evidence Profit and loss statements and other financial statements.

• Declaration of any adverse information With reasons why it should be disregarded. The Department will not execute an agreement where adverse information exists unless it chooses to disregard it.

• A six-digit occupation code and task descriptions For each occupation. Occupations must generally be skill level 1 to 4, and not already eligible under the standard 482, 494 or 186 lists.

• Labour market testing evidence Including copies of the advertisements.

• Declaration of Australian retrenchments or redundancies In the previous twelve months.

• Stakeholder consultation records Copies of the requests, the responses, and any follow-up.

• A business case for every concession sought English, skills, experience or salary — each with strong reasons why the standard criteria should not apply.

• Skills assessments Where mandatory.

• The trust structure Clearly indicated where one exists — and note that a trust cannot be a party to a labour agreement. Only the trustee can.

Requests lodged without recruitment evidence may be returned without assessment. The guide is explicit: evidence of recent recruitment efforts aimed at Australian citizens and permanent residents must be provided with the request, and supporting evidence must relate specifically to the legal entity requesting the agreement. A request assembled around the group rather than the applying entity is the quiet version of this failure.

Stakeholder consultation is a hard gate, and it comes first

This is the step most often discovered too late. Consultation is mandatory, it happens before the request is lodged, and failure is fatal at the lodgement stage rather than at assessment.

Before applying, the business must consult the relevant industry body, the unions covering the requested occupations, and any agency or community group affected. Each must be given the occupations, the numbers sought per year, the locations, the concessions requested and the proposed salary — together with a workforce profile of current and projected overseas worker numbers and details of the training intended for the Australian workforce.

Stakeholders have ten working days to respond, with a further five working days after a follow-up. All written correspondence and the outcome must accompany the request. The guide states that failing to do so “will result in your request being returned to you without any further assessment”.

Build the timeline from the consultation backwards. Fifteen working days of consultation, before lodgement, before an unpublished Departmental assessment period, before nomination and visa processing. Where a DAMA is involved, the representative’s endorsement comes before all of it. This is why we scope the matter and give you a timeline before you pay rather than after.

Timing, and what is actually published

The Department does not publish processing timeframes for labour agreement requests. We will not estimate one, and nor should anyone else. What can be said is procedural, and it is useful:

• Requests are lodged through ImmiAccount, and incomplete requests may be returned without assessment.

• A request for further information must generally be answered within seven or fourteen calendar days, or the request is returned.

• Some decisions are referred to the Minister, and the Department is not obliged to enter into an agreement at all.

• An approved agreement must be signed and returned within four weeks, and runs for five years.

• Under a DAMA, the representative’s endorsement is a separate and earlier step: Townsville Enterprise states endorsement requests are generally finalised within 20 working days, and the Cairns Chamber that endorsement is usually assessed in under 10 business days where the request is coherent, well presented and complete.

Business case, not business plan

One more piece of vocabulary worth getting right, because it changes the document you need.

The phrase “business plan” does not appear in the Department’s labour agreement guide. What it asks for is a compelling, evidence-based business case, a separate business case for each concession, a workforce profile of current and projected overseas worker numbers, and details of the training intended for the Australian workforce. For a variation request, an updated workforce plan.

The difference is not pedantry. A business plan is organised around a business. A business case is organised around each occupation — the shortage in it, the testing for it, the salary analysis for it, and the concession sought for it. A general statement that skilled workers are hard to find does not support a concession for a particular occupation code, and that single error is the most common reason a request reads as thin.

What the package contains

• The submission — the business, the shortage, and the case for the agreement or the endorsement

• An occupation-by-occupation business case, with positions requested per year and the task descriptions for each six-digit code

• Confirmation for each occupation that it is not already eligible under the standard 482, 494 or 186 lists

• Labour market testing evidence for the nominated occupations, run and documented to the representative’s own published criteria

• Market salary rate analysis per occupation, against current data and the applicable award

• A separate business case for each concession sought, with the reasons the standard criteria should not apply

• The stakeholder consultation record — the letters, the workforce profile, the Australian training detail, the responses and the follow-ups

• Sponsorship and compliance history, with any adverse information declared and the reasons it should be disregarded

• Workforce composition and the Australian-to-overseas ratio against the applicable category cap

• The trust structure where one exists, and the trustee identified as the contracting party

• A findings table against each published requirement, and a timeline running from consultation through endorsement to lodgement

How we scope and price it

The package price shown on the form covers the labour market testing component — Workforce Australia and CareerOne as standard, with SEEK available as an upgrade. The rest depends on the occupation count, whether testing still has to run, and whether a designated area representative is involved.

Send the form and we come back within one business day with a timeline and a fixed quote. If there is no DAMA for your location — which is the case everywhere in South East Queensland — we will tell you that in the same reply, along with whether an industry agreement already covers your occupation, because that decides whether a company-specific request is available at all.

Lodgement, and dealings with the designated area representative and the Department, remain with you or your migration agent. We build the evidence and write the submission.

General information, current at October 2026. Labour agreement and DAMA terms are negotiated individually and change without notice; South Australia’s expiry date has moved three times in sixteen months. We check the Department’s published guide and the relevant representative’s current criteria at the date we write, and we date-stamp them in the document. Zeolla Solutions prepares migration documentation, research and reports — we are not a law practice and this is not immigration advice.