Federal Budget 2022 - Business Investor Visa Allocations

New Federal Budgets have revealed the Migration Program planning levels.

The quota for Business Innovation and Investment Visa program has been reduced to 5000, comparing to 13,500 last year.

This will mean that it is more competitive and challenging to secure a place in the program.  

We are talking about the four streams of the 188 visa.

• The Business Innovation or 188a
• The Investor of 188B
• The Significant Investor or 188C
• The Entrepreneur or 188E

States have announced that they are running out of allocations as they are working from a interim allocation of about 800 places. 800 places for all states and territories are too short to fill up the demand of the Business and Investor visa program in Australia.

Watch our full video about Business Visa news in November 2022 here:

In that, QLD and NSW have already used up their interim allocation and closed the program temporarily. VIC and SA are very careful in selecting the applicants. SA decided  to temporarily close the Investor Stream 188B and Significant Investor Stream 188C streams.

Hopefully, the states can receive further allocations for the Business Visa Australia shortly after the Federal Budgets announcement and open to all the streams.

Now, let's look at some of the most popular stream in Business Visa 188 Australia and why should you go for it.

The 188A Business Innovation stream remains popular among applicants all over the world. This is because it has lower capital rewquiremetns than the investor path, and builds on the applicants existing business skills.

The 188C Significant Investor stream is the most simple one except for the amount if investment fund with NOT much criteria including:

• No Age limit (good for parents who are not able to do parent visa 143);
• No English Requirement (You only need to pay for the secondary fee for non-english applicant);
• No  Qualification or Business Skills and experience required;
• No Points Test (Business Innovation stream 188A and Investor Stream 188B requires Points Testing)

In order to find your best Business and Investor Visa Australia, please use our Business Visa Compare tool:

Business and Investor Visa news recap

There is still a shadow over the 188C visa which requires a 5 million dollar investment.

In Sep 2022, the Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil commented with Sky News that the SIV program “isn’t adding value to the country”. 

In the talk, Minister Clare O’Neil mentioned:

"I think most Australians would be pretty offended by the idea that we've got a visa category here where effectively you can buy your way into the country,"

"I don't see a lot of great benefits to the country currently." When she was asked by Andrew from Sky News if the Golden Visa Australia (Significant Investor Visa 188C) might be abolished.

The minister has criticized the Significant investor visa to be bringing in older people who can cost the budget.

There are also comments from Grattan Institute which raised concerns if the SIV will be removed shortly.

=> Applicants wish to put in a SIV application need to take actions as soon as possible.

Or, you may consider to apply for a 188B - Investor Stream instead.

Similar to 188C, 188B Visa requires applicants to invest 2.5 million Australian Dollar to the complying investment fund of Australia. It also has a pathway to Australian Permanent Residency.

The 188B Visa has grown in popularity recently and the comments on the SIV may make more people consider the visa 188 Investor stream.

The final category is the 188E Entrepreneur Stream.

While it has no capital investment requirement, the level of interest is surprising low.  This may be because the of the requirements being harder to quantify or predict.

The 188E visa requires applicant to show innovated business ideas.

State such as SA and Victoria require endorsement from service providers or investor incubator bodies.

There is a pathway to permanent residency after you hold the visa for 2 years and have a successful record of entrepreneurial activities. 

Ministerial Direction 100 - Business Visa Processing

Following the Federal Budget, there is a new Ministerial Direction 100 for skilled visa processing priority instruction published recently.

The new labor government has pointed out that their primary focus at this stage is to:

- Clear the visa backlogs caused by the delay in processing time during Pandemic Covid-19.

- Address skills shortages 

The government will still process efficiently those skilled visas in the near future to make the visa backlogs to a manageable level before Christmas.

The following skilled visas are subject to Ministerial Direction No. 100:​

• Subclass 186 (Employer Nomination Scheme)
• Subclass 187 (Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme)
• Subclass 188 (Business Innovation and Investment) (Provisional)
• Subclass 189 (Skilled - Independent)
• Subclass 190 (Skilled - Nominated)
• Subclass 191 (Permanent Residence (Skilled Regional)
• Subclass 457 (Temporary Work (Skilled))
• Subclass 482 (Temporary Skill Shortage)
• Subclass 489 (Skilled - Regional (Provisional))
• Subclass 491 (Skilled Work Regional (Provisional))
• Subclass 494 (Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional))
• Subclass 858 (Global Talent)
• Subclass 887 (Skilled - Regional)
• Subclass 888 (Business Innovation and Investment (Permanent).

In the last point of the Direction 100 Factsheet, it says that the Government will reduce priority to some programs to shift attention to skilled visas such as State Nomination, Employer Sponsorship program.

The report states that this reduction will help increase efficiencies in reducing processing times across caseloads. This is reflected by the total allocation number of those programs this financial year 2023.

However, Visa applications for the Global Talent and Business & Investment program will still be processed efficiently in line with the planning levels of the Migration Program.

Read full details of the Ministerial Direction 100 - Skilled Visa Priority Processing >>

Summary of current Business Investment Visa Australia situation

In summary, the allocations are now lower, at 5000.  But with only 800 state allocations so far, there is still over 4000 potential places to be sending out in the next 7 months.

The demand on the Business Investment visa 188 is still high so the new allocations could be filled quickly. Imagine the 800 allocations have been filled within 2 months since announcement, the rest is expected to be running out soon in 3-4 months.

This leads to a more selective process from the government. That means your documents and profile must be clear and well-managed to be successfully get the visa 188.

An application for business or investment visa Australia must be handled with care as it involves demonstration of significant assets (AUD 2.5 - 5 million) and the preparation to liquidate the amount for transfer into the complying investments before the visa is granted. 

The team at Work Visa Lawyers has extensive experience in compiling financial and business documents from different countries and submitting the information in an organised manner for the DHA to process the documents smoothly.

Australian Business and Significant Investor Visas Subclass 188 Closed - New Visa Expected in 2024! Read more here! 

Work Visa Lawyers works with accredited fund managers to provide options to our clients for the complying investments.

Our team of experience Immigration Lawyers and Migration Agents look forward to assisting you with your Australian visa.

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So that is the news about the Business Visa space.

Please stay tuned for further update.