Australia Investor Visa

Three conditions stack rather than one. First, the applicant must be nominated by a state or territory government agency to invest at least AUD 2.5 million meeting certain requirements, where invited to apply on or after 1 July 2021; those invited before that date faced AUD 1.5 million in an Australian State or Territory.

Second, the applicant must score at least 65 on the points test. Third, they must hold net business, investment and personal assets of at least AUD 2.5 million — a separate asset threshold, not the same money used for the investment.

But the heaviest condition is not a figure, it is the duty to hold. A person invited on or after 1 July 2021 must make a complying significant investment of at least AUD 2.5 million and must hold complying significant investments continuously for the life of the provisional visa.

Switching between complying significant investments is allowed, but only where both conditions are met: the funds withdrawn are reinvested into other complying significant investments within thirty days, and the sum withdrawn is the same as or less than the sum reinvested, irrespective of any gains and losses due to market exposures.

Reinvestment within those thirty days is counted as continuous holding. Funds withdrawn from venture capital or emerging company investments must be reinvested into venture capital or emerging companies specifically. This stream closed to new applications on 31 July 2024

The programme closed permanently to new applications on 31 July 2024, and the authority’s most important sentence concerns not the closure but how the remainder is handled.

The Department of Home Affairs states that it will continue to process applications made before that date, but in line with the permanent Migration Program planning levels and with skilled visa processing priorities.

That is a binding qualification rather than a reassurance: older applications do keep moving, but they queue within a system of planning levels and priorities in which the investment stream no longer sits at the front, so no timeframe can be inferred from having filed early.

For anyone already in Australia, the authority adds a warning that is easy to overlook when weighing a withdrawal to recover the fee: withdrawing an application may affect the visa status currently held, so the decision to withdraw is not purely a calculation about money.

The department publishes no processing figure for this route, and the way it says so is worth quoting because it is nothing like a promise:

To find out, use the visa processing time guide tool, which shows the processing times for applications decided recently, and the department states plainly that it is a guide only and not specific to your application.

The only number available is therefore a backward-looking one about other people files, not an undertaking about your own.

And on this route that backward-looking number loses further value for a structural reason: the stream closed to new applications on 31 July 2024.

Applications lodged before then, while still processed, are placed in a queue governed by a quota and by a priority order in which the investment route no longer sits first. That binding sentence, and the two instruments it invokes, are recorded in the outcome cell of this table.

Where a queue is subject to a quota and to a priority order, the time taken on files decided earlier says nothing about files decided later.

The only period the department prints as a figure is the stay ceiling: up to five years. The full ladder behind that ceiling by date of invitation, together with the two-year obligation to live in the very state that nominated the investment, is recorded in the residence cell of this table.

The provisional visa sets no minimum number of days of presence: the holder may travel in and out of Australia as many times as they wish while it is valid, since it is granted with multiple entry.

But an important sentence travels with that: time spent outside Australia does not extend the visa. The real residence obligation sits at the door to permanent residence.

To be eligible for the grant of a Business Innovation and Investment (Permanent) visa, subclass 888, in the Investor stream, the holder must live in the very state or territory in which they made the designated investment for at least two years, and those two years must fall within the period the provisional visa is valid.

The length of the provisional visa depends on when the invitation was issued: up to five years where invited on or after 1 July 2021; four years and three months where the application followed 1 July 2015 but the invitation preceded 1 July 2021; and four years where the application preceded 1 July 2015.

The visa is valid from the date it is granted. It is a provisional visa, so staying longer requires a new visa.

On obligations while holding it, the holder and the family members on the application must comply with all visa conditions and Australian laws, and the department names two in particular: a commitment to continue to maintain the investment, and compliance with Australian workplace laws.

On health, the department states that the holder is personally liable for all their healthcare costs while in Australia and recommends insurance; Australian visas are digital, with no label placed in the passport but the digital record linked to it

Children and spouses travel two different roads, and the gap between them is the easiest place to trip. A dependent child may be added to the application at any time before the department decides it, provided they meet the health and, where applicable, character requirements.

A spouse or de facto partner of the main applicant who did not make a combined application at the initial lodgement of the subclass 188 visa must file a separate subsequent entrant application.

That application can only be granted after the main applicant subclass 188 visa has been granted. So a partner who misses the combined lodgement cannot travel together, but must wait out the sponsor entire process.

The subsequent entrant application is filed online through ImmiAccount on its own form, and an application charge applies.

One clause few notice can block the principal file itself: for the main applicant to be granted the visa, family members who are not coming to Australia must still meet the character requirements, and might have to meet the health requirements — those staying behind remain within the scope of vetting.

On cost, each family member applying with the main applicant carries a charge of their own alongside the main applicant from AUD 12,505, and the second instalment applies to every applicant aged eighteen or over whose English falls short of functional level, at AUD 9,795 for the main applicant and AUD 4,890 for family members.

It is payable only when the department asks, and is refunded if the visa is not granted

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Australia passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Australia passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Australia passport reaches 196 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The Department of Home Affairs programme page contains exactly one sentence about tax, and it promises nothing: income that you earn from your investment in Australia is subject to Australian taxation law.

It sits in the list of things the holder must do while on the visa, directly under the heading on maintaining the investment, which requires the holder to hold a complying significant investment continuously for the life of the provisional visa.

No concession, no threshold and no separate regime appears anywhere on the page.

The context needed to read this cell correctly: the Investor stream closed to new applications on 31 July 2024, applications lodged before that date continue to be processed, and applications withdrawn after it attract a refund of the Visa Application Charge.

The remaining parameters of the stream are: an investment of at least AUD 2,500,000 on nomination by a state or territory government agency, where invited on or after 1 July 2021; a visa application charge from AUD 12,505.

A maximum stay of five years, with the page stating four years and three months, and four years for applications lodged before 1 July 2015.

On the holder tax position, the Australian Taxation Office works from the concept of a temporary resident: a person is a temporary resident where they hold a temporary visa and neither they nor their spouse is an Australian resident within the meaning of the Social Security Act 1991.

A temporary resident declares only income derived in Australia, capital gains on taxable Australian property, and in some cases income from employment or services performed overseas; other foreign income and capital gains on property that is not taxable Australian property do not have to be declared.

One boundary must be held here, and it is the easy place to overstate: the Taxation Office page does not name subclass 188 — it states only the condition of holding a temporary visa.

This cell does not infer on the reader behalf that every 188 holder is a temporary resident; that is a conclusion to be drawn from each person circumstances.

Read this cell within its scope: the source covers the obligation to maintain the investment and the fact that income from it is subject to Australian taxation law.

It gives no rates, states no day-count threshold, says nothing about wealth or inheritance tax, and says nothing about the other 188 streams

The cost of this route has three layers, and the third is the one the department own pricing tool does not count.

The first layer is the application charge, from AUD 12,505 for the main applicant, plus a separate charge for each family member applying with them and a second instalment for any applicant aged eighteen or over with less than functional English.

Those amounts and the conditions for refunding them are recorded in the dependants cell of this table.

The second layer is a new concession absent from older pitches: from 1 July 2026, a lower visa cost applies to eligible citizens of the Pacific islands and Timor-Leste who lodge a valid application.

The department charges the lower cost during the application process in ImmiAccount and recognises eligible applicants by the passport of the specified country used in the application; family members also receive the lower cost, and that is based on the passport of the primary applicant rather than on each person own.

The third layer is the unpriced items, and the department warns about them twice itself: the visa pricing estimator does not take into account the second instalment or other costs; and as to other costs it names three — health checks, police certificates and biometrics.

On money flowing the other way, the closure and refunds page states that applicants who withdrew on or after 31 July 2024 may receive a refund of the subclass 188 Visa Application Charge across four streams, with no refund for the two extension streams.

The Business Talent 132 charge is likewise refundable in two streams on the same withdrawal condition.

The department sets no standard timeframe for processing a refund request, each being assessed individually.