From 1 January 2024, WHMs can work for the same employer in Australia for more than 6 months without asking permission from Departmnet of Home Affairs (DHA) if they work in any of the following:

Using the Working Holiday Maker Management functionality within CheckWorkRights (CWR), employers can add details for when an employee commenced employment, or commenced at a new location with the same employer. This process is completed in the CWR application on an exmployees work entitlement check and statuses are visible on the main Dashboard. The employer provides a start date and location information if desired in the notes section, and CWR then tracks 6 months from that date, providing alerts when required and the ability to reset the 'timer' after a location move.

Unlike other visa conditions that may necessitate formal approval or verification processes, tracking the six-month work limitation does not require additional approvals. The primary requirement is the accurate recording of employment start or location start date and monitoring via CWR to ensure that the duration does not exceed the allowed period with the employer or in a single location, unless a waiver to the 8547 condition applies.

Upon approaching the end of the six-month employment period, employers and employees have several options:

Note: If a Working Holiday (subclass 417) or Work and Holiday (subclass 462) visa holder is granted a new visa, the 6-month period will automatically reset in the CheckWorkRights platform, without the user needing to make any changes. This detail is gained from ongoing VEVO checks being run automatically by CWR, and when we detect a new visa (Bridging visa, or subsequent 417 / 462 - all of which carry the same 8547 visa condition) we automatically reset the 6 month tracking function.

Outstanding location and start date information for employees with condition 8547 will show on your dashboard under 'Working Holiday 6 Monthly Management'. Click 'Add Start Date' to navigate to the list of employees requiring update.

Click here to view an interactive demo outlining this process.

Click 'Add Start Date' again on the employee record you'd like to update within the list.

Once you're in the employee record, scroll down to 'Working Holiday 6 Monthly Management' and click the Add Start Date button to add the first date.

From here, you can either Add Start Date / Location Change Date or Add Exemption based on Industry Sector or Regional Location

Add a start date and a note detailing location that you and others in your team will understand. Click 'Submit' to save your changes. This could be 'commenced employment' or 'changed location from site A to site B'.

DHA specify industry sectors and regional areas which waive the 8547 visa condition for visa holders and employers. In this situation the employer does not need to do anything, you can employ these visa holders ongoing as long as they continue to hold a valid visa with work entitlement.

For detailed information on these exemptions, refer to the Department of Home Affairs guidelines. Note that these areas subject to exception are updated from time to time.

If your employee is exempt, follow the instructions as above and then select 'Add Exemption based on Industry Sector or Regional Location' when prompted. You can then fill in details regarding the exemption that you and your team will understand. This process then marks that employee as exempt on the CWR dashboard.
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Note 1: This exemption function is for organisations who may have some employees and location subject to the exemption and others who are not. I.e. a mining organisation with operations in Northern Australia (subject to exemption) and operations elsewhere (not subject to the exemption)

Note 2: if your whole workforce is subject to the exemption (i.e all work in a Hotel in the Accommodation Sector) then you would not need to enable this additional check requirement in CWR, as you don't need to track individually as all WHMs will be exempt from this requirement.

A company account user can also view the filtered group of employees to add start date and location at any time using the MyCheck Dashboard.

You can view a list of your 8547 condition employees in the employee list using Filtering > Work Entitlement > Work Condition > 8547.

Note: For employees to show up here, they will need to have completed their work entitlement check, and have a result with a 417 or 462 subclass visa returned.

Once you've identified your 8547 employees, you can click into an employee profile to view their Active Checks and any start date information. In the red warning box on the check, you'll be prompted to 'Add Start Date'. Then, you can follow the same instructions as above to add or edit a start date.