Buying a franchise for a visa or PR in Australia: the 2026 position

• The Business Innovation and Investment Program (BIIP), including the subclass 188 provisional visa streams, has been closed to new applicants since 31 July 2024. Home Affairs is still processing applications lodged before then.
• The permanent subclass 888 visa is still listed, but you must already hold a relevant subclass 188 visa (or, for one stream, certain other visas) to apply.
• The National Innovation visa (subclass 858) replaced the Global Talent visa in December 2024. You must lodge an expression of interest and be invited before you can apply.
• Home Affairs says it is illegal for anyone to give you paid immigration assistance unless they are a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner.
• Home Affairs lists asking a migrant worker for money in exchange for visa sponsorship among the things employers must not do.

Business-owner visas were the usual basis for franchise-for-visa offers. This is the sequence as Home Affairs records it.

1. 1 July 2021: the Business Talent (Permanent) visa (subclass 132) closed to new applications.
2. 31 July 2024: the Business Innovation and Investment Program closed permanently to new applications. Home Affairs said it would keep processing applications made before that date.
3. From 31 July 2024: people who withdraw a subclass 188 application in the Business Innovation, Investor, Significant Investor or Entrepreneur streams can ask for a refund of the visa application charge.
4. 7 December 2024: the National Innovation visa and the Skills in Demand visa were implemented. The Skills in Demand visa replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage visa for employer-sponsored workers.
5. 12 February 2025: Ministerial Direction 114 set the order for processing the remaining subclass 188 and 132 applications, starting with the subclass 188 Entrepreneur stream.
6. September 2026: no Business Innovation and Investment stream is open to new applicants. The permanent subclass 888 visa remains for people who already hold a relevant provisional visa.

No. It is built around exceptional achievement, not business purchases. Home Affairs describes it this way.

• It is a permanent visa for exceptionally talented migrants who will help create jobs and drive productivity growth in key sectors of the Australian economy.
• The people it is for include global researchers, entrepreneurs, innovative investors, and athletes and creatives.
• You can't simply apply. You submit an expression of interest that shows your achievements, and Home Affairs must invite you before you lodge an application.
• You need an internationally recognised record of exceptional and outstanding achievement in a profession, a sport, the arts, or academia and research, plus a nominator with a national reputation in your field.
• Home Affairs calls it a small, exclusive visa. Top processing priority goes to global experts who have received top-of-field international awards, then candidates nominated by a government agency, then candidates in listed sectors such as critical technologies, renewables and health.
• The published criteria don't mention buying or running a franchise. Whether your own record could qualify is a question for a registered migration agent.

Weigh these risks whenever a seller, broker or adviser links a franchise to a visa outcome.

• The pathway may not exist. If an offer relies on a business-owner visa, check the date: the Business Innovation and Investment Program has been closed to new applicants since 31 July 2024.
• The adviser may not be allowed to advise you. Home Affairs says it is illegal for a third party to give paid immigration assistance unless they are a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner, and penalties apply. A franchise broker or sales agent charging for visa advice without that status is a red flag.
• Asking for money for sponsorship is against the law. Home Affairs says employers must not ask a migrant worker for money in exchange for visa sponsorship, or to repay sponsorship, nomination or recruitment costs. Treat any deal that ties a purchase price, 'training fee' or 'investment' to someone sponsoring you as a serious warning sign.
• You carry the business risk either way. If the visa doesn't come through, you still owe the purchase price, the ongoing fees and any personal guarantee you signed.
• Commitments are long. In FranchiseScope's analysis of Franchise Disclosure Register profiles (captured 19 August 2026), 83.6% of the 1,147 systems answering reported an agreement term of 5 years or more. Figures are self-reported by franchisors.
• Scam agents make promises they can't keep. Home Affairs warns they may give incorrect advice, fail to lodge applications or supply false documents, and that immigration fraud can lead to visa cancellation, refusal of entry and bans on returning to Australia.
• Visa deadlines create pressure. No visa timetable changes the Franchising Code's rule that the franchisor can't sign until 14 days after you receive the disclosure document, a copy of the Code and the agreement in its final form.

1. Get migration advice before you commit to anything. Check the adviser on the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) Register of migration agents, and check whether OMARA has disciplined them, or confirm they are an Australian legal practitioner.
2. Ask the adviser, in writing, whether owning or working in a business affects your current visa and any visa you plan to apply for.
3. Check your visa's conditions, including any limits on work, in VEVO, the free online visa checking service Home Affairs runs for visa holders.
4. Judge the franchise as an investment on its own. Would you buy it at this price if there were no visa angle at all?
5. Collect the documents the Code requires: the ACCC's information statement first, then the disclosure document, a copy of the Code and the agreement in the form it will be signed. The franchisor can't sign until 14 days after you receive them.
6. Pay nothing you can't get back. Any money you pay during those 14 days must be refunded within 14 days of your written request.
7. Have a franchise lawyer and an accountant review the agreement and the numbers before you sign.
8. If you enter into a new franchise agreement, you have 14 days to cool off and get your money back, less any reasonable expenses the agreement sets out.

• Home Affairs still lists the Business Innovation and Investment (Permanent) visa (subclass 888) for holders of a relevant subclass 188 visa stream.
• If you plan to rely on a business, including a franchise, to meet the subclass 888 criteria, the visa criteria decide the outcome, not the franchisor's sales material.
• Ask your registered migration agent to test the specific business against the criteria before you sign, not after.
• Read the franchise agreement's term, transfer and exit clauses in case your plans change and you need to sell.
• If anyone describes a franchise as 'visa approved', ask them to show you the Home Affairs document that says so.

If you employ staff who hold visas, these rules apply to you whatever your own visa status.

• Home Affairs says that under the Migration Act, employers must not take a migrant worker's passport, pressure them to breach their visa conditions, make threats about their visa, ask for money in exchange for sponsorship, or force them into unsafe housing.
• Serious, deliberate or repeated breaches can mean up to 5 years in jail and fines of up to $131,040 (360 penalty units).
• Employers who break these laws can be declared a 'prohibited employer' and banned from hiring new temporary visa holders, with the business named on the Australian Border Force website.
• Under the Fair Work Act, visa holders have the same workplace rights as other employees, whatever their migration status.
• Under the Franchising Code, if a court finds you contravened the Migration Act's offences for coercing non-citizens to work (sections 245AAA to 245AAC), or you are convicted of one, your franchisor can end the agreement on 7 days' written notice where the agreement allows it, and you can't dispute that ground.

• Have I checked the adviser on the OMARA Register, or confirmed they are a lawyer, before paying them anything?
• Does the visa pathway being described appear today on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au?
• Has anyone asked me to pay for sponsorship, directly or through the price of a business?
• Would this franchise make sense for me with no visa benefit at all?
• Have I received the information statement, disclosure document, final agreement and Code, with at least 14 days to review them?
• Have a franchise lawyer and an accountant reviewed the deal?
• Do I understand the term, the personal guarantee and the cost of exiting if my visa plans change?