If you wish to renew your Working Holiday Visa for a second year in Australia, you must work for a minimum of three months – or 88 days – in a specific job position during your first year. To renew your visa for a third year, you will need to do 179 days (6 months) in a specific job position in an eligible region. Other conditions are also required for the renewal. In this article, we provide you with a list of the jobs eligible for a second year and third year visa.

Please note, following the Australia – UK FTD, UK passport holders will be exempted to work in specified jobs and areas to renew their WHV. Details to come.

Renew your WHV in Australia

There are many different industries you can work in to qualify for a second and third working holiday visa. You can work in agriculture in such industries as harvesting, cultivation, processing as well as forestry, fishing and pearling, mining and construction industry. Remember that you have to work in a regional area.

Following the bushfires that devastated Australia in 2019- 2020, other jobs have been added to the list. Australia, and the rest of the world, has been affected by Covid-19. With the pandemic, the country needed help in the healthcare and medical sectors therefore, people who worked in these areas during the pandemic will be able to use this work to renew their visa. And after 2 years of borders closed, the country is lacking manpower in tourism and hospitality! As such eligible jobs have been added to the list!

Finally, remember that you are required to work 88 days in order to apply for a second year and 179 days for a third year.

In order to be sure you’ll qualify, here is the list of all the jobs eligible to renew, extracted from the Australian government website (www.homeaffairs.gov.au).

Plant and animal cultivation

• Agricultural work (Plant and animal cultivation)
• The harvesting and / or packing of fruit and vegetable crops
• Pruning and trimming vines and trees
• General maintenance crop work
• Cultivation of plants, fungi or their products or parts – Cultivating or propagating plants, fungi or their products or parts
• Immediate processing of plant products
• Maintaining animals for the purpose of selling them or their bodily produce, including natural increase
• Primary processing of animal products (shearing, butchery, packaging and tanning) – Immediate processing of animal products including shearing, butchery, packing and tanning; Note: The secondary stages of these activities are not taken into account (ex butcher sale)
• Manufacturing dairy from raw material.

Note: Your work must be directly linked to the cultivation or sale of the product (fruit, nuts, etc.). Maintenance gardening is not eligible. Tourist activities are not taken into account

Fishing and pearling

• Conducting operations relating directly to taking or catching fish and other aquatic species;
• Conducting operations relating directly to taking or culturing pearls or pearl shell.

Tree farming and felling

• Planting or tending trees in a plantation or forest that are intended to be felled;
• Felling trees in a plantation or forest;
• Transporting trees or parts of trees that were felled in a plantation or forest to the place where they are first to be milled or processed or from which they are to be transported to the place where they are to be milled or processed.

Mining (subclass 417)

• Coal mining;
• Oil and gas extraction;
• Metal ore mining;
• Construction material mining;
• Non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying;
• Exploration;
• Mining support services.

The list of mining jobs according to the ANZSIC is available here.

Construction

• Residential building construction
• non-residential building construction
• heavy and civil engineering construction
• land development and site preparation services
• building structure services
• building installation services
• building completion services
• other construction services

The work carried out in the mining and construction industry must be defined by the ‘Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC)’.

For the list of specified work in construction according to the ANZSIC, click here.

Bushfire recovery work

Following the tragic fires that hit Australia in the summer of 2019-2020, the government has made temporary changes to existing laws to allow backpackers to help get the country back on track while renewing their WHV. New regions, as well as new jobs, have been added for renewal.

We are talking about “assisting bush recovery efforts” or “disaster recovery work“. More concretely, this includes:

• Construction, farming, or any other work in association with recovery or restitution of land, property, farm animals or wildlife.
• Providing support services or assistance to people living, working or volunteering in the affected areas.

Volunteer work helping to rebuild properties and businesses ravaged by fire will also be considered for the renewal of PVT visas.

Examples of eligible specified work in bushfire recovery:

• re-building fences destroyed in a bushfire affected community
• caring for wildlife in a bushfire affected community
• support work for volunteer organisations assisting victims of bushfires
• demolition of buildings, trench digging, land clearing and earth moving
• residential and non-residential construction or renovation/repair, including of roads, footpaths, bridges, parking lots, fencing, railways, dams, irrigation systems, sewage and storm water drainage systems

More information here: Work in disaster-affected areas

Critical COVID-19 work in the healthcare and medical sectors

Specified work must be critical to Australia’s response to COVID-19 including:

• medical treatment, nursing, contact tracing, testing and research
• support services including cleaning of medical, health care and quarantine facilities and equipment directly involved in the response to COVID-19

Tourism and hospitality in northern or remote and very remote Australia only

From 22 June 2021, tourism and hospitality work carried out in northern, remote and very remote Australia will be eligible for the purpose of a second or third Working Holiday (subclass 417 & 462) visa application lodged from March 2022.

Occupations eligible must directly provide a service to tourists, this include:

• Tourist guides and operators
• Tourist transport services
• Hospitality workers in hotels or other accommodation facilities, restaurants, cafes, bars and casinos
• Outdoor adventure or activity instructors
• Gallery or museum managers, curators or guides
• Conference and event organisers

Examples of eligible specified work in tourism or hospitality

• a chef in a restaurant
• a dive instructor
• a tour bus driver

Examples of ineligible specified  work in tourism or hospitality

• cleaning work in a restaurant
• driving a school bus
• sales assistant in a souvenir shop

For subclass 462 visa holders, the previous definition of tourism and hospitality in northern Australia only will continue to apply for applications lodged before 5 March 2022 and to any work carried out before 22 June 2021 (regardless of when the application is lodged).

Some examples of eligible/no eligible jobs

Here is a list of jobs you can work in which qualify as specified work:

• Fruit picking;
• feeding and herding cattle
• landscaping the grounds of a construction/house site
• conservation and environmental reforestation work
• zoo work involving plant or animal cultivation

Some jobs won’t be qualified as eligible, such as :

• town planning or architecture
• working as a nanny on a farm
• working at a cellar door providing wine tastings
• cooking/catering on a mine site
• cleaning the interior of mine complexes or buildings.

Official Source: Homeaffairs

Updated 18/04/2022