Visa criteria

You must meet the Home Affairs requirements for the Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional) visa (subclass 188) – Entrepreneur streamlaunch.

Age

Applicants must be under 55 years of age.

Your background

You must demonstrate you have either:

• a strong background in the field of your product or service, or

• a strong background in business or entrepreneurial activities

Entrepreneur program

You must be accepted by a NSW Startup Accelerator Program or Startup Incubator Program.  

Accelerators and Incubators include (but are not limited to):

• 25fifteen

• BlueChilli

• Caltex C-lab

• Cicada Innovations

• Fishburners

• Future Transport Digital Accelerator

• Haymarket HQ

• Microsoft ScaleUp Program

• Stone and Chalk

• Tank Stream Labs

• The Founder Institute

• The Studio

• UTS Startups

Funding from a third party

You must show you have secured adequate funding to complete your project from an approved entity.

Approved entities include a:

• Commonwealth Government agency

• NSW government agency

• Publicly funded research or innovation organisation

• Higher education provider specified as a Table A or Table B provider under Part 2-1 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, or

• Investor registered as an Australian Venture Capital Limited Partnership or Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership

Business proposal

Your business proposal must clearly demonstrate:

• how your product or service is significantly different from products or services already existing in NSW 

• how your innovative ideas will benefit NSW

• how you intend to commercialise your product or service and develop your enterprise or business in NSW

You must also clearly show that you have:

• completed a proof of concept (e.g. customer interviews, surveys, or focus groups)

• a potential business customer (B2B) or business channel to market (B2C)

• a scalable solution that can be deployed to multiple customers

• the IP or the rights to commercialise 

Living and working in NSW

Applicants must have a genuine and realistic commitment to permanently live and work in NSW, and continue to contribute to NSW through entrepreneurial activity. 

Your proposed business must:

• be headquartered in NSW, and

• have a NSW registered ABN

Incomplete applications

You must submit a complete application, including all relevant evidence to support your eligibility claims when you apply to NSW.

Respond to requests for further information

If we require further information to assess your application:

• you will have two weeks to provide the requested information

• if you do not respond within two weeks, we may refuse your application

Do not ask for an update on your application

Please do not ask for an update on your application. 

Our application assessment team is also responsible for responding to enquiries. Unnecessary enquiries significantly slows down our application processing times.

Withdrawing your application

You can withdraw your application at any stage. Please Contact us to withdraw your application.

Providing false or misleading information

If you provide false or misleading information when you apply to NSW, you will be refused. NSW may also report you to Home Affairs to conduct their own investigation.

NSW conducts verification checks on many of the documents you provide.

Renomination

NSW will not renominate applicants where:

• you do not apply to Home Affairs for the visa within 60 days, or

• your EOI was incorrect when NSW nominated you