Business and investment visa conditions 8557, 8106, 8571 and 8514 (2026)
How Schedule 8 conditions 8557, 8106, 8571 and 8514 govern investment holding, business activity, state nomination ties and material change.
If your visa carries all four of these conditions, they work together as a single compliance package: you must keep holding the investment your visa was granted on for the whole of the visa period, confine any Australian work to the business activity named in your application, maintain an ongoing relationship with the State or Territory agency that nominated you, and make sure the circumstances that supported the grant do not undergo a material change. This follows the text of Schedule 8 to the Migration Regulations 1994, as published on the Australian Government's Federal Register of Legislation page for those regulations, current as at September 2026.
What follows is general information about how these four conditions read, and not advice on any individual case. Because each condition bites on the facts of a particular grant, anyone applying these rules to their own situation should test their position against the official text or obtain advice from a registered professional.
| Condition | What it requires | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| 8557 | Hold the complying, significant or premium investment for the whole visa period | Continuously, across the entire visa period |
| 8106 | Work in Australia only where it is relevant to the specified business or tasks | Every period of work in Australia |
| 8571 | Maintain an ongoing relationship with the nominating State or Territory agency or government | For as long as the visa is held |
| 8514 | No material change in the circumstances on which the visa was granted | At any point during the visa period |
What does condition 8557 require you to keep holding?
Condition 8557 requires the holder to hold, "for the whole of the visa period", whichever of three things the visa was granted on:
- a complying investment within the meaning of regulation 5.19B;
- a complying significant investment within the meaning of regulation 5.19C; or
- a complying premium investment within the meaning of regulation 5.19D.
Each limb is tied to the same category appearing twice: the basis of the grant, and the obligation that follows. If the visa rested on a complying significant investment, the continuing obligation is to hold a complying significant investment — not a heavier category, and not a lighter one.
Does the investment have to be held continuously?
The words used are "for the whole of the visa period", which leaves no room for a window in which the investment requirement is switched off. Suppose an applicant redeems part of the complying significant investment to plug a cash-flow gap in the operating business, intending to reinvest a quarter later. On the face of condition 8557 the obligation is continuous, so the gap period is the risk: whether the investment is held is assessed across the whole visa period, not at selected moments.
The condition also fixes its own reference point. Each limb refers to the relevant regulation "as in force at that time", meaning the definition applied at the particular time the visa was granted on that basis. On the face of the drafting, the test is therefore anchored to that moment rather than to whatever the definition of a complying significant investment happens to say after a later amendment.
How does condition 8106 limit the work you may do?
Condition 8106 permits the holder to engage in work in Australia "only if the work is relevant to the conduct of the business, or performance of the tasks, specified in the visa application". The permission is not expressed by reference to an employer, a job title or an occupation list; it is expressed by reference to what was put forward in the application itself.
There are two limbs, and they cover different grants. One attaches the test to the conduct of a specified business; the other to the performance of specified tasks. Which limb applies depends on what was specified in the application, and that document becomes the yardstick for every later work decision.
What does "relevant to" mean in practice under 8106?
The condition asks whether the work bears a relevant connection to the specified business activity, which is a question about substance rather than seniority. Suppose an applicant was granted on the basis of conducting a food manufacturing business and then takes a paid role advising an unrelated logistics group. The new role may sit at a comparable level of responsibility, but it is not relevant to conducting the specified business, so on the face of 8106 it falls outside what the holder may do.
Day-to-day work that genuinely serves the specified business — negotiating supply contracts, managing staff, handling compliance for that enterprise — is the conduct of the business that was put forward. The further work moves from serving that business to serving something else, the harder it becomes to characterise it as relevant.
What does condition 8571 require with the nominating State or Territory?
Condition 8571 requires the holder to "maintain an ongoing relationship with the nominating State or Territory government agency or the government of the State or Territory in which the agency is (or was) located". The obligation is relational and forward-looking: it is not satisfied by a single exchange at nomination time, nor by silence for the rest of the visa period.
Two features of the wording matter. First, the alternative — the agency or the government of the State or Territory — means the relationship can be maintained at either level. Second, the "(or was)" formulation anticipates that agencies change through machinery-of-government rearrangements; the drafting keeps the obligation alive by pointing to the jurisdiction concerned rather than to whichever office happens to hold the function today. Whether a given visa class may be made subject to 8571 depends on the relevant provision in Schedule 2, and the note to the condition says as much.
What counts as a material change under condition 8514?
Condition 8514 provides that "during the visa period of the visa, there must be no material change in the circumstances on the basis of which it was granted". It targets the facts that carried the grant, so the right comparison is between those facts as they stood then and as they stand now.
The word "material" does the filtering. Minor amendments to ordinary commercial arrangements — a change of trading name, a routine lease renewal — do not necessarily engage the condition, whereas a change that removes the footing on which the visa was granted does. Suppose an applicant was granted on the strength of holding a particular business interest, and that interest is sold mid-visa: the circumstances relied on at grant have altered in a way that goes to the basis of the decision. The Schedule 8 text does not itself define "material", so how the threshold falls will depend on what the particular grant rested on.
Which of these conditions apply to a given visa?
The same note appears beneath each of the four conditions in Schedule 8: whether a visa of a particular class may be made subject to the condition depends on the relevant provision in Schedule 2 of the Migration Regulations 1994. Applicability is therefore decided class by class, and sometimes case by case, rather than by the existence of the condition in Schedule 8 alone. The practical check is the set of conditions recorded with your own grant, read against the Schedule 2 provision for that visa class.
What happens if one of these conditions is breached?
The note attached to each condition directs the reader to sections 41 and 116 to 119 of the Migration Act 1958 on cancellation for breaches of conditions. Those provisions, and not the conditions themselves, carry the consequences. Because cancellation powers sit in the Act and turn on individual facts, this article does not attempt to predict outcomes; it sets out only what the conditions require.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to hold the complying investment for the entire visa period?
Condition 8557 uses the words "for the whole of the visa period", so the holding obligation runs continuously rather than at intervals. There is no temporal carve-out in the text for holidays, business downturns or reinvestment gaps. Continuity is measured against the visa period, which begins when the visa comes into effect and runs to its end.
Can I change from a complying significant investment to a complying investment under 8557?
The condition ties the obligation to the category the visa was granted on, and each limb repeats that same category on both sides. A visa granted on the basis of a complying significant investment requires the holder to hold a complying significant investment. Moving to a different category does not discharge the obligation that the grant actually created.
Does condition 8106 stop me from taking any job outside my own business?
The test is whether the work is relevant to the conduct of the business, or the performance of the tasks, specified in the visa application. Work that genuinely serves the specified business falls within the permission. Work for an unrelated enterprise falls outside it, even where the role is senior or full-time.
Does condition 8571 require me to live in the nominating State or Territory?
The text does not impose a residence requirement. What it requires is an ongoing relationship with the nominating State or Territory government agency, or with the government of that State or Territory. Where the holder lives may bear on how realistic that relationship is, but it is not itself the test set out in the condition.
Is relocating my business to another State a material change under 8514?
It can be, depending on what the visa was granted on. If the grant rested partly on the State or Territory nomination and the business activity tied to it, moving the operation may alter the circumstances behind that grant. The condition itself does not define "material", so the answer turns on the facts that actually supported the decision.
What if the nominating agency no longer exists?
The wording covers this. Condition 8571 refers to the nominating agency "or the government of the State or Territory in which the agency is (or was) located", so the obligation follows the jurisdiction rather than a single dissolved office. The relationship continues to be owed, even after administrative reorganisation.