188D Premium Investment Visa (PIV)

Premium Investment Visa (PIV) is another visa stream of the four streams within the Australian Government’s Business Innovation and Investment (Provisional) subclass 188 visas and Business innovation and Investment subclass 888 visa. This stream is referred as subclass 188D.

This stream of visa is designed to attract those overseas high-end worth individuals who are willing to invest at least AU15 million and migrate to Australia and want to maintain business and investment activity in Australia for 4 years and 3 months and /or make philanthropic contributions to Australia. Please note this visa stream is going to be closed on 1 July 2021.

Advantages of 188D visa

• No residence requirement for applicant. This means applicant does not have to live in Australia at all.
• After maintaining an investment in Australia for 12 months, applicant can apply for permanent residence through the Business Innovation & Investment (Residence) subclass 888 visa.
• Compared with other 188 streams 188A, 188B and 188C, this stream visa does not have an “upper” age limit. This means any person over 18 years of age can apply subject to meeting the criteria and eligibilities.
• Applicants do not have to meet the points test requirement of 65 points as required by other streams.
• Visa applicant is to be nominated Austrade.

Where should the investment money be invested to ?

188D visa applicant must make an investment of at least AU$15 million in a “premium investment” before their visa can be granted.  A “premium investment” for the purposes of the Premium Investor visa includes:

• Australian securities exchange listed assets
• Australian government or semi-government bonds or notes
• Corporate bonds or notes issued by an Australian exchange listed entity (or wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian listed entiry) or investment grade rated Australian corporate bonds or notes by an AFS licenced debt rating agency
• Australian proprietary limited companies
• Real property in Australia excluding residential property
• Deferred annuities issued by Australian registered life companies
• State or territory government approved philanthropic contribution

Criteria for this visa

In order to be eligible for this visa stream, applicants need to meet the following criteria:

• Applicant must seek and get approval of a nomination by Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) before being invited to apply for this visa.
• You and your spouse together need to prove that you have assets of at least AU$15 million that have been acquired legally, are unencumbered, and are willing to make a “complying investment” in Australia.
• You and your partner must have no history of involvement in business or investment activities that are of a nature that is not acceptable in Australia.
• Better to have functional English. If not, you can alternatively pay for English course fees at your second instalment of the visa application charge.
• You and family also have to meet health and character requirements before the visa can be granted.
• You should maintain a good record of visa history, not to have had a visa cancelled or refused before while you were in Australia

Like 188A, 188B and 188C, this 188D is a temporary visa only, which may have a validity of 4 years and 3 months. Visa holder may apply for permanent residence visa subclass 888 after 12 months since the 188 visa was granted. Find out more about the requirements for the permanent visa subclass 888 by clicking here.

Check with Korrylink for your eligibility or for a visa option.