An extended working holiday for young adults from eligible countries — work to fund your stay in Australia
The First Work and Holiday visa is the starting point of the 462 stack. It's a one-year visa for travellers from one of the 30 eligible countries who want an extended trip in Australia with work rights to help pay for it.
Applicants have to be 18 to 30 at the date of application (no exceptions to the age cap), have a passport from a 462 country, meet the country-specific education requirement (typically tertiary study), have Functional English, and apply from outside Australia.
Passport holders from China, India, and Vietnam have to first enter the annual ballot and be randomly selected before they can apply.
Every 462 country except the United States has a yearly grant cap, so timing matters.
Holders can work for any employer (with a 6-month limit per employer, same as the 417), study for up to 4 months total, and travel in and out of Australia freely during the 12 months.
The first 462 is a one-time chance per person. Anyone who has previously held a 417 or 462 can't apply for a first 462 again.
These are the published requirements for the 462. Check each one applies to your situation.
Every eligible 462 country except the United States has a yearly cap on first 462 grants. The program year runs from 1 July to 30 June.
The caps are small (India sits at around 1,000 per year, others are smaller still), and they fill quickly in popular months.
Once a country's cap is reached for the year, no more first 462s from that country are granted until the next program year opens.
The US is the only 462 country with no cap. That's why American applicants tend to find the visa easier to get than (say) Indian or Indonesian applicants chasing the same visa.
If your passport is from China, India, or Vietnam, the ballot is the gate.
You register during a short window each year, IMMI randomly selects applicants, and only the selected can lodge a first 462. The ballot is free to enter, and the selection is random rather than first-come-first-served.
There's no waiting list or carry-over to next year.
Most people who want a 462 from these three countries spend more time worrying about the ballot than about the visa itself. Winning the ballot is much harder than passing the visa criteria.
The ballot only applies to the first 462. Once you're in, second and third 462s don't need another ballot draw.
Like the 417, the 462 limits you to working for the same employer for no more than 6 months.
Exceptions exist if you get written permission from IMMI, or if you work in specific industries (plant and animal cultivation, fishing, forestry, mining, regional construction, healthcare in disaster recovery zones).
Different physical locations of the same employer may count separately.
The cap is enforced through visa condition 8547, the same one that applies to the 417. Breaching it is a visa condition breach and can affect future visas.
Common confusion: someone who has held a 417 cannot then apply for a first 462 (or vice versa).
The Working Holiday Maker program is structured as one journey per subclass. If you've done a 417, your stack continues with second and third 417s. If you've done a 462, your stack continues with second and third 462s.
Switching subclasses to extend the Working Holiday is not allowed.
The 3-year maximum is the same for both subclasses, and the maximum total Working Holiday time in Australia (across any combination) is effectively 3 years.
