If you’ve tried to fill a clinical role in Australia recently, you already know the domestic market probably isn’t going to solve it. The AVA’s 2023/24 workforce survey found that 36.8% of veterinary vacancies took 12 months or longer to fill, rising to 44% in regional areas. Veterinarians have been on the national skills shortage list for years.
So you look overseas – and then the second worry arrives, which is usually the one that stops practices going ahead: what happens if they leave after a year?
It’s the right question, and the answer isn’t what most practice owners assume.
Sponsorship doesn’t hold anyone in place
Most veterinary hires come through the Core Skills stream of the Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482), which can be granted for up to four years. From 1 July 2026 the Core Skills Income Threshold is A$79,423, or the annual market salary rate, whichever is higher.
The permanent residence route through the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) requires two years of employment in Australia in the three years before applying, and those two years can be with any employer. Not just the one that sponsored them – if you have it in your head as three years tied to the sponsor, that’s the old rule.
So sponsorship is a cost you carry and a lever you no longer hold. Once an overseas vet is in the country and registered, they can move to the practice down the road and still be on track for permanent residence. The only thing keeping them with you is the job.
What overseas vets leave over
The useful evidence here is the thematic analysis of 63 rural veterinarians’ submissions to the NSW parliamentary inquiry, published in 2025, which set out what drives vets out of rural practice generally:
- On-call load. One submission described working 8am to 6pm, being the on-call vet from 6pm to 8am, then being rostered again from 8am the next day.
- Travel distances that extend an already long day.
- Mentoring that was promised and didn’t materialise, with newer vets “left alone due to staffing shortages”.
- Rosters that don’t survive family life, including returns from parental leave offered as full-time or nothing.
None of that is unique to an overseas hire. The difference is that an overseas vet has less holding them in place. No local family, no school gates, no twenty years of clients. When the job is harder than they were told, there’s nothing to absorb the gap.
The objection to answer directly
The same inquiry submissions raised two criticisms of international recruitment. One was red tape around immigration and registration. The other was blunter: some respondents considered overseas vets “ill equipped or not well trained for Australian veterinary practices”.
That perception usually comes from mismatch rather than competence. A small animal vet from a metropolitan UK practice dropped into mixed rural work in western New South Wales will struggle, and so would an Australian vet with the same background. That’s a screening failure rather than a training one.
It’s why GVC screen for practice type and species mix before you see a CV, and why we’re direct with candidates about what rural Australian practice involves before they apply, rather than after they arrive.
What the practices that keep people do differently
Describe the job honestly, including the parts you’d rather not.
Put the on-call rota in writing at offer stage with real numbers. A vet who accepts a one-in-four on the strength of an accurate description stays. One who discovers it in week three starts looking elsewhere.
Name the mentor and the cadence.
Not “you’ll have support” but “Dr X, an hour every Tuesday, for your first six months”. If your roster can’t protect that hour, the promise isn’t real and it will be the first thing they mention to the next recruiter who calls.
Settle the household, not just the vet.
Partners on a 482 have full work rights, and whether a partner finds work is one of the strongest predictors of whether a family stays. Help with schools, rentals and a bank account in the first fortnight. Most overseas hires who leave early leave because their family didn’t settle, not because the clinical work disappointed them.
Don’t discover registration late
Registration is straightforward for some candidates and not for others. AVBC recognises all eight UK veterinary schools plus Harper & Keele, and the University of Pretoria’s BVSc, so those candidates register with your state board directly. Anyone whose degree isn’t on AVBC’s list sits the Australasian Veterinary Examination first, which is a materially different timeline.
Work out which one you’re dealing with before you make an offer.
Where to start
If you’re weighing international recruitment across more than one site, our guide to veterinary careers in Australia is what we send candidates, and it’s worth reading to see what they’re being told. Our New Zealand guide covers the other market Australian practices most often compete with for the same candidates.
If you’ve got roles that have been open longer than you’d like, get in touch. We’ll look at your vacancies, your locum spend and your realistic options, and give you a straight assessment of what’s achievable and how long it will take.
