Kennel Hand (ANZSCO 361115)

On the Regional Occupation List

From the official Home Affairs skilled occupation lists, as at 2026-08-12. Lists change at each government update — always confirm on the official page before acting.

Which lists is Kennel Hand on?

ROL — Regional Occupation List. Occupations on the ROL are limited to the regional provisional visas — mainly the Skilled Work Regional 491 and Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional 494.

Visas this occupation can access

Being on a list makes the occupation nominatable for these visas — each visa still has its own requirements (points, age, English, a positive skills assessment, and for sponsored visas a willing employer or state).

Skills assessment

A positive skills assessment for Kennel Hand comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

Kennel Hand is a VETASSESS Group D occupation covering routine dog care — feeding, exercising, monitoring health and cleaning kennels — assessed against the same Certificate III/IV structure as the rest of the Group D tier. The four pathways trade qualification strength for employment length in the usual way, with Pathway 4 available to applicants without a highly relevant qualification who can instead show four years of total employment including at least one year highly relevant within the last five years. Evidence follows VETASSESS's standard professional-occupations model: a Statement of Service on employer letterhead plus at least two independent forms of payment evidence.

Where these applications come unstuck

Kennel Hand's routine-care task list sits close to Dog Handler or Trainer and Zookeeper on paper, and an applicant whose actual work was training rather than daily animal husbandry — or animal-care work at a zoo rather than a kennel — should nominate the code that matches their real duties rather than the one that looks easiest to evidence. VETASSESS's Statement of Service must come from a supervisor senior to the applicant and specify hours, dates, duties and salary; a same-level colleague's reference is not accepted, and generic duty descriptions without those specifics weaken the case.

An honest read on this pathway

Kennel Hand sits on the Regional Occupation List only, reaching the 494 regional visa and nothing else in this family's visa set. There is no dedicated Home Affairs labour agreement for kennel or boarding work, and no state nomination or employer-sponsored permanent pathway attaches to this code directly. A regional employer sponsoring under 494, or a regional DAMA that happens to list the code — which this dossier could not verify — are the only routes this research found, so the realistic sponsor pool for this code is genuinely narrow.

VETASSESS assesses qualifications and employment separately. Both need documentation that agrees with itself. The Employment History Builder and Document Vault organise each trail before you lodge.

Talk it through with a registered agent

Whether nominating Kennel Hand is your best route depends on your points, experience evidence and timing — exactly what a MARA-registered agent works through in an initial consultation. Describe your situation once through Migratio and compare real consultation quotes from registered agents, free.

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