How to Track Your 88 Days for the Australian Working Holiday Visa

If you're on an Australian Working Holiday Visa and want a second (or third) year, you've heard the magic number: 88 days of specified regional work. What almost nobody explains clearly is that those 88 days are not the number of days you physically showed up to work. Miscounting them is one of the most common reasons applications get delayed or refused — so let's get it right.

What is the 88-day rule?

Working Holiday Visa holders on subclass 417 and subclass 462 must complete 88 days of eligible "specified work" in a regional area during their first visa year to apply for a second-year extension. A third year requires a further 88 days — 176 in total — completed during the second year.

The biggest myth: they're not calendar days

Here's the part that trips everyone up. The 88 days are visa-accredited days, calculated from the hours you work in each Monday–Sunday week using an official formula from the Department of Home Affairs. A full-time week earns you 7 visa days — even though there are only 5 or 6 working days in it. A light week earns fewer. So your visa-day total can be higher or lower than the number of days you actually clocked in.

How visa days are calculated (the weekly formula)

Each Monday–Sunday week converts to visa days based on total hours worked that week:

• 4 – 7.24 hours = 1 visa day
• 7.25 – 14.24 hours = 2 visa days
• 14.25 – 21.24 hours = 3 visa days
• 21.25 – 28.24 hours = 4 visa days
• 28.25 – 35.24 hours = 5 visa days
• 35.25 hours or more = 7 visa days

What counts as specified work

Eligible categories include plant and animal cultivation (fruit picking, harvesting, pruning, general farm work), fishing and pearling, tree farming and felling, mining, and construction. Since 2023, certain tourism and hospitality work in specified regional areas also qualifies. Categories change, so always confirm the current list before you start a job.

Which regions count

All of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania count. So do regional Queensland (excluding Greater Brisbane), regional Western Australia (excluding the Perth metro area), regional New South Wales (excluding Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong) and regional Victoria (excluding Melbourne). The Department publishes the exact eligible postcodes — check yours before signing on.

Subclass 417 vs 462

Subclass 417 covers passport holders from the UK, Ireland, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan and others. Subclass 462 covers the USA, China, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile and others. Both require 88 days for a second year and 176 total for a third, but eligible work categories and age limits can vary by country.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Counting calendar days instead of visa days from weekly hours.
• Working under 4 hours in a week and assuming it still counts.
• Not keeping payslips and employer declarations (Form 1263) as evidence.
• Working in a non-eligible postcode or job category.
• Leaving it until the last minute — track from your very first shift.

How to track your 88 days without spreadsheets

The reliable way is to log every shift with its hours, group them into Monday–Sunday weeks, apply the government formula to each week, and add up the visa days. Doing that by hand in a spreadsheet works, but it’s easy to make mistakes — and a mistake here can cost you a whole visa year.

Orary does it automatically: log your shifts, and it groups them into weeks, applies the official visa-day formula, and shows a live progress bar toward 88 and 176 days — with payslips and earnings tracked alongside, so the same records back up both your visa application and your taxes.