Australia Working Holiday 88-Day Tracker

How to Use the Australia Working Holiday 88-Day Tracker

1. Pick which visa you're working toward — the 2nd-year visa (88 days) or 3rd-year visa (179 days).
2. Add a row for every stint of specified regional work — start date and end date. These don't need to be with the same employer or in the same location.
3. Click Calculate. The tool sums every qualifying period cumulatively, even if they're spread across different jobs or regions.
4. Read the result — it tells you exactly how many more qualifying days you need.

Everything runs as plain JavaScript in your browser tab — nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.

The 88-Day / 179-Day Rule, Explained

To be eligible for a second-year Working Holiday visa (subclass 417 or 462), the Department of Home Affairs requires you to complete at least 88 calendar days of specified work in a specified/regional area during your first visa's 12-month validity. To go on to a third-year visa, you need 179 days of specified regional work during your second year.

"Specified work" isn't just any job — it generally covers defined categories like agriculture, forestry/tree farming, fishing/pearling, mining, construction, and (in eligible regional postcodes) tourism and hospitality. The exact list of qualifying industries and postcodes is set and updated by the Department, and this tool has no way to verify that a given job or location actually qualifies — you're responsible for confirming that against the Department's current specified-work list before counting a work period here.

Counting Convention

Unlike the absence-based tools in this family, this tracker counts presence at qualifying work — both the start and end date of each work period count as qualifying days (inclusive-both-ends), matching how the Department counts calendar days of specified work rather than hours worked. Only days you actually worked count: unpaid leave, rostered days off, and travel-only days don't count unless you also worked that day.

Worked example: You do 35 days of fruit-picking in January, then 30 days of farm work in April, then 25 days of hospitality work in a regional postcode in July — all within your first visa's 12-month validity. That's 35 + 30 + 25 = 90 cumulative qualifying days, which clears the 88-day threshold for a second-year visa even though no single stint reached 88 days on its own.

What Stops Your Days From Counting

• Work that isn't on the Department's current "specified work" list for your visa subclass, or that falls outside a specified/regional postcode.
• Work completed outside your current visa's 12-month validity period — days worked before your visa started, or after it expired, don't count toward that visa's requirement.
• UK passport holders on a 417 visa have been fully exempt from the regional-work requirement since 1 July 2024 — if that's you, you don't need this tool's day count at all for your second (or third) year visa. Always check the Department's site for your specific nationality and subclass.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do the 88 days need to be consecutive? No — non-consecutive periods across different jobs and locations all count cumulatively, as the worked example above shows.

Does paid annual leave during a qualifying job count? This tool assumes only actual working days count — check current Department guidance if you took leave during a job you're logging here.

What if my postcode's regional status changed partway through my work period? Postcode/region boundaries are reviewed periodically by the Department — this tool can't detect a status change mid-period; verify against the current postcode list for the dates you actually worked.

Is this official Department of Home Affairs guidance? No. This is an independent, browser-only day-adder. Always confirm your specific work, postcode, and visa subclass against the Department's current specified-work conditions before relying on this count.

Is my data stored anywhere? No. The check runs entirely in your browser; nothing is transmitted to a server.